Fallout 76: Skyline Valley
New explorable region and questline!
Location Name
Vault 63: Atrium
Location Type
Main Quest Hub
Overview
I was given the opportunity to work on the main quest hub for our expansion, Vault 63's Atrium. It was used to house the majority of the quest NPCs and was the location in which most quests started. Not only that, but it also had some quest gameplay elements play out within the space.
Responsibilities
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Creating and iterating on the layout, also bringing the level through to completion.
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Ensuring stakeholder feedback was addressed while keeping Quest requirements at the forefront.
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Initial placement and iteration on AI behaviour to create a believable lived-in environment.
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Writing fiction to sell the lived-in nature of the Vault depicting daily life of the dwellers.
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Making sure the layout remains easy to navigate and allows for easy mental mapping.
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Adding offshoot areas that are fully exploration/lore focused while innkeeping to scope.
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Maintaining an adequate level of performance with careful planning of sightlines.
Location Name
Vault 63: Atrium Lower Level
Location Type
Main Quest Location
Overview
One of our main quests required a destroyed level of the Vault to be accessible, with me already creating the Atrium, I was tasked to create it. It is a relatively small level that is mostly linear. With the level being more linear, I wanted to focus on creating some more specific encounters.
For the quest, the player was tasked with entering a Vault residents apartment and killing the resident. To make the quest more interesting, we decided to have the player enter through a different apartment and find their way through broken walls of the other destroyed apartments to reach their goal.
Responsibilities
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Creating the original layout and working with the QD team to adjust it to fit their requirements.
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Adjusting the level to incorporate more game play into the quest beats.
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Placement and balancing of off-quest enemies that will roam while the quest is not active.
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Keeping the player intrigued while keeping the majority linear layout.
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Maintaining an adequate level of performance with careful planning of sight lines.
Location Name
Darkwood Manor Interior
Location Type
Main Quest Location
Overview
Vault 63 was housed under a manor that is located in the centre of our region, Darkwood Manor. I was tasked with taking it from block out through to release.
The space was used for a Combat Encounter for one of the main quests as you enter the Vault, so I was responsible for providing cover for the player and ensuring they wouldn't be overwhelmed with the natural advantage the enemy AI received from verticality. Enemies would spawn around the room including up on the second floor of the area. To ensure fairness for the player, I blocked off a significant part of the railing above, forcing the enemies to move to open shooting positions with far less cover, these were made using broken railing. This gave the player the ability to actually take cover from those above and effectively eliminate them without being overwhelmed.
Responsibilities
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Iterating on an initial layout to ensure quest requirements were met.
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Addressing combat encounter feedback to give the player more power while keeping it interesting.
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Placement of non-quest enemies and handling of their behaviour.
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Providing adequate cover while producing a challenging combat encounter.
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Selling the story of the space through environmental story telling and fiction writing.
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Loot passing the environment.
Location Name
High Knob Fire Tower
Location Type
Main Quest Location
Overview
High Knob Fire Tower is one of three fire towers in our region. In FO76, we have a mechanic attached to these fire tower that reveals nearby locations to players, so it was decided that these would be evenly spread across the region.
This Fire Tower is a real life location, an old fire tower that is now used as a tourist destination. My goal was to keep the construction as close to real life as possible. So I spent some time creating the base of the tower according to reference images of the structure.
This location was used in one of our quests, the exterior of the tower has a minor role in this with the interior of the tower being where most of the content takes place. Off-quest this location would be a combat encounter featuring our Blood Eagle faction. For this location, I wanted to have an almost medieval structure. I decided to have the actual tower in the middle at the highest point, this allowed for some nice compositional shots from multiple angles but it also gave the player an immediate goal. To keep with the medieval structure, it had a full perimeter outside wall and would have three tiers of verticality. The initial layer, this is where the combat encounter would be the easiest, the upper layer where the tower sits, this would have more enemies and enemies of increasing difficulties and then the tower itself which houses a boss enemy.
Towards the end of the patch, the combat encounter was fun, but I felt as though more could be done to lean into certain playstyles. As a result I added a new mechanic for the location (similar to the animal cages seen in Farcry games) where you are able to shoot the lock off of a caged animals pen and they will attack anything they see. I then created a route into the location that emphasised the cage, allowing the player the opportunity to utilise it.
