Third Person | Shifting Sights
Summary
The level takes place on an island, where the player and their companion have crash landed. Becoming separated during the crash, our player wakes up in the woods with a view of rising smoke. Throughout the level, they aim to find their companion and must sneak past or take out interfering mercenaries, who also happen to be on the island, along the way.
Things take a turn for the worse, and our player finds themselves under danger from an enemy sniper who sits at the top of a lighthouse. The sniper takes out the player's companion, which fuels their vengeance and sets them on a quest to take out the sniper and any remaining mercenaries on the island, before ultimately escaping with their life.
Breakdown
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Developed over 3 weeks half time
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Unreal Engine 5.4, AGLS v1.2 template
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Asset details
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Characters, barrels, crates and bridges from AGLS
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Lowpoly airplane from Sketchfab
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All other assets made by me in Blender or Unreal
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Goals
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Convert a section of a previous level into an intense and intriguing sniper map
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Pace the experience using the three act structure
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Design a map that supports different playstyles (stealth, "guns blazing", sniper)
Level Overview
Three Act Structure
Easing in the player
Within the first 30 seconds of gameplay, the player is introduced to their first goal (the rising smoke), the presence of enemies and the stealth functionality of foliage. They're awarded with a rifle if they choose to stealth kill the enemy guard.
Plan your approach
The player is funneled into a vantage point, where they get an overview of a village. From here, they are able to see all three enemy guards if they wait out their patrols. A crashed airplane is their next short term goal. Arriving at the plane, the player finds out their companion might still be alive. If the player choose to take out guards, they are rewarded with lootable health items at the plane.
Establishing the path ahead
Act 1 is wrapped up with the player leaving the village, now on the lookout for their companion who might still be alive. A red & white lighthouse can be spotted in the distance, framed between two cliffs, as the player moves on towards the next area. The end of act 1 is a funnel towards the beginning of act 2, ensuring the same intro to act 2 no matter which approach the player took in the village.
Act 1 | The awakening
Act 2 | The companion
Looking for our companion
Kicking off Act 2 is the revelation of your companion's parachute, which is clearly framed on the main path. Drops of blood signals a story plot to the player, that our companion is injured, while simultaneously serving as signposting, funneling the player into the broken ship.
Introducing the sniper and player motivation
During early stages of production, I had a hard time creating a good, non-harmful introduction to the location of the sniper, as well as a motive for the player to want to progress all the way to the sniper's location. But after some feedback rounds and brainstorm sessions, it clicked. In a simple 10 second long cutscene, I was able to answer these questions, by having the sniper kill off our companion, giving motive and the sniper location. The player is thereafter noticed by the sniper through another simple scripted event (the broken mast as the player exits the boat).
Change of pace
To change up the pacing of the experience, I added a mandatory combat section in the boat that the player is unable to stealth past. This keeps the player on their toes, not knowing what comes next. By adding in the danger of the sniper on the second floor, I ramp up the intensity of the experience by stacking the two combat elements together. By shooting an explosive barrel, the mast of the boat breaks and creates an escape route.
A cinematic slide & into the depths
Following the explosive barrel, the player jumps to the fallen mast and has a cinematic slide down to return back to the beach, bringing them to the covers where their companion were before. To ensure the glide goes smoothly, I used invisible blockers to help keep the player on the mast. After the mast slide, guards begin patrolling down the previously perceived main path. Using rocks to create a frame, as well as planks leading down as a path, I guide the player into an underwater sequence. During the swim, the player is further guided via planks, as they dodge the sniper's sight behind stones and through shipwrecks.
Path to the lighthouse
As the player emerges from the water, a sidepath is revealed. When they progress along it, a scripted event occurs as enemy reinforcements arrive on a motorboat. These won't trigger combat, but are important for a later stage. The player continues up towards the lighthouse, facing another patrolling enemy that they can choose to stealth kill if they want.
Act 3 | Vengeance
The Ascent
The player ascends the lighthouse. By adding combat on the first floor, I keep the player on their toes for the remaining floors. But instead of adding more combat, I added a cooldown period with rewarding vistas, as the player looks back out over the broken ship through a hole in the building. This builds suspension before the confrontation with the sniper as the player doesn't know what to expect.
The Ambush
Arriving at the top of the lighthouse, I wanted to feature a close quarter confrontation with the sniper. In a real production, I'm picturing this as a sequence, but for this project I opted for a simple melee fist fight resulting in the death of the sniper.
Take vengeance | Become the sniper
Having defeated the sniper, the player now equips the sniper rifle and begins taking out incoming enemies. The enemy count includes previously unkilled patrols, as well as new incoming patrols that begin spawning when the player reaches the top floor of the lighthouse. This is a risk-free section where the player sits safely and simply takes out enemies, exercising their revenge for their fallen companion.
The Escape
Once all enemies are killed, the player ziplines down to a nearby hill. As they land, a final encounter takes place as another boat of enemies comes in. After defeating them, the player slides down and runs towards the motorboat that came in during the end of Act 2, through which they escape, concluding the level.
