I always liked the idea of running through the city's rooftops in first person. Jumping from one building to another. Wall running on billboards to cross the street up above. I used to just open games like Dying light or Mirrors Edge: Catalyst and just run around. From rooftop to rooftop, jumping across the street. This was the idea behind this level. I based upon one tutorial created the player controller with the needed moveset. The rest is the level made in Unreal Engine 4.
But before we go any further, I need to let the cat out of the bag. The level itself as a whole is unfinished. A surprise to absolutely no one, designing a whole city as a whole level to traverse was too big a project. Especially as it was mostly to pass the subject for my studies. Nonetheless, some parts of it were made. Parts of it that were made showcase a few design ideas I followed and their execution.
top down view of the level with marked zones.
The city is divided into three zones: High rises, Favelas/slums, and low/old town. The plan for each was to provide different challenges for the player. The old town was the warm-up part of the city where the player could hone their skills and learned to use their abilities. The Favels were meant to offer a more tight environment, which put more emphasis on switching/climbing between the floors of the slum. The high rises were meant to be the most open area of the game, where jumps between the buildings were daring and needed to be calculated. In the centre of high-rises, there is the tallest skyscraper of them all, and the goal of the player is to be on top of it. The map was around four square kilometres, if my memory serves me right.
The sections of the city were designed with the following player abilities: sprinting, crouching/sneaking, sliding, mantling, wall running, and climbing. The movement was inspired by Titanfall and Apex Legends. The player can wall run for a certain amount of time before they fall to the ground. They can transition from wall running to climbing, but it's quite finicky. The climbing is currently unlimited, and the player can scale unlimited heights. This led to some weird interactions with the environment, but it also gave an easy way back when testing the level.
Old town, view from the middle
There are two main completed sections of the level: The Tower and part of the old town. Let's start with the tower. The goal is located on top of it, and there are multiple ways to reach it. The first one is the slow elevator, which will take the player from the tower lobby to the top of the tower. The elevator is painfully slow and is made to be the boring option. The other option is stairs that take the player from the lobby to the top of the tower. This is the most tedious of the presented options and not the fastest. The third option, on the other hand, is the interesting one. It starts on the left wall of the tower with climbable scaffolding. This route takes the player through the tower, back outside, and continues to the top. This is one of the fastest ways to the top and the most challenging. As it requires precise control of the player character from the player. But most importantly, this way is the intended one for the player, as it is, for the most part, the most fun. Of course, with unlimited climbing, the player can also just scale the tower.
Old town, view on the accross the street
On the other side of the map, we have completed part of the old town. Which is made with freerunning in mind and instills a feeling of freedom in the player. Most of the buildings are connected to each other. Some connect with all neighboring buildings, some with only a few of them. Some require daring jumps to get to them, and some have challenges on top of them. This area was designed with all player abilities in mind. Most of the obstacles can be passed or avoided in a few ways.
the tower, viewed from the neighboring building.
Like with most of my leftover projects, I want to return to this one. I would first want to make the player controller tighter, as it can feel floaty at times. Add a grappling hook which the player can use to close gaps, swinging, but not to pull themselves to the edge. And of course, finish all of the areas of the level.
Elevator and staircase on top of the tower.
You can find the level and its runthrough, in this google drive folder.