Breakwater - 4v4 Control Map

         Third Person Shooter map (UE5 Lyra project)                         March 2023-May 2023

Lead Designer / Developer                                                                  Team Size: 1 (solo)

Overview/Design Reel

Breakwater is a 4v4 Control map made using the UE5 Lyra Starter Project. I built the entire map from scratch using assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. I started by making a Level Design Document detailing my intended player experience, philosophy, top down test level layout, and references. I created a really rough blockout, did some playtesting, and adjusted accordingly to what I thought best added to the map! After 8 weeks of development the map became what it is now.

Map Gallery

Problem Solving – Balancing Repetitiveness and Asymmetry 

When initially creating Breakwater I was looking up lots of reference images and found shipyards in general to be pretty bland and repetitive. They often repeat themselves with long lines of crates because naturally they would do that for organization and efficiency. I found myself having to work around this problem for a little while in order to have an interesting map and gameplay. Another challenge I also gave myself to help challenge that repetitiveness, was to make the map asymmetrical by making points A and C completely different. 
 
Solution – Scattering Crates and Unique points
 
The first mock-up of the map I made had still pretty linear lines of crates, but once I got in engine I found scattering most of the crates in the middle added an extremely fun and interesting level of gameplay, while still keeping that shipyard feeling. It took a lot of small adjustments over the week to get it just right, but overall I am extremely pleased with how it came out. 
 

In order to help with the asymmetry I made two points that are very different from one another, but still close to the spawns. I made a boat (Point A) and a warehouse (Point C). I made them right next to each player spawn to make sure there was no extreme initial advantage, and gave them equal distance from the center point B. Overall it came out amazing, and most people that playtested it had amazing things to say about the feel

Iteration through QA

Initial Top Down Blockout

This concept blockout image that I have was made for the very early concepting phase of the map. I used this image as a direct guide for whenever I was building in engine, however through testing this layout changed greatly which can be seen in the final image. The initial design for the map had the following goals:

  • Even distance between points
  • Represent a neat shipyard
  • Allow for interesting capture points
I tested this map throughout the 8 weeks I developed it asking peers to give it a shot for fun, allowing for lots of interesting data and realizations to occur. Resulting in the following changes.

FINAL Top Down Blockout

As this map was tested I found several problems pertaining to both the center’s design and B’s spawn:

  • Sight lines were very long, leaving no cover and an advantage for A side to camp the center from Point A 
  • This problem persisted in specifically Team B’s spawn, giving them a disadvantage
  • No chest high cover in the center or spawn areas

As you can see in the final prototype there’s now brown boxes that act as chest high cover, dedicated weapon spawns, health packs, and the entire center was reworked. The maps design changed to be less of a neatly formatted shipyard, and one that looked like a warzone, both assisting in gameplay, and contextualization of the map. These iterations allowed for balanced gameplay among players and AI, leaving multiple approaches to each point, cover, and nearby health to escape to.

Documentation

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Assets used in Level: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/factory-environment-collection