Flooded Subway
Type: Personal Project
Duration: 4 Weeks Half-Time
Description: Flooded Subway is a 3rd-person action stealth level that takes influence from games such as The Last of Us and the Metal Gear Solid series. This level aims to match a horror vibe as the player manages two enemy types with variant behavior (both zombie and human). The player will be presented with various paths to deviate within the largely linear space.
Purpose: The drive behind this level was to establish the full Level Design workflow as this was to be my first wholly created level using it. From documentation to proxy lighting, I took this level stage by stage to the point you see today.
Tools Used: Unreal 5, Blueprints, Photoshop, IWALS V2.5 Character Controller
Concepting
I wanted a claustrophobic space, a dark space, a space that could make for interesting close encounters. I also wanted to start thinking about the level in terms of the world space, why do zombies coexist so closely with fully armed humans? What opportunities could I give the player to interact with both AI systems?
Of course, game series such as The Last of Us and Metal Gear Solid came to mind for both their stealth systems as well as their stealth layouts. Both series have slowly progressed to more open designs but even the newer designs still use similar principles when you break down their levels down to their component parts.
Plentiful cover, multiple areas of ingress, and enemies locomoting in an observable pattern. With these base principles, we can start designing the level.
Whiteboxing
Working with the IWALS character controller opens up a lot of design doors but also comes with its own constraints given its complexity and always-updating nature. So beyond the use of grid materials for general scale I had to do some testing with what would/would not work with the controller. This meant establishing general standards for things like half-height cover that the player could mantle and full cover which the player could not mantle.
Beyond keeping to standard level building metrics a focus was placed on creating relatively open-level layouts with multiple entrances but always a singular exit. A lot of this decision-making came down to scope. I wanted to give the player freedom but not so much that I could not guarantee some level of quality when it came to their experience.
Block outs were also used to establish the general aesthetics of the level along with the relationship between the AI. Bifurcating the AI enemy types with a gate helped me better organize the level and the player experience. Simple tricks such as using a giant blue-gridded cube for water also proved to be useful in conveying the theme of the level.
Major Gameplay Concepts
Stealth
Flooded Subway is a high-contrast/dark-lit area. The player will need to make use of various stealth systems in order to complete the level. Avoiding the enemy, performing takedowns, and using light as a guide will be necessary to complete the level.
Resource Management
Resources such as ammo/guns are scarce throughout the level. This introduces player management of resources and better ensures players take advantage of the resource-cheap stealth systems.
Multiple Paths
Ultimately, Flooded Subway is a linear level where forward equals progress, but that doesn’t mean the level can’t be designed for variable play. Within our overall level are “stealth arenas” that provide the player with various areas of ingress and multiple solutions to navigate through.
Variant Enemies
The level makes use of a human patrol enemy type as well as a zombie chase enemy type. This allows us to design around two different enemies when creating our level. We also can further exploit these two systems, having the human/zombie enemy types be hostile to one another as well. Now it’s not simply player versus the enemy.
Level Flow
Subway Entrance
Flooded Subway starts the player with only a flashlight and no weapons beyond a basic melee attack and the ability to perform a stealth takedown. To accommodate this subway entrance is only inhabited by our zombie AI, keeping combat to melee versus melee. This gives the player room to explore the stealth mechanics in a vacuum. We also immediately introduce the concept of multiple paths to the player.
Tunnel
After the player gets passed the subway entrance we arm them with a gun and place them in a space with both zombie melee enemy AI as well as the human ranged AI. Though the player is armed, firing the gun indiscriminately will attract a large number of hostiles to their location. Stealth is still the main priority, it is only once the player gets passed the middle gate that blocks the zombie AI that armed combat becomes more viable.
Guarded Station
The final stretch of Flooded Subway emphasizes gun combat over stealth as the space is entirely comprised of human enemy AI. To accommodate for this we give the player multiple vantage points. The player can go through the flooded subway cars, taking advantage of less room but increased cover. Or the player can take the catwalk with little cover but a significant height advantage.
Closing Thoughts
Scope was the number one lesson learned from this project. Wasting weeks of time on a level that would have been a reach for the entire Naughty Dog LD team was not the best start and was a hard lesson for me when it came to cutting content. Learning that the industry isn’t impressed with scale only with quality is something I now keep front of mind and try to do better at with each successive level I make.
Conveyance is another hard-earned lesson with this level. During play testing I found players getting lost, going backward through my level, and just losing their sense of orientation. For being so linear this was surprising to me but given the lack of light as well as recognizable, discrete landmarks it should have been more foreseeable.
As I continue to work on this level I will be addressing these issues as well as continue to explore the interplay between the two different AIs. Currently, the level plays more like your standard 3rd person stealth game. I would like for the Flooded Subway to accommodate a more pacifist playstyle whereby the player could put both enemy types in opposition to each other in order to get through the level.
(Sure would be inconvenient for the human guards if we were to…remove this barrier)
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