Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond - Multiplayer
Respawn Entertainment, 2018 - 2021, Unreal Editor 4
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is a WWII first person shooter released on PC VR platforms. It has a full singleplayer campaign, PvP multiplayer, and an Oscar winning documentary series embedded in the game.
The multiplayer portion of the game had 5 game modes — deathmatch, team deathmatch, mad bomber, domination, blast radius — and 12 maps that utilized the art assets from the campaign. I was the level designer of 5 maps, which involved blockout and setting up gameplay POIs. I also designed and scripted the UI for multiplayer, as we did not have a UI department.
To see my work on the singleplayer campaign of the game, go here.
One of the main design points behind my multiplayer maps in this game was to fully utilize the 6-dof of VR movement. I did this by cascading the geometry over big and small quarters, with plenty of partial cover to physically lean over or behind.
Ample verticality was another point. One may think that a slow, boots-on-the-ground movement style may limit the height variance, but a little verticality goes a long way in VR. While it can be a tricky task to encourage the players to look up or down in HD games, VR players have a heightened sense of the space with a wide peripheral vision that I aimed to stimulate.
Below are some side-by-side screenshots from my blockouts and the final art. Click on each to see the full size image.
Ice Caves
Medium sized map, using the Norway environment. There are two main arenas, connected by a main path and a side path.
"Ice Caves" is a medium sized map, using the Norway environment. There are two main arenas, connected by a main path and a side path.
The hanging bridge you see here is the side path. It's narrow and without cover, but I lowered it a bit and put some foliage in the way so players could "read the room" and sneak across for a faster way across
I wanted to make the layered verticality of elevated catwalks and lining up shots between the icicles fun
The outside of the cave is slightly elevated, balancing out the fact that the cave side with the icicles has more cover to hug
This house can be entered from the door on the ground floor, and through the roof into the attic.
People started climbing up on the roof which I thought was fun, so I later added holes in the roof.
Streets of Dubuisson
Big map with two main buildings standing off in the middle was to create a good central battle, while the surrounding areas added height variance and facilitated player movement through the push and pull of small skirmishes.
Beardo Benjo’s Play Clip (on Meta Quest 2)
"Streets of Dubuisson" is the biggest map of the bunch, and also my personal favorite. The two main buildings standing off in the middle was to create a good central battle, while the surrounding areas added height variance and facilitated player movement through the push and pull of small skirmishes.
There are 3 buildings that you can enter, giving you good cover to fight against the other side of the no-mans-land. This alone creates a stagnant combat, so the side skirmish paths connect to the buildings as well, encouraging movement.
Just as you start to feel a stalemate between the two buildings, you'd realize your friends have either pushed or pulled back on the side, leaving your building for the other one.
The artists at Virtuos absolutely crushed it with this map. I very much enjoyed being able to work closely together, despite them being external partners.
Winery of the Vino Bros.
A small 3-point map. I made it to support fast paced skirmishes, but also objective based game modes in a way that facilitates player continuous player movement.
"Winery of the Vino Bros." is a small 3-point map. I made it to support fast paced skirmishes, but also objective based game modes in a way that facilitates player continuous player movement.
The vineyards uses grapevines that cover most of your body except for your feet, and does allow some penetrative damage. My intention was to create a cat-and-mouse kind of chase, while also thinking of 'that velociraptor scene'
To create meaningful asymmetry, I distanced the juicing building from the others a bit, and instead gave it an underground path. Successfully pushing through this path could pave the way for your teammates.
It may look simple, but the angle of the curves in this path was tirelessly iterated to balance the line of sight.
Secret Sub Pen
A medium sized map where I tried to do some interesting things. I wanted to fulfill a fantasy of fighting inside a u-boat, but u-boats make terrible multiplayer maps. So I put it in a pen and cut parts of it out.
"Secret Sub Pen" is a medium sized map where I tried to do some interesting things. I wanted to fulfill a fantasy of fighting inside a u-boat, but u-boats make terrible multiplayer maps. So I put it in a pen and cut parts of it out.
With the setup that it was under construction, I had freedom to strip out parts to allow better movement and balanced sightlines
Once you pass the u-boat into the other side of the pen, there were stairs leading up to the catwalks. The outer path of the map takes you up and down and then up again, encouraging natural vertical movement
I drew this u-boat's mascot! It is Smudge, my late rat with a Kriegsmarine cap. Very happy to immortalize my boy in my map, even if it put him on the wrong side of history...
Rockets of Peenemünde
A medium sized 2-point map fighting over a central gantry structure. Extreme verticality and long sightlines balanced with small side lanes
"Rockets of Peenemünde" is personally my least favorite. The extreme verticality with the crane tracks you see and the top of the launch gantry gives it a unique aspect, but it did feel too much like an unorganized collage of existing assets.
You can actually go under the gantry as opposed to over, and this was a nice little pocket of safety in the no-mans-land zone
It’s not always easy to get a full lobby of internal testers while you iterate on a map. To test the fairness of spawn points, chokepoints, and the push and pull rotation I would start a match filled with bots and leave it for awhile. When I came back, I could see by the piles of dropped loot where the fights and deaths were happening, and which side / class was winning them more.
With bots you can assure it wasn’t the skill difference between players so this was a quick gut-check I could do early in the process, before we had any sophisticated tools.