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ROLE
Designer
DESCRIPTION
A Battle Royale map built in Unreal Editor for Fortnite. This map is designed based on design principles of the official battle royale mode for Fortnite.
YEAR
2023-2024
GENRE
3rd Person Shooter
PLATFORM
Unreal Editor for Fortnite
Ares Isle
Playable Now
Island Code: 6873-0370-6987
Design Process
Research and Rough Design
I started with research, spending hours in Fortnite, both in the official game map and in UEFN studying the layouts of various available prefabricated buildings available in the engine. I worked out some general design rules that I found the game follows such as when a room can be allowed to be a dead end, how many exits a room should have for its size as well as how larger internal rooms are designed to provide cover but still leave openings.
I then set out to design a rough layout of the entire BR island, marking out important points of interest, roads, and rough changes in elevation.
Expirementation and Pivot
With the initial design set, I began constructing the first point of interest location, the small town at the center. The construction of this area gave me a chance to cut my teeth on the new system. As expected the workflow and layout were similar to that of the standard Unreal engine making it a very comfortable and familiar experience. This first POI constructed helped me develop a sense of scale for the map and served as a marker to help spread out the POIs with the level streaming system to help with memory management.
However, as I began constructing the first 3 POIs of the town, the Oil Platform and the Bunker I came to realize that the 3 to 4 month deadline I had set for myself was not achievable, and thus I pivoted to a smaller and more refined design. I reduced the number of POIs from 12 to 7, preserving some of my more favored ideas such as the bunker complex, lodge, factories, and military base and coming up with a few new ones such as the airfield and farm. I also refined some of the open areas between POIs with more detailed makings of elevation changes and small cabins and mini POIs for hiding chests.
Layouts
With the full island layout set, I created 2D diagrams of the buildings for the POIs. The grid tile system of construction used in Fortnite made keeping to scale rather easy, simply laying out the buildings with a half inch square representing one tile.
At this stage I only marked out major architectual points such as walls, entry and exit ways, balconies, staircases, and very large assets the size of an in game grid tile. Things like furniture and other decorative pieces and smaller cover points I prefer to do in engine as its easier to see the potential field of fire in engine.
Full Construction
With the new design finalized, I completed construction.
I constructed the major POIs first, making sure they were optimally spaced to maximize the amount of level streaming memory available for each.
Some landscaping was done during this stage to establish the desired elevations for each POI and to ensure the underground sections were also fully contained below the landscape mesh and needed openings in the landscape mesh cut out for tunnel access and the Bunker Hangar which is half contained within the side of the landscape mesh.
Note: some buildings used in this level are prefabricated designs by Epic Games. However, these buildings were mainly used for simpler buildings such as hangers and the occssional cabin where you can't really be too creative from a design standpoint, or such as the lighthouse which has assets that can only logically be assembled in one way.
I then moved to completing landscaping and the roads. After connecting all the POIs by roads, I moved to placing trees, rocks, and other assets to fill in the areas between POIs to provide cover. I utilized changes in elevation on many areas to create breaks in line of sight in what were originally flat areas in order to preserve memory rather than using large numbers of rock assets.
Finally, I placed in devices such as ziplines, chests, vehicle spawners and the storm controller system for gameplay functionallity.
Blocker and Fresh Perspective
Frustratingly during production I ran into an impassable blocker. Due to a glitch in the UEFN editor system I was unable to build Hierarchy Level of Detail for the map to save processing memory to the point I could fit everything in. I was thus forced to set the project aside for a number of monthes before returning after the issue had been resolved.
This time away from the level however, provided me time to further study the design principles of Fortnite's Battle Royale map. This combined with a fresh view of the map after time away lead me to see several design flaws I had to address both aesthetic and functional.
The most glaring issue I found was certain area were left too empty with not enough cover, especially in the areas between POIs. Even in places that already had rocks and trees still felt too open which I attributed to the fact I had left the terrain too flat. As such I not only added additional decorative assets but added various changes in elevations such as foot hills and pits to the terrain, allowing the terrain itself to provide cover for players without the need to consume more memory.
Major Design Principles
Through research collected from articles on battle royale design and conclusions reached from my own studies of battle royale maps.
Rural vs Urban
Any good battle royale map design has to understand the idea of rural areas vs urban. Urban areas mainly being POIs with concentrations of buildings with a variety of assets and rural areas being the open areas with more limited asset variety, mainly trees, rocks used to fill in the area between POIs. Optimally a battle royale map should be at minimum 70% rural and no more than 30% urban and or dense POIs.
Risk Reward Choice
Choice is always an important part of a battle royale, specifically the choice of what risks to take.
Risk reward points are points with a potential to get a loot reward, but require the player to put themselves in danger to claim said reward. The best examples of this would be dead end rooms with chests in them for players to be cornered in, or groups of chests placed in an open location with little cover making players easy to pick off.
Always Have Choices in Any Situation
One of the most important principles of designing a battle royale map much like in the design of any shooter game, is to ensure the player always has choice in a combat situation. Players should always have the option to at least engage or escape. A general rule of thumb is that no room should have at least 2 entrances or exits be they doors or traversable windows.
