This was a university project that was part of my bachelor games design course. The module was called Mission Design and we were tasked with designing a playable level for an example first person shooter called "Rebel X" built in Unreal Engine 5. We were provided with basic shooter mechanics, an array of weapons, materials for level geometry, ammo and weapon pickups and basic enemy entities that shoot at you.
They also provided us with a simple narrative to go off of. The story takes place in the near future. Humans become heavily reliant on AI powered technology and robotic assistants. Then aliens invade and from orbit they take control of all of our technology and use it to wage war against us. Our greatest convenience becomes our greatest enemy. Rebel X is an underground organisation of military specialists (and presumably others the brief didn't mention) formed to combat the threat. The player controls a Rebel X operative in a level designed by a student on the module. In this case, me.
Aside from creating a playable environment, we also had to come up with a compelling mission consistent with the story brief. We were given an objective system to work with too. This was meant to be used to guide players on what to do next in our levels.
Preproduction
When conceptualising my level, I immediately drew on my experience playing games with very similar stories such as Half-Life 2. I also drew inspiration from another game called Homefront. With these primary sources, I devised a mission set in an urban environment occupied by alien controlled robots and populated by their enslaved humans. The player was to work with a local resistance cell to destroy an airship the robots had built called the City Monitor. It flies over the city suppressing rebel activity and keeping the oppressed humans in line. The plan involved staging a diversionary attack on a robot control centre and pushing to a SAM site, hacking it and using it to bring down the airship. Thus inspiring the oppressed humans to join the fight and dealing a significant blow to the aliens' plans. The name I gave this mission was "Divert and Destroy."
For the urban environment itself, my primary source of inspiration was cities in northern France as I had holidayed there some time before the module started. I mostly looked at Rouen, Le Touquet and Versailles. I paid very close attention to the architecture in these places as I found them very appealing and unique when I was there (the first two, I never visited Versailles, I just looked at it on Google Maps as part of my research). This palette of cities helped me form a coherent and unique visual aesthetic for my level.
The City Monitor was directly inspired by a mechanic from Homefront: The Revolution. In parts of the open world, imposing airships patrol around and call reinforcements if they catch you in their beam. Although in my mission, the airship is simply just a static object with a scripted animation at the end.
Here is a basic level layout plan I drew. Matching the plan for an urban environment, I drew streets and alleyways and narrow passages through buildings. Although some of these corridors could have taken almost any form, my inspiration still greatly informed the basic plan. The fun part is translating it into a playable environment that reads like a real location. The final product did look a bit different and there are a few things omitted in this plan.
Production
I built the level in a simple greybox style. As mentioned before, materials were provided and you can see these in use on some blocks, but I also used custom colours for the roofs, awnings and cars.
Building a level set in a city gave me a great opportunity to showcase a little bit of environmental storytelling. I added abandoned vehicles, blackmarket stalls, boarded up windows and general disrepair and decay. This is to communicate the vibe of a city that is beaten down and oppressed. I designed the opening part of the level specifically as a low action part so the player can take their time and have a look at it all.
I gave serious consideration to what the player's starting weapon should be. I've always believed in tight weapon arsenals in shooters with carefully designed purposes and level design and enemies that counter them (see the original Half-Life for an exemplar on this). I initially decided on an SMG since I think they're underrated guns in games and in real life. Unfortunately, considering how compact the beginning of the level turned out to be, the SMG's weak rapid fire bullets proved to be not very fun. So I switched it for a shotgun instead which proved to be mostly ideal. Later on, when the player reached the rebel ammo cache, I added an assault rifle for the player to pick up. Not only to provide a sense of progression, but to also give the player a better weapon for when sightlines get longer at the end of the level.