I was given a design brief to create a large and open environment based on a rural area in Russia. It was to be an industrial complex refitted to create munitions and other military assets for the war effort. The focus point was to be the hydro electrical dam

Initially I was asked to make it so the dam was playable, but due to game play constraints it was not possible. So i decided to make the bottom of the dam and its water flow gates playable instead. It would allow much better flow to other areas of the map without forcing the players through a large interior area (due to the Real Time Strategy nature of the game, interiors were to be completely avoided unless you wanted to create an area where the commander couldn't place structures). Also due to a dam essentially being a giant wall, it wasn't really possible to make it the central focus point with game play on all sides, so i decided to make it a looming figure and a reference point that you will see from any point in the map. Instead the central point was a complex that looked innocent at the above ground level, but housed underneath an advanced munitions factory.

After these considerations in the design, I started to block the level out. I wanted a symmetrical design to keep things balanced between the two teams, but due to the unique design of each teams structures and weapons, I had to make some heavy changes along the way to cater for this.

There are three main capture points on each level, two secondary points, one at the dam and one at the airfield, and a primary point in the center of the map. The primary point being the most important, i didn't want the commander to be able to place structures inside and defend with turrets. So I made it a completely interior section with very little line of sight to the outside areas. This forces each team to defend the point with only infantry, and allows the point to change hands often.

The secondary points I designed so that it was near on impossible for a commander to be able to focus a defense of both simultaneously, so would have to choose one to focus on and fully fortify before turning his attention on to the other

The final outcome of this design in the released game in public hands turned out very much as designed without any unforeseen consequences

Artistically, the map went through many changes. I wanted it to look as if the Consortium had completely carpet bombed the area, but the Empire were able to deploy countermeasures. So the surrounding area is completely obliterated but the munitions facility its self is completely undamaged. After the evacuation from the Consortium attack, the train lines and the airfield was destroyed so the facility was never returned to. This has allowed nature to do what it does best and the facility has heavy undergrowth

Initially the map was going to be a sunny early morning setting. But Nuclear Dawn already had two sunny maps set in Dubai and Al Jaber, as well as the Tokyo map being quite bright. So i decided to give the map a more gloomy feel to it. Eventually I made it a dark, rainy day with thunder and lightning. The dark setting also posed its own problems as it needs to be bright enough to allow players to clearly see each other. Because of this, it went through so many iterations

The buildings in the level art wise were pretty easy to nail down due to an abundance of reference material from online image archives and a variety of other games such as Stalker, so a russian industrial theme wasn't too difficult. The hard part was incorporating all the individual elements in the level to one cohesive look. Having a train station and tracks close to an airfield that are both close to the munitions warehouse. And a dam looming over all three of these.

If was sometimes a struggle to incorporate all these, especially the central munitions factory, to allow for good game play as well as believable art. Concepts were very scarce so it fell to me to do everything.

The video to the right you can see a timeline of most of the areas coming together. Click here for the HD version (Download)