Dev Diary, 6/28 - California, And Campos Modifications - Dev Diaries

Hello Survivors!

Our lead level designer on California wanted to take some time and share some insight into the design and development process for the upcoming map.

From the start, we knew we wanted to make something that not only significantly dwarfed Colorado, but offered a wider variety of environments for survivors to explore. Since California is such a unique state, with so many beautiful cities, we wanted to create locales inspired by some of its more recognizable locations, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, and Lake Tahoe.

The first thing we had to tackle was planning out the terrain layout for the map, and where we wanted to place our key cities. Since creating a 1 to 1 copy of California wasn’t an option, we mapped out a condensed version of the state on paper, highlighting key geographical features (the San Francisco bay, or the Salton Sea for example). From there, we go over each of our key locations, and start planning out new buildings, road and freeway kits, landmark objects, and other assets to build out these locations.

Check out this example of just the thought that went into the SoCal assets - we're being as thorough as possible:

Once the asset list was finalized, we got started on drawing out the actual layouts for the individual cities, while the art team got cracking on making all the new assets (of which there are over 400!!). This is so we know where we want a mall, a residential neighborhood, and skyscrapers so we can quickly implement all of the new assets once they’re available.

In the meantime, we put together “whitebox” versions of the cities. These are essentially placeholders so we can prototype out the cities while art works on the final versions of the assets. They’re busy on pumping out everything from entirely new texture sets for buildings and terrain, all the way down to the little detail objects that really help sell a convincing zombie infested world.

Once all of this comes together, we will move on to refining the layouts of the cities and adding in the finer details. It’s a long process, but it’s a whole lot of fun, and we’re excited to show you what we’ve been working on in the near future!

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Additionally, I've been doing some gameplay optimizations to Campos, to make it a more attractive destination. Not only has loot been improved across the board, but we've opened up a lot of new areas.

I remembered the days of the roof glitches, and what that did to gameplay. While it was a bug, it brought up an interesting point - rooftop access definitely changes gameplay with the addition of multiple levels of engagement. Theres no cover, but you definitely have an advantage...its risk vs reward, a common theme we love to explore.

So I took some time to expand Campos, increasing gameplay options, as well as fleshing out some other areas, especially the 5 story apartment building. I miss the days of PvP in there, its got so much potential - so you'll see a lot more life in there.

Some screens of the improvements are below, but I purposefully didn't highlight a few, leaving you to find them yourselves Not to worry, all changes are pretty cosmetic, and shouldn't affect lockboxes. So check out Campos - come for the loot, stay for the fights!