Design Techniques & Challenges
Four elements of combat
One of the challenges for this project was designing spaces suitable for 4 types of gameplay; dodging the sniper, stealth, regular gunfights, and for sniping enemies from above. Each cover in the Act 2 area needed careful consideration, as it had to fit into all aspects of combat, whereas Act 1 only needed to take stealth and gunfight into account.
Offering player agency
Hand in hand with designing for different types of combat, is offering the player an actual choice. While my main path was mainly designed for stealth, I needed to ensure that the paths presented to the player also enabled the different styles, like going in "guns blazing", and that the patrol paths of the guards invited the player to perform stealth kills.
Funnel by covers
Strategic placement of covers and no-man's land is used throughout the level to funnel the player through my desired main path. One example of this is after the introduction of the sniper, where I funnel the player towards the right side of the big ship by placing a trail of covers. The rest of the beach is a large no-man's land, signalling high risk as it would leave the player completely exposed to the sniper.
Creating sense of progression
The player is rewarded with lookbacks and return to previous areas as they play through the level. This creates a strong sense of progression. Aside from the sniping section, where the player looks down on the entire Act 2 area, the mast-slide down to the starting location of your dead companion is the most notable one.
Process & Iteration
Adapting an old assignment
When creating this portfolio piece, I did not start from a blank canvas. I used a section of a large level from a previous assignment as my base. During that assignment, I remember thinking "damn, this section would be cool if it was a sniper mission", which is where the idea for this piece was born.
Major changes in the overall design included:
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Compressing the village section. To keep the experience focused on the sniper section, I reduced the length and complexity in paths available in the Act 1 area. By removing the excess island, and incorporating the airplane as a story element, the main path through Act 1 became more straightforward, while still providing the player with story beats and inviting stealth kills.
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Extending the beach area. To make the sniper section work, I identified the need to extend the beach area to give more room for cover islands and no-man's lands. This resulted in the beach -> sniper location distance becoming 50% longer. During this process I also chose to add an inside section of the main ship to break up the environment.
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More thoughtful cover placement. Hand-in-hand with extending the beach came the process of altering my cover placements. This was carefully considered & placed at the start of the redesign, but also iterated on after playtesting.
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Finding a sniper position. Another challenge for the redesign was finding a suitable sniper position. It needed to have full coverage for the beach, and some dead angles behind the boat and at the hills closest to the sniper location. This also included simplifying the path to the sniper, as my previous level featured much more involved movement with parkour elements.
Establishing combat metrics
Finding suitable combat metrics was key for this project. I set up a gym-like environment where I could preview sightlines at different heights. Here I could also limit-test the enemy AI. Ultimately I found a sweet spot for low covers, where the player could still headshot crouching enemies if aimed well, but remain safe themselves while crouched behind the same height cover.
Adaptation of metrics
After having found the correct metrics for my specific covers, I made a pass with replacing the cube covers with suitable meshes. This helped me achieve a consistent visual style throughout the environment of my level, while staying true to my metrics.
Applying playtest feedback
Throughout the design process I asked for continuous playtesting and feedback to identify areas that needed more work. These feedback sessions helped me make the intro section more compact, strengthen the main path around the water section, make the lighthouse ascent more interesting among other things.
An unconventional blockout process
Despite starting with an old assignment as base, I made the choice to create this level in a new project. The reason for this was that I a) had a new version of the gameplay template, that had seen some improvements to the AI, and b) that the previous level was built using Unreal's World Partition mode. This had resulted in some unexpected issues in the old files, and I deemed it more effective to simply build it up again and make my intended adaptations from the start. This allowed me to work with a mix of already established meshes and blockout cubes from the start, rather than only working with simple shapes.
Level overview | From blockout to whitebox
Reflections
Overall, I'm very satisfied with the level and what I managed to produce in the limited time of 3 weeks half-time. I set out to create a sniper mission of an old section from a previous assignment, and believe that I succeeded in creating an interesting main path and simple but good story beats.
One of the elements I'm particularly happy with is the introduction of the sniper. With a simple cinematic, I could communicate the danger of the sniper, the location of the sniper, set up a story point with the death of the companion, while also giving the player a reason to go up and kill the sniper (to avenge their friend).
There are two main things that I would've liked to iterate on more if given the time:
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Make the climax with facing the sniper NPC at the top of the lighthouse more dramatic. I'm picturing this sequence as a cutscene with the sniper ambushing the player from behind as they climb the ladder, and perhaps an "input" battle, e.g forcing the player to click "X" repeatedly to win the struggle vs the sniper and then take him out.
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I would've liked to feature an external factor that sells the idea of guards moving towards the beach at the end sequence when the player gets access to the sniper rifle. My original idea was to feature a third companion, that perhaps could either come in on a boat or an additional airplane, but did not have the time to set up the AI for this ending. It would also have required some additional storytelling throughout the level as to why this companion showed up now.