Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores
Side Quest - In His Wake
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Pitch for the concept of the side quest - The requirements were to pitch a side quest that would include a humanoid bandit camp. What was presented was the idea of a prison break of Quen tribe members with the twist that certain members of said tribe are brainwashed and still believe in the cause of the cult.
Created the Quest flow - From concept to release, the idea was to start with investigating what happened, following clues to find the camp location. Once arriving at the camp Aloy would have to enter a circular combat arena on multiple levels, inspired by Dredd and the Raid
Scripting - Scripted every aspect of the quest from beginning to end including quest flow, Enemy AI scripting, Friendly AI scripting, etc
Drove the production of the Quest - Worked together with Art, narrative, cinematics and technical design to have all the differnt elements come together in a timely manner and work within the time and budget constraints, as well as make sure other teams achieved their own goals
Work breakdown
Level Design blockouts
Quest Setup and flow
Scripting
Cinematic implementation and tweaking
Interior map creation
Design documents for the quest and interactive objects
Activity - Cauldron Theta
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Designed Cauldron Theta from pitch to release - With Burning Shores featuring the Bilegut as a new machine, I pitched a Cauldron that had succumbed to the tectonic shifts in burning shores, wherin the machine had made it its home. a few key pillars followed the development of the cauldron
A descent into hell - As players proceed into the Cauldron, more and more lava is present,
You have entered into a Machine’s home - The Bilegut knows you’re there, and is watching from the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike
Created the Quest flow - From concept to release, Designed to have two puzzle rooms that used the canister drone and floating platform drone. I also made sure that the pacing was good, creating surprising moments, a gradual increase in tension and stakes, There were also a few scenes I was intent on that had to be communicated well with various parties
The Bilegut watching from afar - at various points the Bilegut is seen watching the player, and each occurrence made his appearance more obvious. One was watching from a hole above, the other was seeing him jumping across the player. In both instances these moments had to be clearly communicated with the environment artist
The egg room - Due to the nature of the stingspawns and the eggs they come out of, I was intent to have an homage to the Alien franchise by having a room filled with such eggs that the player needs to navigate carefully or risk getting swarmed
The core entrance - Due to the lava flow in the cauldron, I was keen to make sure there was a moment where the player would need to take a leap of faith into the final boss arena.
The fake completion leading to the final confrontation - I wanted to create an interesting moment when reaching the core, every indication showing that they player would be completing the Cauldron, only for the Bilegut to stomp onto the core to initiate the fight. I was intent that This should transition seemlessinto an in game cutscene and out again.
Scripting - Scripted every aspect of the quest from beginning to end including quest flow, Enemy AI scripting, Events, etc.
Drove the production of the Quest -Regularly coordinated with Environment art, lighting, writing, tech design to ensure the work needed for the Cauldron were understood and work stayed on track
Work breakdown
Level Design blockouts, combat space level design, puzzle level design
Quest Setup and flow
Scripting for the entire level
In game cinematic tweaking based on tech design work
Interior map creation
Design documents for the quest and interactive objects (Floating platform and Canister Drone)
Miscellaneous Work
Easter Eggs
Air-rifle Targets (Aloy’s theme)
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Pitched, Designed and implemented the Santa Monica Pier Airrifle target easter egg
A locked chest is present on Santa Monica Pier next to air rifle targets. Players must hit the targets in the right sequence to play Aloy’s theme, which subsequently unlocks the chest
Coordinated with audio and writing in its creation
This was one of my favorite game development successes as the beauty of the easter egg lies solely with the writing and audio team for putting so much care and emotion into what I believe to be a very simple easter egg!
Toy Bow
Pitched and coordinated the creation of the Toy Bow weapon
Beyond the pitch and discussing with different teams to see its viability, I didn’t have much else to do with it! I’m just glad others believed in it and pushed to make it happen!
The pitch was simple “What if you could have a bow that does 1 damage?“. The reasoning is that it would create a lot of excitement and engagement online due to its nature.
Eventually it was tied to the Make-A-Wish guest Leyla, and it was featured in her room within the game.