007 Legends - Challenge levels

As a Level Designer on 007 Legends it was my responsibility to take ownership of four of the ten Challenge levels and develop them to a finished and polished level of quality for the final game.

The games Challenges are a selection of levels in which the player reprises the role of Bond or one of five iconic Bond characters to play through combat or stealth based scenarios. The emphasis of these levels is that they are score based and therefore intended to be replayed.

Level details: -

Bond - Auric Enterprises: Escape
Escape levels are stealth based missions, the player has no gadgets and must rely on their stealth abilities to obtain the best completion time, additional points are rewarded for stealth kills. If the alert is raised enemy reinforcements spawn in, no points are rewarded for kills on alerted enemies. Enemies drop much less ammo than normal which makes a guns blazing approach tougher. The player must contend with guard patrols, security cameras and hostile drone guns.

This Challenge see's Bond/the player attempting to exfiltrate from Auric Enterprises via the aircraft Disassembly line out to safety of the exterior.

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Oddjob - Fort Knox: Defense/Assault
In this mission the player gets to play as Oddjob during the assult of Fort Knox. As Oddjob it is the players job to first defend the laser tank from the US marines as it cuts through the entrance to Fort Knox. Next The player must take the nuclear Bomb inside fort knox and get it to the main lift, the player must defend the bomb from several ambushes along the way.

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4

Bond - Ceremonial Plaza: Defence
In this mission players take on the role of James Bond and must initiate and defend three consoles on the level from waves of enemies.

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Bond - Blofeld's Lair: Infiltration
In this mission players take on the role of James Bond and are tasked with eliminating three VIP's in the level in as fast a time as possible. The player must contend with guard patrols, security cameras and hostile drone guns. If an alert is raised all VIP's will attempt to flee to safety. The player has access to all of Bonds gadgets to help complete their mission.

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My key responsibilities for these levels were:

  • Designing stealth and combat specific level designs for high-score focused gameplay modes
  • Working within the strict limitations imposed by re-purposing singleplayer level art for use as a base for new gameplay designs
  • Communicating with the singleplayer designers changes to layouts that would benefit the Challenge levels
  • Providing feedback and design insight to help hone the designs of the Challenges gameplay modes
  • Triggering/scripting combat and stealth encounters using in-house tools and LUA scripts
  • Creating first pass animations using in-house tools, scripting with LUA and building nav meshes with Maya
  • Working closely with multiple disciplines and departments to develop and implement assets and functionality for use in my levels
  • Working closely with other Designers and the Producers to ensure design consistency across my and the rest of the Challenge levels
  • Production and maintenance of level walk through documentation
  • Mentoring and guiding less experienced designers with their Challenge levels and the tools
  • Maintenance, balancing, tweaking, optimizing and bug fixing of levels

Disclaimer: All of these levels already had general layouts, it was my task to repurpose singleplayer art for use in the Challenge levels, with that in mind, I do not claim that the original art layouts are of my own design, other designers/artists designed these.