Junior Level Designer
at Ubisoft Blue Byte
(Düsseldorf, Germany)
May 2022 - Ongoing
Intern Level/Mission Designer
at Ubisoft Mumbai (remote)
(Mumbai, India)
October 2020 - April 2021
(7 months)
Action - Adventure game
Continuing on my previous remote experience with Ubisoft Mumbai as an Intern Level/Mission Designer, I've been working as a Junior Level Designer with the Level Design team of Ubisoft Düsseldorf on Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for Meta (previously Oculus).
This project has been done in partnership with several international Ubisoft studios: Redstorm Entertainment, Belgrade, Berlin, Leamington, Montréal, Mumbai, Pune, Québec City, and Reflections.
My work highlights:
- Main Mission owner of Monteriggioni Tunnels from Beta till release.
- Design owner of some Italy realization sequences.
- Documenting LDDs and creating new templates.
- Prototyping, testing, balancing readability, difficulty and accessibility of the missions’ beats in Unity through visual scripting.
- Refining the Italy setting navigation flow in VR (parkour, climbing...), as well as allowing multiple tactical playstyles (combat, stealth...).
- Improving and taking ownership of some Narrative/VO design implementation
- Contributing to bug fixing initiatives by thoroughly testing, reporting and solving design issues encountered prior to release.
- Collaborating closely with Narrative, Realization and Living World departments.
Following Nexus’ release (November 2023), I’m now working on prototyping internal VR game pitches with the Düsseldorf VR team on Level and Narrative Design aspects.
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR
What I've done?...
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR's main purpose was to bring the AC license to its first-ever VR experience, allowing players to embody their most beloved Master Assassins from the series: Ezio, Kassandra, and Connor.
Experiencing in first person the AC experience, Nexus VR strongly focuses on offering open, urban environments with 360° traversal that allow the players to climb horizontally and vertically, parkour everywhere, and run freely across different historical settings. The player has freedom in terms of how they decide to approach their objectives, especially in tactical sandboxes: do they prefer to take a stealth approach? To confront the opposition through fighting? Up on the rooftops or down on the ground?...
As a Level Designer on the project, I had the chance to work on Side Content during my time at Ubisoft Mumbai, before transiting to Main Missions (more specifically, the ones for the Italy setting) with Ubisoft Düsseldorf.
I had the ownership of one of the Main Mission (Monteriggioni Tunnels) from Beta till release, ensuring delivering it at a shippable quality.
I also had tasks to avoid logic issues, including the balancing of enemies and their patrols (using Rational Level Design methodology), as well as the good placement of LD ingredients in the environment. I've reworked parkour/path lines following some guidelines to ease navigation, and indirectly encourage the player to follow the golden path to experience as best the first-person experience we wanted to sell. Explorating out of the golden path would still reward the players with collectibles or lore details we've carefully placed.
As the game focused on revisiting for the first time in the series several Assassin's lives, we wanted to showcase AC lore and Historical values, to get the most out of delivering strong nostalgia to the beloved fans. Therefore, I've also worked on some VO/Narrative Design (e.g. realization sequences, optional reads content, conversation subjects...) taking ownership of their correct implementation and collaborating with several departments to guarantee their good functionality (e.g. Narrative, Historians, Realization, Cinematics, Living World, Audio, VFX...).
In terms of tooling, I mostly worked using ProBuilder and Ubisoft Internal Visual Scripting tool in Unity to prototype and implement our ideas.
Monteriggioni Tunnels
Summary
In terms of the Italy Main Missions, I've mostly worked on Monterrigioni Tunnels, improving the design experience we wanted to deliver. After Beta, as the current Mission Owner, Jan Van Hassel, was reassigned to support the America setting, I was proposed to take his position as I knew the mission very well, which I gladly accepted. Till release, I then acted as its main point of contact, taking LD decisions when needed with the approval of my Lead (Jibran Khan), and ensuring its delivery in a shippable quality, with no mission breaks.
Synopsis
Taking place after the siege of Monterrigioni in the previous mission, Ezio goes after Seraphina's group through the underground tunnels of the city, parkouring and climbing inside Monterrigioni's walls to stop her escape.
My Contribution
Being one of the first missions of the game, this mission is quite linear, as players are still learning how to play Assassin's Creed in VR. It introduces to the player advanced climbing and parkour abilities (e.g. flinging/swinging/grabbing while jumping...).
In this manner, Jan and I closely worked with the Environment Art team to produce a believable left-in-ruins parkour playground, with sequences alternating between narrative and parkour for players to practice their newly acquired skills.
For the players exploring out of the linear path, we've emphasized rewarding them whether in the form of the Rift Constructs (collectibles) or optional reads relating AC's lore from previous games/books/short movies.
In this example, the player gets rewarded with an entry note from a prisoner who signed it with his initials: L.P. This signature refers to Luciano Pezzati, a Florentine informant who tried to make the city vulnerable in anticipation of a Florence siege during Mario Auditore's early days.
