Warframe: 1999
1999 is an expansion for the long-running action game Warframe. My responsibilities included blocking out spaces, placing gameplay elements like enemy spawn points and scripted objects, handling navigation and collision, decorating using an architectural kit provided by art, and responding to feedback from leads and other departments throughout.
Joining Digital Extremes in September 2023, I was quickly brought up to speed on how the level design process worked for a procedurally generated title. Through rapid iteration on a number of smaller levels, I really felt myself grow as a designer. I think one level in particular really works as a personal benchmark: a tile named Stargla.
New Environs
Joining Warframe, I was interested to see how the team handled creating levels for a game with procedural generation. Turns out the game uses discrete chunks of levels, called “tiles”, which are joined together at specific points using portals. Only portals of the same type can join together, allowing control over which environments can join up at which location. In 1999, for example, using different portal types, we can ensure that the transition from city streets to malls to sewers and back again integrates seamlessly, no matter what tiles are used.
Because of this, there were a number of best practices I had to keep in mind: don’t let meshes extend beyond the bounds of the tile, and try to avoid placing portals too close to each other, in order to encourage players exploring the whole space.
A Stargla is Born
The level design team was further subdivided on 1999 into different types of locales- while others were focused on city streets, I and several others were assigned to make mall and subway spaces. In addition, we were provided with existing “templates” for tiles, with portals positioned at exact points.
When looking at this template, I thought about how the transition between a mall space and a subway station would look, thinking about how real-world foot traffic patterns would work here. Eventually I hit upon the idea of a station with a footbridge stretching over the tracks, and used that geometric idea as a focal point for the blockout.
Changing Tracks
While the idea of a bridge stretching over a subway platform was interesting, it lead to some problems. Despite opening up the area above, the bridge still felt too “cramped” to be on, as it made a sharp angle with enemy positions below. Additionally, coming from the subway tunnel entry, the bridge was too high to be in the player’s sightline. These issues would have caused frustration in combat, and I realized I could resolve both of them by pushing the bridge on the far side of the tile, away from the tunnel entry.
This ended up working in my favor, as tunnels were cut later on in order to reduce art scope. Because of my rework, it was easy to block off the subway track connection and add another mall portal at the far end of the tile, maintaining flow through the space.
Art Pass
Eventually, Stargla got passed on to an artist on the team, Aaron. We got on a call to talk over next steps, and what Aaron wanted to do to push the tile further. As it was, the space was a corridor with some shops on the side that bled into a mall environment. While perfectly fine, Aaron thought the space could benefit from being opened up.
The result was the environment being slightly changed into a food court, incorporating more 45 degree walls to break up the right angles that were in the space. This made a drastic difference in how the tile felt, and I’m extremely happy with how it turned out.
