For MW3, I mainly worked on the opening mission 'Operation 627'. It was Sledgehammer Melbourne's primary responsibility for the campaign, and we took it from scratch to ship in a little over 13 months. Often cited as the best level in the campaign, I'm very proud of what we accomplished.
THE PROCESS
1. PITCH
The designers started work on Operation 627 in Miro, pitching ideas that could be stitched together to make a full level. We'd then present these to the directors, get feedback for what could work or might be a bridge too far, and go back refining our pitches until we had a few core promising ideas everyone was excited about.
2. PROTOTYPE
We then went about prototyping our ideas in engine. It's easy enough to get excited about a concept on paper, but of course it needs to work in game. This is the funnest part of the job, having a wild idea and trying all the ways to get it to work. It's amazing how many awesome prototypes we had that didn't make the cut. My particular favourite was a labour of love; an assault across the prison rooftop with many options open to the player, and drone strikes available to blow up towers and trucks to clear pathways. It didn't end up working out with final level flow but it was fun to create and figure out how it all worked together.
3. PRODUCTION
Once we had our proven winners, it was time to get serious. We had our deadlines, we had our level beats, and now we needed to execute. This is where teamwork really comes into play. In the early stages of development the designers can test of ideas quickly and roughly, but ofcourse to make an awesome COD level, everyone needs to be aligned, and supporting each others work to raise.
As a designer, you are usually the vision holder for the desired player experience, and need to coordinate and align other specialties to deliver cohesive, memorable, fun gameplay. I was constantly working with ai engineers, lighting artists, environment artists, animators etc, to bring all of our hard work together to make the best level we could possibly make in the time we had.
4. POLISH
Call of Duty campaign levels are famous for their polish. While the campaigns don't typically run that long, can't say they don't look amazing, or play extremely smoothly. The quality bar at Sledgehammer / Activision is high, and we spent months on little touches to make the level just that little bit better, until it finally shipped as it is today. I don't know how many times I've played through the level, would be in the hundreds. Each time making notes on Ai behavior that may have seemed off, timing of a particular event we could improve, or to give the player better cover options in a firefight, etc. We all wanted it to be the best level it could be, to start the campaign with a bang, and considering how well Operation 627 has been received by players, I think it's a tremendous success.
