“Players will visit the islands
countless times, but each visit
might be in a different context”
CREATING DEAD CELLS
Nail down the
basic structure
Level designers
lay out the basic
structure of a
stage, before an
art designer
steps in and
pretties it all up.Give the player
options
A huge part of a
level designer’s
job is giving
players options,
and making sure
that all of those
options are fun.Embrace the
machines
With Dead Cells,
the map was
created using a
combination of
human design
and procedural
generation.hosts a battle royale. What makes designing
this kind of level different?
“It’s an incredibly different beast, but a
lot of the traditional lessons still apply,”
McCord explains. He tells us that in traditional
multiplayer games like Titanfall, the map
controls where you spawn, where you
advance and where you fight. The level
designer knows where players will shoot from,and where they’ll die. It’s all meticulously
crafted. Not so in Apex Legends.
“In battle royale, the map needs to
influence these choices at a lower resolution
and embrace that players are going to do
unexpected things,” says McCord. “In Kings
Canyon, I used design tools like chokepoints
and verticality to influence where players will
want to be, and designed combat encounters070 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE