SCALE

Bigger is not always better. Before you design a map with 5 separate large combat areas, you need to realize the value of a tighter environment. There are two aspects of scale here: literal size of map, and gameplay space.

Literal scale first. We made core gameplay tradeoffs to get the enemies big on your screen (slower movement speed, weapon effectiveness over distance, etc) to avoid shooting at 4 pixel tall enemies from a half mile away. You should take this into account with your map and keep combat reasonably close. Gears is simply not designed for sniping at enemies on the other side of a desert its fun in some games, but its not likely to be fun in Gears regardless of your preferences. Keep the combat distances at ranges close enough that an enemy may be a threat if they decide to charge in, but far enough away that you should be able to stop a charging chainsaw monkey before he could reach you. You should ideally be able to see hit impacts on an enemy clearly from one cover area to another.

Then theres gameplay space. Your players need to be playing in the same map and not branched off doing their own thing. A parking garage might be an example of too much gameplay space. Players may technically be close as theyre engaging each other, but you dont want to have to search 5 floors for an enemy to shoot, especially when most gametypes have dead players spectating, watching you hunt for the last enemy. Pick a single primary combat region, and if theres an outlying area of your map that isnt relevant to whats going on in that central area, consider deleting it youre probably only fragmenting your combat instead of trying to get everyone involved in one common experience.

You want all your players to be relevant to each other, you want them close enough to influence the action, and you dont want players running an extended side mission to get a grenade you cleverly placed 3 blocks away.

Almost all of our maps had a central combat area measuring around 4000 unreal units wide. Some maps, such as RavenDown used a much tighter scale to give the map a unique feel, but such a deviation will dominate the design of your play area.

APPROACH

While it might not seem that important to the bulk of the combat in a map, the initial approach to a map from the spawn area has three effects on the map as a whole.

Of primary importance is having a line of visibility to areas enemies are likely to enter the map from. Even though this view is far enough away that combat is probably ineffective, its incredibly useful to be able to tell Hey, 3 guys went high, 1 guys going for the Boomshot! Its like seeing the play unfold that the enemy team is calling and allows you to adjust your tactics for the round.

The initial approach can establish a good deal of the feel of the map and offer potential path choices to the teams. Players will generally take this opportunity to take a few shots at the opposing team if they can see them, and even though its not going to kill anyone from so far out, it greatly enhances the feeling of drama as the round opens and everyone is roadie running forward under distant fire.

It also serves as a nice breather between rounds. If you were the last one to die in the previous round, youll probably appreciate the 3-5 seconds to collect your thoughts and think about what to try next while youre running into the next fight.

Most of our maps start with a lengthy area for roadie running until enemies are encountered. Maps like Gridlock, WarMachine, and Depot have such long view distances that they reward the observant players who can see which direction the enemies scatter to once they leave the spawn areas.

GIMMICKS AND HOOKS

How will people remember your map? You want people to play it again, so what makes your map stand out from others? You need a hook, a theme, a gimmick, something identifiable to players.

This doesnt have to be a heavy-handed overriding visual element such as a map on the extended hand of a giant monkey statue. Nor does the gimmick have to dominate the gameplay of the map. People arent likely to enjoy running around a dense minefield. The layout and gameplay need to stand on their own merit, but the hook gives the map something to cling on to.

This could be a central visual landmark such as a series of arches stretching across the map, or perhaps its really windy and some debris rolls by periodically amongst the audio cues for wind gusts, or maybe it is a gameplay gimmick such as a ticking bomb in the center of the map.

Whatever youve done to tie your map into the players consciousness, bring that into the name of the map as well. MP-Guordiosa, or MP-Dianima, or MP-Twjfslaek those dont mean anything. The may be neat and remind you of your first dog or your favorite D&D character, but to the players who download maps and try to keep them organized in their heads they mean nothing and earn you no love. That map name is prime advertising real estate. Make sure it sells your level, provides useful info, and is simple and memorable. No one ever says lets play that Gears map with the big mansion in it what was that called?

The giant train passing through the TrainStation map is a great example of a gimmick that doesnt dominate the gameplay and yet gives the map a unique and memorable quality. ClockTower, while in theory getting its name from the structure in the center of the map, didnt prove as memorable as it could have been. In retrospect it wasnt likely players would be looking upward to notice the structure.

VISUAL CLUTTER

Unreal Tournament 2003 was when we first started to really pay attention to visual clutter issues. We wanted super detailed environments, but we werent careful about what we wished for... in no time we realized the difficulty in perceiving enemies or other important gameplay elements against intricate backgrounds. With Gears we started finding a balance, but it's almost entirely up to the judgement and restraint of the level designer to facilitate this. It's very easy to go overboard on mesh details in your world; you have to resist that urge. It's getting to the point where you can place as much meshwork as you want in a map for free; but what you're not suffering from on performance, you're paying for in playability. Here are some general tips.

-Use clearly different textures to contrast floor surfaces and walls, so a player can see a "floor plan" as they look around. Ideally cover should be textured to contrast as well.

-Use depth fog to help clarify the level's depth complexity (even an unlit level can be navigated with fog alone).

-Normal mapped simple flat surfaces still look fantastic. It's OK for a wall to just be a wall sometimes. Every surface doesn't have to be slathered in pipes, rubble, or random visual noise.

-Use lighting to guide players through your map. When you have an area with a specific exit like a door or arch, move to the far side of the room, squint at the screen and ask yourself if you can tell where the exit is. If the screen is a grey sea of muddy noise, use a contrasting light source in the exit to catch the player's eye. Contrary to that, if something catches your eye that isn't an exit or important feature, tone it back so as not to misdirect the player.

-When actively editing your map, place dummy character models around the map to use as a scale reference as well as a guide to see how the characters "pop" in your areas, and see how the light is affecting them. Place character-only lights in areas where enemies could use more clarity.

-Be careful with overly stylized post-processing settings. While they do a fantastic job of tying your scene together and uniting it visually, they can create a real challenge for the player as they try to distinguish friend from foe.

-Again, avoid placing any ancillary meshwork that might be confused as "fuzzy cover".