Watch_Dogs
Ubisoft Montreal
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Level Designer
Project Overview
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.
Level Designer
Ubisoft Montreal
Disrupt Engine, Domino Visual Scripting Tools
27 May 2014
PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, WiiU, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Responsibilities
This was my third open-world game, so I came to Watch Dogs with experience of the design challenges and complications involved in building missions within a large systemic world. 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.
I worked on mission and level design from concept through to release, primarily across the middle of the campaign, whilst also supporting missions in the penultimate act of the game.
- Mission and level design for multiple pivotal campaign sequences, from concept to final implementation
- Designed two major areas of the open world, including one used in multiplayer
- Championed side content with design structure and initial implementation
- Level audits and refactoring of junior designer content
Selected Work
Campaign mission: Collateral
Designed from paper through to ship, Collateral turns the player’s established motel headquarters into a burning combat encounter as Aiden and Clara escape an assault by Fixers.
I designed the space, mission flow and ally behaviour, with the level also becoming an important testbed for AI, destructibility and combat metrics.
Campaign mission: A Risky Bid
Developed from an early paper design through to ship, A Risky Bid was an ambitious mid-game mission spanning social infiltration, exploration, stealth, hacking, multi-level combat and a large escape sequence.
I worked closely with narrative, cinematics and environment art whilst owning the level design and scripting as its story and gameplay evolved.
Side Activity: Criminal Convoys
I designed the gameplay rules and routes for every Criminal Convoy activity.
Each convoy followed a predetermined route through the open world, leaving players free to choose where and how to intercept it using Watch Dogs’ systemic tools and emergent gameplay.
Additional Mission wORK:
“Thanks For The Tip” / “Hold On, Kiddo” / “One Foot In The Grave” / “Stare Into The Abyss” / “No Turning Back”
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.
Game Trailer
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 over 10 million copies.