Caravan

Caravan has been designed with competitive multiplayer goals in mind. It’s a multiplayer map based on Call of Duty gameplay. My objective was to design a 5v5 map for various game modes such as Search and Destroy, Domination, TDM and etc. In this post I will break down my process from the very beginning till the testing session.

This map has been made in UE4 and I used Maya for making simple models.

Refs & refs, lots of them!

A wise man once said: “Do not start your level until you have 100 references.” well I didn’t gather 100, but I’m gonna say I got enough, somewhere around 50. overall the theme and architecture is heavily inspired by the “old city of Yazd” in Iran. There were 2 things that I really liked about this city; first the density of it, which I found pretty interesting for combat purposes, secondly the verticality of structures. Here’s a sneak peek of my ref board:

2D Map

I know there are so many LDs who directly jump into 3D, but a simple 2D map helps me to analyze the layout better. I can have a better idea about the flow and playerpath when I get to see it from the top down perspective, especially in multiplayer maps where there are no scripted moments.

Map Breakdown:

There were a few points that I wanted to implement on this map:

1) Multi routes for flanking.

There are always more than 2 ways to reach each capture point. And point offers multi flanking opportunities to the player. I wanted to make sure player has enough choices when it comes to attacking or defending. Elevation changes are also play a big role here.

2) Risk & Reward for getting to vantage points.

I designed a few vantage points that accessing them is a bit of a challenge, and they are exposed from many different angles, but they offer a great line of sight to the player.

3) Several Kill Zone to separate capture points from each other.

I designed kill zones in a way that player MUST go through at least one of them to get to the capture points. The big one definitely stands out because it’s in the middle of the map and it connects everything together. But the small ones are mostly acting as danger zones. They are not skippable, but much more manageable and easier to stay safe.