By exploring the area (blue line), the player can find a hidden optional read containing AC lore (red circle). The lighting (yellow circles) helps guiding the player in this regard.
The lighting (yellow circles) helps guiding the player in following this secret path.
By exploring the area, the player can find a hidden optional read containing AC lore (red circle).
By exploring the area (blue line), the player can find a hidden optional read containing AC lore (red circle). The lighting (yellow circles) helps guiding the player in this regard.
As the Tunnels are quite dark being underground, we've also collaborated with the Lighting team to subtly attract the player's attention to specific locations to ease their navigation through the tunnels or hidden secrets.
The lighting (yellow circle) attracts the player's attention to lure them into thinking a collectible is hidden there.
Unfortunately, nothing is to be found. However, on the way going back up, the player can find a hidden chest.
The Bait & Switch technique allowed to bait the player to go down using lighting, then by switching to get back on track, to find the hidden Rift Construct.
The lighting (yellow circle) attracts the player's attention to lure them into thinking a collectible is hidden there.
Using a Bait and Switch technique, we attract the player in dropping down, expecting to find a collectible in this lighted room, but only to find a collapsed room. However, while going back to climb the ladder to go back up, the player can find a Rift Construct in the chest next to it.
Here, the swing bars are highlighted by the rays going through the ceiling to ease the navigation of the player. However, a more hidden secondary path using climbing can also be taken to cross the gap below.
To cross the gap, the player can use the swing bars highlighted by the sun rays (orange circle) or horizontally climb the bricks on the left wall, highlighted by the cloth sheet and the soft light below (blue circle).
To cross the gap, the player can use the swing bars highlighted by the sun rays (orange circle) or horizontally climb the bricks on the left wall, highlighted by the cloth sheet and the soft light below (blue circle).
Towards the end of the level, the player gets introduced to the Throwing Knives, a new weapon to add to their holster, and to Hanging Traps, an LD Ingredient that can be used to take down enemies by cutting the rope from which the trap crates hang from. To tutorialize the new abilities acquired, a tactical sandbox with several paths to kill the bandits has been designed with opportunities revolving around those elements.
Like so, I've worked on:
- The balancing of the enemy/patrol placement, regularly baking the navmesh to facilitate the movement of NPCs.
- Creating safe open lines of sight from which the player could throw his throwing knives or trigger hanging traps.
- The setup of distraction props (LD ingredient) in out-of-sight locations, so the player has a tool to lure the bandits into specific locations to ease their eliminations.
Here's a 2D Top-Down representation of the tactical sandbox with its legend, as well as a detailed playthrough video explaining the design intentions for it:
2D Top Down view of the tactical sandbox in Monterrigioni Tunnels. The player's has to cross the room to be able to pursue Seraphina by "defeating" the bandits.
If the player decides to drop to the lower floor, they are able to enter a more secluded area to stealthily kill a bandit and cross the room without confronting too directly the rest of the bandits.
If the player decides to climb to the upper floor, they take the higher ground and have a better overview of the room to planify their action plan. Nevertheless, this area relies more on parkouring skills to navigate.
2D Top Down view of the tactical sandbox in Monterrigioni Tunnels. The player's has to cross the room to be able to pursue Seraphina by "defeating" the bandits.
NOTE: Even though the objective during this beat is "Kill the bandits", the player can actually skip it by traversing the room without killing all the bandits. To reward the player from having done so, we've created a special self-talk VO from Ezio to play.
The end of the mission presents a new enemy archetype to the player, acting as a first boss, the Commander.
It introduces new combat mechanics to the player (dodging unblockable attacks, reinforcements call).
Finally, to enhance the embodiment aspect offered by the VR medium, we've focused on setting first-person realization moments when the player can listen and actively look at Seraphina's group chatting, by turning or lifting their head. I've also taken the initiative during the polish phase to place various dynamic objects all along the level to entice the player to grab and throw stuff around, which is always a fun thing to do in VR.
Cult of Hermes Reborn
Summary
The second Italy Mission I mostly contributed to was Cult of Hermes Reborn, the final mission of Ezio's storyline. Our Lead Level Designer, Jibran Khan, was the Mission Owner of several Italy Missions, including this one. As a matter of team support, I've contributed to helping him improve the experience of this mission, mostly on some realization work for which I took ownership of their good functionality.
Synopsis
After having publicly shamed the Templar Venetian merchant Francisco Rizzo to lure him out of his lair, Ezio assassinated Rizzo in the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Nevertheless, his work in Venice was not done yet as Seraphina was still to be found. Little did he know that her evil plans were related to an old organizational threat that he already confronted: The Cult of Hermes.
My Contribution
To make our open world more believable, we've defined and requested the Narrative Design team the writing of NPC conversations relating past events from the previous Italy missions (such as Rizzo's assassination). This had for purpose of reminding the player what happened (as they switched to other historical settings between missions), as well as allowing the player to see the consequences of their actions on the Living World. The conversations' subjects would also relate to future events that are about to take place (such as the Carnevale event). Our work as the LD team was then to intelligibly place those along the golden path so the player could encounter them.
