This month we’re participating in Blocktober, highlighting the work of our talented Level Designers. For our last post, Sebastian McBride and Mariusz Kubów share a behind-the-scenes look at the main quest “The Killing Moon”.
As with most of the Space Port, the Maglev station went through heavy iteration — I think I made about 5 radically different versions of it. Knowing that this would be one of the last locations in Phantom Liberty that the player would engage in heavy combat, I pushed for a more circular approach when considering movement.
The location had to have a very nice flow to it and interesting, yet simple traversal loops were top priority. All of that is focused around the control booth which I knew would be both a focal point in the space but also integral to the quest flow. — Sebastian McBride
The Viewing Gallery offers a unique gameplay experience of moving through a location while under suppressing fire from a helicopter flying nearby. It serves as an example of how sometimes we keep on iterating on the location's fundamental elements — like its layout — deep into the production cycle and way past the blockout stage. In this case, I wanted to have more player engagement during the beat and a bit of Kishōtenketsu-type structure (initially the chopper pinning us down with gunfire was the only obstacle there), so the level flow had to be adjusted to incorporate that.
There's also the Rule of Cool in play here, as the rocket hanging under the ceiling was added late during the development to add more dynamic elements to the environment, totally-not-just because I've prototyped a big, swinging object and I thought it would be cool for the turrets (or even V) to shoot it down accidentally. — Mariusz Kubów
Sebastian McBride: https://x.com/darthsebious
Mariusz Kubów: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariusz-kubow/