Released in 2014

Watch_Dogs

Ubisoft Montreal | Level Designer | ~2 years

Watch_Dogs was my first released work at Ubisoft Montreal. Working in such a huge team was an interesting change from my prior experience in a small, prototyping team at Ruffian Games. Despite the team size, I still maintained a good number of cross-discipline relationships and collaborated regularly; especially within environment art and narrative teams. Through these pooled resources I was able to ensure fine detail across story and visuals without a sacrifice to gameplay.

This was my third open world game, so I was already savvy with many of the design challenges and complications involved with open world level and mission design. I applied this background knowledge to quickly establish a vision for my content and was able to quickly prototype and iterate to successfully produce high-quality results.

Responsibilities

  • Full mission and level design for multiple pivotal moments of the game’s narrative from concept to final
  • Responsible for design of two major areas of the game world; one of which featured in multiplayer
  • Championed side content with design structure and initial implementation
  • Level audits and refactoring of junior designer content
  • Extensive use of Ubisoft’s proprietary engine, “Disrupt” and it’s associated visual scripting tool, “Domino”

I was involved in mission and level design from concept through to release-quality content. I primarily worked on mid-game missions, but also offered support for the penultimate act of the game. Besides level building and scripting mission content, I was additionally responsible for a number of support tasks during the closing of the game, such as the distribution of crafting items across the campaign and providing scripting assistance for other missions.

Levels

  • “Collateral”
  • “A Risky Bid”
  • “Thanks For The Tip”
  • “Hold On, Kiddo”
  • “One Foot In The Grave”
  • “Stare Into The Abyss”
  • “No Turning Back”
  • All “Criminal Convoy” missions

Watch_Dogs broke Ubisoft’s company record of first day sales and went on to become the fastest-selling new IP in video game history, selling 4 million copies in its first week. As of December 31, 2014, Watch_Dogs has shipped 10 million copies.

Images and concept art © Ubisoft Entertainment