A brand new limited time mission! The Ubersreik 5 must venture into a Dwarfen hold that’s been overrun with Bile Trolls and exterminate them.
We’ve interviewed the main level designer for the new and upcoming Vermintide 2 event mission: The Feast of Grimnir!
“My name is Mikael Sundvall, I’ve been at Fatshark since 2016. I joined production of Vermintide 2 when they had just started as a Level Designer. [...] I’ve been a Level Designer and a Level Artist, right now I am both. I’ve been involved in all the levels except for Bögenhafen.” ~ Mikael
From the beginning we knew we wanted to have a new recurring event sometime during the end of Summer to complement the rest of the yearly events. Mikael was asked to come up with ideas for a map that was unique and experimental enough to fit the celebratory nature of the event!
Mikael came up with about five different pitches, each more extravagant than the last. While this time we picked Feast of Grimnir, there’s always a chance to revisit those other ideas for later maps!
“That was kinda the pitch: adding ‘Dwarf’ and ‘Nurgle’ as a setting, and then focusing on Trolls as a gameplay theme.” ~ Mikael
The dwarf setting also gave Mikael the opportunity to use some assets he had already prototyped before, such as the giant statue setpieces used in the beginning of the level.
As always, after the pitch was selected, a Level Design Document was crafted that outlined a rough map of the level, showing each area with reference images and concept art to give an idea of what each area is meant to look like. From there, a basic blockout version of the level was made. Since we already had a lot of dwarfen assets, those were used instead of the typical gray boxes we usually use for blockout maps.
Once this foundation was established, Mikael, along with our other designers and artists, began to work on fleshing out and polishing the level through various iterations and tests, bringing it to life.
Beyond the troll theme, one of the more unique aspects of this map is its non-linear nature! It was also one of the biggest challenges. Unlike most maps, which start you from point A to B (with some maps also having different paths you can take to reach point B!), this level has a portion in the middle where there are multiple paths the players must take, each its own section of the map. Players can choose the order in which they tackle each path, but eventually they must go through all of them to complete the level!
“The idea for the whole setup is that [...] there should be differences in each area depending on the order. So, for instance, if you take the cog first you gotta turn off all the lights, which will make the other areas dark. If you turn on the water, you’re going to raise the water level in the other areas […] I hope that players at least try to go through it in different order and realize that there are differences and find their own preferred path.” ~ Mikael
While that might not sound overly complicated, it actually proved quite challenging because of how the game’s Enemy Director functions, since it was designed with linear paths in mind. Near the end of Vermintide 2’s original production, Mikael had attempted and prototyped making entire levels out of this concept – an entire map split into different chunks that players could tackle in any order – but it had proven too incompatible with the Enemy Director’s linear nature. This map provided an opportunity to tackle it at a smaller scale; a section of the map being non-linear rather than the entire thing.
“This kind of level is kind of a test for it. If this is really cool we’ll see if maybe we want to try this in something bigger but… Anyhow, this was years ago that we were talking about this and now I finally got the chance to do this, to try it in a simpler setup.” ~ Mikael
In case you’re curious, the way we went about this is to make the AI director consider the entire multiple paths section (along with its central ‘hub’) to be one unified area. It’s only once you exit it through the elevator that the Director finally acknowledges the players moving to a different area!
“[Originally] that was really the main thing, the end event. So it would be a section of traversal leading up to that area and that would be the main event in the level. But then [...] we knew we wanted to have this ending where players could choose to not kill the trolls. [...] It felt like that’s kind of anti-climactic for an ending, so that’s why we kind of said ‘we need something more at the end there’.” ~ Mikael
While escaping from a pack of trolls by the skin of your teeth is exciting enough, a troll hunt would not be complete without a proper slaying of trolls at the end, ey? But you’ll have to find out what that ‘something more’ at the end is yourselves. We’re really proud of how it turned out! There’s even some additional secrets to be found by those with a keen eye and a drive for exploration!
“I really like the statues. [...] I mean the big, big statues. Even though it might be kind of simple from a gameplay perspective, it’s still like a cool moment I think.” ~ Mikael
That’s all we have for today! We hope you have a blast playing Feast of Grimnir!
~The Vermintide Team