Hell & High water
- Game : Unreal Tournament 4
- Genre : Capture the Flag
- Context : Level Design assignment, Bellecour Ecole
Hell & High Water is an Unreal Tournament 4 Map I designed during my 2nd year.It is a map tailored for fast-paced and nervous Capture the Flag matches. Its size allow the players to go straight into the action.
The three floors catter to differents playstyles :
- Make your way to the top and clear the path with the grenade launcher.
- Stay on the main floor, engage on close quarter combat with the shotgun and minigun.
- Venture into the underground and play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the enemy team.
- The water holds the most deadly weapons, try to stay alive while you get there.
Overall, playtesters judged the map quite balanced despite the chaos that unfolded seconds after the match’s beginning. Moving between floors, switching quickly between attack and defense and laying your hands on the right weapons are the keys to victory.
Map Progression
The original idea was an open map, composed of three floors and some platforms on the sides of the map.
Main Floor
- Made for close to mid-range combat
- Features both close and open areas
- Features many accesses to the lower and upper floors
- Main battlegrounds but huge chokepoint
- Hitscan and short range projectile weapons spawn here
High Floor
- Made of close to mid to long range combat
- Very open
- Overlooks the main floor
- Hitscan weapons spawn here
Lower Floor
- Made for close to mid-range combat
- Features many pieces of cover to give chase
- Features many accesses from the main floor
- Useful for flank but can be easily denied due to choked accesses
- Home to projectile weapons
Power ups are stranded on platforms. To access them is dangerous as the player is very vulnerable.
Changes
- I first had to close the map and leave out the power-ups platforms entirely
- I elongated the map a little for the players not to spawn in the midle of the brawl and have a safe spawning zone before entering the battle
- The sniper rifle was useless on the upper floor. I replaced it with a grenade launcher which is more potent on this map
- I added covers. So many of them : the main floor and the upper floor were wide open and the map was already small enough
- Power-ups are now located in the water pool on the lower floor. Can you grab the rocket launcher and the quad damage then get out quickly enough to use them ?