In tactical sandboxes where the player needed to find a key item, we've sometimes placed conversations between enemies the player needed to eavesdrop to narrow the search area if the player successfully listened to their content till the end.
As part of our LD's work, we've always ensured to challenge the player on some gameplay abilities to be able to listen to them, such as relying on a parkour or stealth swimming challenge for example.
The player can eavesdrop the conversation by being sufficiently close without getting spotted. Parkouring to reach the end of the boat's mast (Spot #1) or dropping to hide in the bush (Spot #2) are safe locations to do so.
Parkouring to reach the end of the boat's mast is a safe location to eavesdrop on the cultists' conversation.
The player could also swim and try to remain behind the boats' hulls to be sufficiently close to the cultists to listen their conversation.
The player can eavesdrop the conversation by being sufficiently close without getting spotted. Parkouring to reach the end of the boat's mast (Spot #1) or dropping to hide in the bush (Spot #2) are safe locations to do so.
One of my biggest contributions to Nexus in terms of realization works was the Carnevale sequence, taking place right after leaving Leonardo's workshop for the Cult's HQ. Jibran asked me to rework the realization flow for this sequence to subtly guide the player to follow one of the 3 main paths designed, so players could experience this unique exotic event at its best in VR. Collaborating with other departments, I've used some LD basic tools (guiding lines, NPCs/Rats movements, fireworks VFX, conversation placement...) to do so, while still putting the accent on the festive ambiance.
Feel free to look at the video down below, detailing the design work we've done for this sequence:
NOTE: I've also collaborated with the Living World Placement team in setting various NPC activities (e.g. Smart Objects) they would engage with along the paths to make the world representative of the lively festive atmosphere (people drinking, dancing, being drunk, playing music, watching the fireworks...).
What I've learned?...
At last, being the last mission of Ezio's arc, we had to finish his story memorably and fantastically.
As Ezio reaches the Cult's HQ and makes his way to the Ceremony room to stop Seraphina's Ascension ritual, I worked on designing a narrative flow with a build-up ambiance sequence.
Along with other departments (Cinematics, Environment Art, Audio...), we worked on crafting a realization experience with an urgency feeling to stop Seraphina before it is too late. Therefore, on the way, cultists can be seen from the shadows talking and mentioning Seraphina's Ascension. Their chanting can be heard from the Cult's HQ exterior, becoming more present and louder as we get closer to the ceremony room. This sequence would reach its climax during the boss fight, with Cultists being seen praising, cheering on Seraphina, or letting her down as she starts to lose against Ezio, showing she's not the chosen one they've awaited.
Have a look at the video down below, explaining our intentions designed for this sequence:
Return To Monteriggioni
Summary
Return To Monte constitutes the last Italy Mission I essentially played a part in. Second mission owned by Jibran, I also lent him a hand for this level, doing various and similar tasks to what I did on Cult of Hermes Reborn, such as tweaking navigation paths, setting narrative content in the world, and especially working on the Corridor Collapse sequence taking place in the Auditore Villa.
Synopsis
After recovering his stolen blade in Venice, Ezio travels back to his ancestral home of Monteriggioni, where his sister Claudia was overseeing restoration efforts. But all was not as it seemed...
My Contribution
Monteriggioni stronghold constitutes the first open area in Nexus in which the player can freely wander and parkour around. To better guide the player in their first-person free VR parkour will, it was important to prevent as much as possible the player from stopping, analyzing where they need to run next. Therefore, we've reused techniques from the brand by placing parkour starter props around the city, as well as placing some props in a certain way to create guided lines. Following playtest feedback, we would then rework again those paths if the player still struggled, or was seen taking different paths than the ones intended when following the objectives.
Here's a navigation path I've reworked in this mission, taking place around the Auditore Villa - Exterior:
Just as in Cult of Hermes Reborn, I've collaborated with the ND team on defining and requesting some VO lines/conversations showcasing AC lore and historical values (such as when looking at the box of feathers in Maria's room). I've worked on placing here and there on the main path, optional reads relating the life inside the stronghold, but also conversations foreshadowing the attack on Monte from the Bandits. Being the first mission in an open area in Nexus, I've also put some additional side content in more apart areas to entice the player to fully explore Monteriggioni and see all it has to offer.
To conclude, my third and last biggest contribution in terms of realization work was the Collapse Corridor Assassination attempt sequence on Ezio, taking place when leaving the attic in the Villa Auditore. Exchanging with Jibran to get his opinion, I've designed a prototype, closely reviewed it with the Cinematics, VFX, and Audio teams, and implemented its final version once approved. The whole sequence goes from the foreshadowing, the fade-to-black sequence to reflect Ezio's dizziness with simple gimmick effects, until leaving the corridor.
To see in more detail the design work done, feel free to have a look at the footage down below.