GENRE:
Third Person Action-Adventure
PLATFORMS:
PS4, XBOX ONE, PC
DEVELOPER
Avalanche Studios NYC
PUBLISHER
Square Enix
ROLE:
World Designer
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Designed, set dressed, and placed villages, small enemy bases, farms, and various points of interest in the vast open world to give more life. 300+ locations
DESCRIPTION:
My work extended across the entire map and required me to work closely with all departments
EXPERIENCE:
Just Cause 4 was my first professional game production and as first jobs go, it was a wild one. I was tasked with populating the map with secondary locations, marginally on my own. Small towns, villages, enemy bases, and anything else to make the world feel more lived in. I designed, set dressed, and in some cases did minimal scripting to create some excitement in these locations and placed them in the environment pretty much anywhere I saw fit as long as it did not interrupt others’ work. I worked mostly with prefabs, road networks, and terrain, but also dipped into AI authoring and scripting events. Taking ownership of over 300+ locations required me to not only produce myself to a large degree but remain in contact with most of the departments because my content covered so much of the game.
IMAGE GALLERY
BREAK DOWN
The locations I placed around the world all served the purpose of giving the world more life, but varied in size and type which required different skill sets to complete them.
VILLAGES / SMALL TOWNS
Villages made up a large portion of the locations I was in charge of. This one for example is one of the larger villages that is made up of several smaller village prefabs.
Paths, vegetation, and other POI's placed along the coast line served as smaller interest points to make each location a little more unique.
VISUAL BREAK UP
An important part of my job was to add locations that would visually break up the terrain, and give the player something to look at from a distance. This enemy heliport for example was great for breaking up the silhouette of mountain tops.
FARMS
While placed all across the grasslands and rain forest biomes, commercial farms were a defining factor of the grasslands. This heavily involved working with the art director, as it impacted the far view so greatly.
Farms, more than any other location type, involved heavy terraforming over large areas.
ROADS
Roads played a major role in the world design process of Just Cause 4. The large scale road network determined game mechanics, level placement, and location design. Part of my job was to make sure my work did not interrupt this major road network but as game development goes, that didn't last long. As these locations were flavor pieces to cover the land of Solis, the roads were used as markers for where the player was most likely to be. Therefore most of these locations were place next to or close to roads.
ENEMY BASES
While most of the locations didn't involve any major game play elements, small enemy bases were where I was able to experiment with destruction and enemy placement.
PERSONALITY
My favorite part of this job was definitely adding some fun small things for players to find. These small areas were unique small scenes that told some kind of story. Many of which have yet to be found, (which I am very proud of) but this is one is found deep in the rain forest.
PREFABS & SET DRESSING
Most of my time on this project was sent placing prefabs all over the map, but a good chunk was also spent creating prefabs both small and large.
