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High Concept"Dead Before Daylight" is the Challenge released for Week 11 of our DLC for Days Gone. The player could choose to play as any of the main characters from the game, and equip rings and patches that gave them bonuses in the challenges. For this challenge, the player had to survive for 5 minutes inside a building under constant threat of the horde. To get a higher score, they had to complete 4 sub-objectives.
Roles & Responsibilities
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Design Challenges
For Dead Before Daylight, I was tasked with creating a timed horde encounter inside a building, which was a huge challenge going in. Everyone on the team knew the horde was super overwhelming if you're inside a building, so I was excited to find a way to make it work! My first few passes were as you'd expect, either too easy or too difficult. I looked at what made the horde difficult to fight indoors, and the main issue was maneuverability. It was extremely punishing if you messed up and couldn't get away from them, so I worked with other departments to set up special doors in the house and explosives that would allow the player to delay them long enough to prepare and fight back.
Location
We also had a few different locations in the game world that we were looking at for it, but the lodge by Tucker's Camp seemed the best choice. The verticality made things really fun and interesting, and people naturally wanted to move upwards and run through it. And as someone who loves horror, the visual of the horde approaching in the foggy parking lot was also a lot of fun to set up. The building also had a lot of doors, windows, and vault edges that allowed them to quickly escape if they got overwhelmed.
Crafting
Ammo and crafting item placement and availability was also important. I looked at the main recipes I expected players to use and made sure to put all the necessary items throughout the building: Molotov's, Napalm Molotov's, attractor bombs, medkits and cocktails. It was especially easy to get cornered in a side room, so I made sure there were always supplies to help them out if they did get cornered for a moment.
Horde
Even with the special barricaded doors, maneuverability, and crafting resources, there was still the issue of the horde's numbers. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to a place where it wasn't impossible to survive 5 minutes in the building. I ended up going with more of a wave system where I spawned a number of Swarmers and they were scripted to join the horde when they spawned, so I could control the numbers a lot easier. I could also control the direction they entered the building through as well. Which was also important to keeping the player always moving and not holed up in one room the whole time.
Location
We also had a few different locations in the game world that we were looking at for it, but the lodge by Tucker's Camp seemed the best choice. The verticality made things really fun and interesting, and people naturally wanted to move upwards and run through it. And as someone who loves horror, the visual of the horde approaching in the foggy parking lot was also a lot of fun to set up. The building also had a lot of doors, windows, and vault edges that allowed them to quickly escape if they got overwhelmed.
Crafting
Ammo and crafting item placement and availability was also important. I looked at the main recipes I expected players to use and made sure to put all the necessary items throughout the building: Molotov's, Napalm Molotov's, attractor bombs, medkits and cocktails. It was especially easy to get cornered in a side room, so I made sure there were always supplies to help them out if they did get cornered for a moment.
Horde
Even with the special barricaded doors, maneuverability, and crafting resources, there was still the issue of the horde's numbers. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to a place where it wasn't impossible to survive 5 minutes in the building. I ended up going with more of a wave system where I spawned a number of Swarmers and they were scripted to join the horde when they spawned, so I could control the numbers a lot easier. I could also control the direction they entered the building through as well. Which was also important to keeping the player always moving and not holed up in one room the whole time.
Sub-Objectivesxplodable - 50 Explosive kills
This one is pretty straightforward, they just had to kill 50 Swarmers with explosives, which included the ones scattered around the building (and Molotov's). I felt that the relatively easy 50 explosive kills allowed them to focus on the harder objectives, but was also fun and actively fed into the gameplay loop of running around the building and killing tons of Swarmers. Obliterate - 100 Growler kills Once players found the Growler on the 3rd floor, it was pretty easy to get 100 kills with it, as long as they had plenty of attractor bombs and healing items if things got too intense up there. I also had to determine how much ammo to give it that would be challenging for the objective but still fun, since it couldn't be reloaded. Homebody - Survive 5 minutes inside the building This objective was the hardest to tune, as it relied on the number of Swarmers being balanced enough to be difficult but not overwhelming. Something important with all of my objectives was that I wanted all of them to benefit the overarching objective, which is surviving the horde for 5 minutes inside a building. I think this one added a lot to the tension of the Challenge, knowing going outside for even a second would ruin your Gold Run. Alert - 50 kills with Focus active This one similarly was created to feed into the gameplay loop of fighting off Swarmers and surviving, but also crafting. It also felt pretty cool to use Focus Mode as the Swarmers were bursting through the door, so I wanted to make sure the players got to experience that. |
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