Hail, Pathfinders! Sharpen your blades and ready your spells, the Abomination Vaults await. Built nearly 500 years ago by the sinister Belcorra Haruvex, this sprawling dungeon is filled with traps, monsters, and secrets waiting to be uncovered… and we’re bringing every dark hallway and haunted chamber to life in-game.In last month’s Tabletop to Hack and Slash entry, we ventured into the Darklands to meet the mysterious Caligni. This time, we’re going straight into the Vaults themselves, revealing how the rooms and encounters from the classic Adventure Path are being transformed into fully realized, playable spaces.For this feature, we’re focusing on Floor 8, showcased in our Gameplay Trailer earlier this year, to give you an inside look at how our team approaches level design. We sat down with Creative Director Wyatt to discuss how the process works, from early sketches to final encounters.
Before anything else, we wanted to know how a Pathfinder floor goes from words on a page to an environment you can explore and fight through. “The process begins with immersion: A full and careful read-through of the chapter…”
WYATT: The process begins with immersion: A full and careful read-through of the chapter and hours watching online “DM Helper” materials on YouTube. These help the team digest, contextualize, and expand our understanding and imagination of the chapter.With a strong grasp of the chapter, we then identify the most valuable components. These include essential characters, plotlines, and artifacts and are used to imagine a structured narrative flow.We also map out a quick proposed 2D layout of the floor to anchor ourselves around the intent, major areas, and overall player flow through the level.With the flow and sketch in place, our artists begin creating concept art and our level designer builds a graybox of the level. The concept art guides our environment artists in “set dressing” the graybox with 3D art, informs our lighting and VFX, and inspires the level designers to create or support the grand visions of our artists.Eventually, combat designers add and balance combat encounters. Narrative designers add the quests, dialog, NPCs, clues, the narrative gates that trigger those dialogs, etc.We continually iterate on the level, playtesting and giving feedback, until we feel each area has an acceptable level of quality. Later in the project, we return to each level with a more complete vision, toolset, narrative and fine tune them, bringing them to completion.
Once the team has a layout, the next challenge is transforming a flat, page-sized map into something immersive and explorable. “The first step is re-imagining each floor as a much larger biome rather than a house-sized space.” – Wyatt
WYATT: According to Paizo, the maps of Abomination Vaults were shaped to fit on a single page of their book. Since our game is action-driven, we need a MUCH bigger space for players to explore and fight in. So, the first step is reimagining each floor as a much larger biome rather than a house-sized space.Since 3D enables much more visual immersion, we capture that by including verticality into our designs. Whether scrambling up the sides of ruins, descending into lava-filled forges, leaping over massive chasms, or just witnessing iconic areas in a whole new way, 3D lets us immerse players in these spaces in a way that 2D doesn’t allow.
Of course, great level design isn’t just about the space itself — it’s about how players move through it. “The rule right now is to avoid putting two combat spaces back-to-back…”
WYATT: That’s a great question! When designing our layouts, we continually ask ourselves: “Is this a combat space, or an exploration space?” The needs for each are different. The rule right now is to avoid putting two combat spaces back-to-back, so players don’t accidentally pull multiple fights or get exhausted. But we can safely chain together a few exploration areas in a row. It all comes down to pacing and the intended feel.Early in a chapter, there is likely to be more exploration as we immerse the players in a new setting or teach them new dungeon mechanics or tools. The middle and end will have more combat as the floor increases in intensity.
Finally, we dug into the details. We wanted to know how the team decides where to put traps, enemies, and puzzles to keep things engaging.
“Our goal is to populate the dungeon richly with environmental interactables…”
WYATT: Our goal is to populate the dungeon richly with environmental interactables for combat and exploration, to make the world feel deeply interactive and the environment feel “masterable”. So, we to put these things regularly throughout every space in the game.Combat areas need open space and a focus on combat-centric environmental set pieces, while exploration spaces are best when populated with traversable environment pieces, cool narrative spots, difficult terrain, and even simple puzzles. So it comes down to knowing the intent of the space and populating it accordingly.
Translating a legendary dungeon like the Abomination Vaults into an interactive, living space is no small feat. Wyatt and the team have shown that with careful pacing, clever use of space, and a dedication to preserving the spirit of the original Adventure Path, these dungeons can feel more alive than ever.Whether you’re creeping through quiet corridors, piecing together clues, or battling horrors in massive open chambers, every step is designed to immerse you deeper into the Vaults. We can’t wait for you to explore Floor 8 and beyond when the game launches.To hear more about the game, join our official Discord server and follow us on social media!
Onward, to glory!
~ The Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults Team
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