Off The Grid

ROLE

Level Designer

GENRE

Battle Royale

RELEASE

TBA

PLATFORM

PC | PS5 | Xbox X / S

Dive into the heat of a covert corporate war in Off The Grid, a cyberpunk Battle Royale 2.0. Check out the gameplay trailer on YouTube.

As a level designer my main responsibility has been working on locations in the open-world, focusing on creating engaging PvP experiences while communicating the game world's overarching narrative vision.

Some of my specific responsibilities were as follows:

Design & blockout multiple open-world locations
Ownership on development of multiple locations. Organizing priorities, communicating progress & regular reports to stake holders
Collaborate with artists to create concept-friendly blockouts, implement set dressing & props
Provide feedback to artists while pushing blockouts towards final art
Organize playtests, iterate & address tester feedback
Balance location combat, iterate on layout & cover placement based on playtester feedback
Establish the architectural style of multiple locations to communicate vision & atmosphere
Ownership of the review process for gameplay-relevant assets from whitebox to final art, ensuring they conform to metrics & readability standards
Collaborate with narrative designers & directors to ensure location vision cohesiveness
Optimize level pacing for a battle royale environment
Write & iterate design documents for multiple locations

Blocking out for Battle Royale

The different phases of battle royale also bring with them interesting design requirements. A location can be a loot hotspot for the initial deployment onto the map, while the same location towards later stages of the game can turn into a king-of-the-hill-type scenario between a handful of squads. Learning to balance the level flow of an area allows for more dynamic open-world locations that cater to the different stages of battle royale. This includes optimizing cover placement and density, flanking routes and balancing engagement ranges to cater to variables such as how many players are present or which phase of the BR is active.

Ownership over locations

Accompanying locations from paper design all the way to final art as a location owner allowed me to collaborate with different teams at different stages of production. A few notable examples include:

Briefing with environment art to kick-off the whitebox stage
Regular reviews of the whitebox layer to ensure it remains loyal to the blockout
Briefing art on best-practices for set dressing placement that does not hinder player / camera movement
Optimizing player movement and readability during the set dressing phase through declutter proposals
Raising red flags that may impede production quality / efficiency
Learning to find solutions and concessions to optimize workflow and standardization post-blockout
Presenting the location in sign-off meetings with stakeholders

Future-proof designs

Designing levels with future content in mind, adding in planned flexibility to accommodate content that is unknown at the time. These can range from monster closets to closed-off bits of interiors that could be utilized in the future to host a variety of content meant for a live-service game.

Believable environments

Crafting playable and believable spaces that belong to the game's vision has been an exciting challenge. I had the opportunity to directly design and pitch different styles pertaining to the architecture of certain locations. Utilizing my knowledge of real-world architecture to design spaces that inherently feel familiar to move through, especially in the heat of combat.