Janitorial Services — Far Cry 5 Arcade Map

For this project I utilized beatmaps inspired by research of stealth levels from other games. The Overall Pacing beatmap establishes 2 primary encounters. The first introduces and practices the core skill themes of stealth, and the main encounter tests them.

The second beatmap represents an expected playthrough of the main encounter. This allows for a granular guide of what enemies and players are able to see and do at certain points to plan out the level layout.

I gathered references to inform the layout and architecture for this underground lab facility. Labs generally have windows to the hallways which lends itself to interesting sight lines and stealth options.

The main encounter area kept this ontop of having more of a warehouse aesthetic

With the pacing and references defined I drew multiple rough layouts for the main encounter area before settling on this one. I kept in mind that the level would change drastically so I kept things on paper and rather simple, but it helped envision the general layout, encounters, and lanes the player could take.

The idea of players moving around a bend to reveal the main encounter area, a primary initial vantage point to scout out enemies and targets, and multiple lanes in the main encounter area would be pillars that the level would be iterated around once white-boxing began.

This was the longest stage of the project and began with primitives from the FC5 Arcade Editor’s kit. The layout of the main encounter saw drastic change from the paper outline.

Enemy zones and animation points were studied to see how patrol paths could be created. Playtests resulted in many iterations of the player expected paths, enemy patrols and placements, weapon types, and vantage points. Things like the vehicle driving section were cut due to time constraints.

The gameplay changed from pure stealth to allow for an evolution of stealth to guns blazing, if the player wishes.

Once the gameplay was tested and set in stone I did art and multiple lighting passes over the level. I added assets to provide narrative contextualization for the setting. Lights provided mood and were used to guide players to locations and items of interest, such as the central bridge in the main encounter area, or the throwing knives at the beginning.