Responsibilities
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Concepting and creating the layout and block out for the location.
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Loot, combat and interaction passing the location.
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Placement of non-quest enemies and handling of their behaviour.
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Providing adequate cover while producing a challenging combat encounter.
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Creating a new mechanic to add to the toolset of the player when attaching the location.
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Ensuring the tower could be viewed from afar to ensure usage of the location reveal mechanic.
Location Name
Hemlock Springs Dump
Location Type
Combat/Exploration Location
Overview
This location was designed to be a combat space. It is based in the swamp biome within the region. With the enemies here being predominately melee focused (Mirelurks), I wanted to have the combat space quite open but with lots of opportunities to guide enemies through corridors that become advantageous for the player.
It was also important for me to have an interesting compositional shot as you approach the area, hence the mix of dead trees, mirelurk eggs and barrels strewn across the area.
Responsibilities
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Creating an interesting location for exploration while also providing an enjoyable combat encounter.
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Adding NPCs and giving them combat and non-combat behaviours.
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Art passing of the area.
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Loot placement and balancing.
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Fiction writing.
Location Name
Stony Man Lookout
Location Type
Combat/Exploration Location
Overview
This was another combat/exploration location within the region that utilised the super mutant faction. They have a mix of ranged, melee and helper units which made for a fun encounter. I wanted to take a similar approach as I did for High Knob Fire Tower for this location. This meant having a highly defended perimeter with opportunities spread around the location allowing the player to break in.
Compositionally I wanted to use the eye of the storm as a vocal point above the tower to really help draw the players eye. Again, the boss is located in the tower so I really wanted to make that the players main focus.
Responsibilities
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Layout design and block out implementation.
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Placement and balancing of the combat encounter.
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NPC combat and non-combat behaviours.
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Environmental storytelling and collaboration between another location nearby.
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Loot placement and balancing.
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Fiction writing.
Location Name
Old Rag Lookout
Location Type
Combat/Exploration Location
Overview
This location was another one of our fire towers within the region. To help make this location feel unique I decided that it'd be interesting to have an abandoned post-war encampment here. The encampment was part of an uneasy truce between the settlers and the raiders, factions that usually don't get along. The camp is split down the middle with the settlers staying on one side and raiders on the other. A makeshift covered area provides the two groups leadership a place to discuss issues and setup some ground rules. By the time the player has arrived it's obvious that the arrangement didn't work out and I wrote fiction to supplement the environmental storytelling that depicts that.
Responsibilities
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Layout design and block out implementation.
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Placement and balancing of the combat encounter.
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NPC combat and non-combat behaviours.
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Environmental storytelling and collaboration between another location nearby.
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Loot placement and balancing.
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Fiction writing.
Location Name
Skyline Drive Entrance
Location Type
Main Quest Location
Overview
This location is the first quest location that the player will be lead to in the main storyline for the region. I had a look at real entrances to Shenandoah National Park and took inspiration when designing this location.
One of our main quest NPCs is situated here alongside a cat called Catty. Coincidentally my actual cat has the same name and looks strikingly similar!
With this being a location that was occupied pre-war by park rangers I wrote some additional lore around the park and their activities.
Responsibilities
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Layout design and block out implementation.
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Placement and balancing of the combat encounter.
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NPC combat and non-combat behaviours.
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Environmental storytelling and collaboration between another location nearby.
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Loot placement and balancing.
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Fiction writing.
Location Name
Makeout Point
Location Type
Combat/Exploration Location
Overview
Makeout Point is mainly an opportunity for exploration with a lot of pre-war environmental storytelling and fiction. The goal with this location was to create something basically untouched post-war.
Various cars are parked in the viewing spot and there are a number of skeletons within them telling different stories to the player. I wrote some accompanying fiction to give some background on the people the player finds here.
Responsibilities
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Layout design and block out implementation.
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Placement and balancing of the combat encounter.
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NPC combat and non-combat behaviours.
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Environmental storytelling and collaboration between another location nearby.
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Loot placement and balancing.
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Fiction writing.
Regional Responsibilities
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Implementing various random encounters.
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POI creation around the region.
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Assisting overall player guidance and landmark placement across the region.
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Implementation of ambient enemies around the region and the balancing of said enemies.
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Placement and balancing of lootables around the region such as ore.