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.
Released in 2014
Watch_Dogs
Ubisoft Montreal | Level Designer | ~2 years
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 in-house 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