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Terminator

QUAKE WARS

The Game

Terminator: Salvation the video game is a prequel to the movie that was released in 2009.

It shows John Connor as he slowly builds up his strength to become the leader of the resistance against the machines. In the game the objective for the resistance is to strike back at skynet and destroy one of their main factories.

You meet new characters along the way who will aid the player in combat against the Terminators.

The original idea for this game was to incorporate a solid cinematic single player experience set in the new Terminator world, and have a fun co-op experience.

On this project I was acting Lead Level Designer for the remainder of the project, from September 2008 when I joined we had to get the game shipped by May 2009 the following year which left us with about 5-6 months to develope and submit the game for gold mastering.

Our first job we did when I joined was to take all the levels, assess them and scrap what wasn't matching the story/scenario. Once we figured that out we went ahead and remade all the layouts for the levels that needed to be remade in just over a week.

We then handed off the levels to the level designers on the project, unfortunately there wasn't enough level designers suitable to work on the project so I ended up taking on a few levels as well.

There were two different teams of level designers, one team in Stockholm and another team in Gothenburg, my job was to go to Gothenburg and review that teams levels each week and provide feedback and mentoring to the guys, and the same with the Stockholm folks.

The mechanics of the game are pretty simple, take cover and shoot the bad guys. One thing we wanted to try and improve on with this concept which had been used before was trying to employ and encourage flanking on the Terminators.

The spider is unable to be damaged from the front with non-explosive weapons, so the player must somehow get behind it and shoot it in the back, it's designated weak point.

To help and encourage players to flank around the Terminators we would place pickups in suitable flanking positions for the players to get to, rewarding them with a weapon and a good position from which to take down any enemies.

Another way to encourage flanking was to script the AI to cover at certain points to show the player where a good position could be to flank the Terminators.

In regards to the co-op design, it was an extremely difficult thing to have in the game and complete with the time we had. Most of the problems we noticed came from situations where what if Player A does this and Player B does that? So a lot of those problems were later fixed but it was hard to keep control on what both players would.

For instance due to the AI being quite simplistic, one player can keep the AI busy while Player B runs ahead in the level and breaks the scripting. We devised a system called Battle Areas where we would place a large box around the combat area, and if either player tried to go too far forward or run back too far in the level they would be leaving the the combat and would be warned that they are leaving the area, and for them to return to combat. This worked really well and kept the co-op players together.

When it came to getting the game to run on the consoles, we didn't have too much of a problem which was great. The only minor problems we had was using too many textures in the levels, so our memory was always way too high, so once we fixed all the texture memory issues we had all the levels running on the consoles. In terms of performance, most of the levels ran fairly well from the beginning due to constantly making sure the level designers tested their maps constantly for major performance drops. A few light optimizations here, and some occluders/portals placed there, we were good to go with the FPS.

Level 3 was originally both Level 3 and Level 3a combined, but it was a bit too big in terms of fitting it on the consoles, so we had to split it up in to two separate levels. Doing this in the end turned out to be a good choice as the scripting for Level 3a was quite complicated.

Level 3 has a pretty neat scenario, John needs to meet up other resistance members not far from their location when a helicopter comes crashing down not far from Johns location, the players objective is to now meet up with any survivors of the crash.

The player plays across a freeway area where there is cover placed in such a way that he is able to flank any enemies if he is looking for positions to go to.

When the player comes to the crash site of the helicopter there are a few survivors left, and quite a decent battle taking place. You come from behind the Terminators, who are fighting the resistance members, here it gives the player a good feeling that he has snuck up behind and caught the terminators off guard and can take them down fairly quickly.

The layout, art, scripting and optimization was done by me on this level

Level 3A introduces the player to the T600 a more primitive version of the model Arnold portrays in the movies.

The idea for this level was that the player basically had to run away from the Terminator because they don't have right weapons to fight against it.

The Terminator chases the players through many buildings until Barnes is able to make pipe bombs, the player is able to use them against the T600 in the end to take him down. The chase was a very suspenseful non-stop level where they are always on the move because they are being hunted.

I worked on the layout and the scripting for this level, then I handed it off to another level designer to do the art pass, which I then got back to do some minor optimizations.

Level 4

Level 4 is set around Pershing Square in LA.

This is the first level where the player is introduce to the skin job which is a slightly weaker version of the T600, and has a grenade launcher attached to his arm.

When I began to start creating the layout for this level, I had a good read through of the scenario document and realized it was set in LA. I had a quick scan on google earth to get a feeling for the environment and then it hit me, why don't I just use the path tools and markers to plan the level out here?

So that is exactly what I did, I proceeded to do the route planning, and roughly mark down where encounters will be. I gathered reference photos along with print screening google earth, I then quickly mocked up the level in our editor, placed in all the enemies, basic cover layouts and scripting. It was then handed off to another level designer to complete.

Level 6 is set in the Hollywood hills, the resistance needs to pass through in order to gain access to the skynet facilities. When the team arrives it is very quiet, the only thing you can really hear is ambient battle noises from far away combat. As the player starts the level they notice a figure standing in the window of a house, the go in to inspect, only to be surprised by skin jobs.

When the players encounter the Terminators in this level it is a bit different to the previous levels, in such a way that it is a bit more surprising. When the Terminators are introduced in to the combat scenario they simply don't spawn, then walk around a corner, they actually smash through the walls to get to the player.

The terrain used in the level is split up in to several large chunks which was easier to portal away to help the performance. A fellow level designer created the initial layout for the level, which was then handed off to me to do the scripting, once that was done it was then handed off to another level designer to do the art pass.

Level 8 is one of the final levels, and also the hardest level in the game. It is set inside the skynet facility where the player and many other resistance members combat against skynet as they try to infiltrate the core of the facility to let off an EMP.

A lot of inspiration was gathered from photos of the movie, and old abandoned factories around the world. The biggest challenge here was to make it feel like you could relate to it being a collection of old factories, but with a good mix of a Terminator feeling from the movie. The other big thing was to convey the feeling of a full on assault against the Terminators, so there are lots of Hunter Killers flying around, background explosions, lots of troops running around in the background on walkways and so on, so it really did feel like it was a big attack.

The idea for this level was to incorporate player based events, if a player chose to go to a certain cover, then he will trigger enemies he wouldn't normally trigger, I had these placed around in various spots to give the level some variety if the player died and had to try again, he could encounter something a bit different the next time they tried again.

This level was completed a bit later in the production timeframe, so it took all the lessons learnt from the earlier levels and provided a nice progression in terms of difficulty and choice to the player. Once the layout, the bulk of the art, and scripting was done, I handed it off to another level designer to polish up the visuals in this level.