However, there are certain circumstances when a dead end is permitted, such as a room with a chest where a player must choose whether or not to risk putting themselves in a trap and potentially be ambushed for loot or move on in safety.
The grid tile construction of Fortnite led to my development of a rule of thumb for how many access points a room should have.
A single tile room only needs 1 entry if there is a chest inside, otherwise it needs two.
A room consisting of at least 2 tiles needs 2 doors or traversable windows.
A room with 4 or more tiles needs at least 3 doors.
Needs of different player types
A battle royale map should be fun for most if not all types of players including but not limited to:
1. Snipers: players that like long range combat. these players need places with long lines of sight and preferably high places. That being said, these open sniper kill zones still need adaequate amounts of cover for the potential targets to hide behind to give them a fighting chance. However, such optimal sniper perches should also make a sniper somewhat exposed so they can't camp with immpunity.
2. Mid-range fighters: players that like to fight at mid-range with rifles. These players need a certain amount of cover to hide behind and jump between in fire fights. Cover does need a certain amount of distance so players need to expose themselves to attack to move. I find a span requiring at least 2 seconds to traverse out in the open is sufficient.
3. Close range skirmishers: these players require tight quarters for fighting with shotguns and SMGs. These players thrive in interior buildings in points of interest. These engagments tend to have a little less use for cover jumping, rather a central obstacle for competing players to circle.
4. Hiders: these players favor stealth, preferring out of the way places to hide out and avoid combat all together. These players need plenty of hiding places to wait out matches. These hiding places should still have a good escape route if players need to run.
4. Ambushers: these players, like Hiders, like to use stealth, but still seek to engage other players rather than avoiding them. Ambushers thrive on risk reward points such as exposed areas with multiple chests where players must expose themselves to collect their prize and potentially be picked off, or dead end rooms like closests and bathrooms with chests that an Ambusher can corner them in.
5. Explorers: these are the players that just want to run around and check out the environment. These players need cool looking POIs and cool hidden little spots and secret passages to find.
Points of Interest
Simple Square
The Simple Square is designed around a central open space with multiple buildings to hide in and provide close quarters fighting spaces.
Buildings of interest:
The diner: a rustic little diner built on the first floor of a building, with two large apartment spaces above it.
The grocery store: the grocery store is designed using a large central space of the shopping floor, broken up by numerous shelves to break lines of sight and a smaller storage area space with an additional catwalk and roof access.
The Bookstore: the bookstore is designed as a smaller more compact version of the twin parallel balcony design with a split level staircase in the back. This building gives a player entering from the front door plenty of paths to choose, either taking cover under the balconies or charging up the stairs.
Bombastic Bunker
Bombastic Bunker is the POI I find to be my favorite in the map. The area is constructed almost entirely underground aside from the hangar that juts out of the side of a cliff in the canyon. This area is a haven for close quarters combat players, with tight coridors connecting various major rooms.
The bunker is split into 5 main areas:
The Control Room: a large room with multiple computer consoles that can be used as cover.
The Operation Section: this section is broken into three main rooms. The generator room built around the central power generator with additional raised catwalks for vertical combat, the warehouse with a little maze of storage containers for close quarters cat and mouse, and the garage where players can find multiple vehicles including a tank along with a tunnel leading out into the rest of the map.
The Silo: The Silo is built around vertical combat. The rocket serving as the focal point of the room is surrounded by various catwalks spiralling from the bottom all the way to the top. This room also has a porta-potty teleporter that connects to another outside the bunker on the above mountain where the silo hatch is.
The Living Quarters: all the basic needs to survive in a bunker, cafeteria, bunks, gym, living space, and a medical center. This area consists mainly of tight room and coridors for close quarters wrapping around a larger communal living space. The shooting range is a major risk reward challenge as multiple chests are placed down range, but going to get them risks the player becoming a duck in a shooting gallery.
The Hangar: My favorite part of the bunker. The hangar juts out of the side of a cliff providing a perfect launch point for a biplane. It consists of three main levels. The main hangar with access to the outside. The maintenance area inspired by the layout of an aircraft carrier, sits below the main hangar and can be accessed either by stairs or by jumping down the plane lift shaft. Finally, the control tower raises high above with a zipline onto the nearby mountain for easy escape.
Able Airfield
Able Airfield came about after I reached the conclusion that all of the very powerful vehicles such as the tank, helicopter, and biplane all needed to have at least two in the world to help balance the game. Thus the airfield became the place I put the second biplane.
I wanted a simple small town airfield feel to this POI, and kept it rather minimal, three hangars, a helipad, and a main terminal with tower. Inspiration for the interior of the terminal actually came from the 90s sitcom Wings using the layout of the terminal set in the show for ideas, such as the lunch counter, upper balcony and the attached hangar behind the ticket counter.
Friendly Farm
Friendly Farms aims for a simple rustic design.
The farmhouse provides a compact close quarters environment with access to an underground root cellar.
The barn provides a more open interior with vertical combat though its multiple loft spaces.
The rest of the farm is a mostly open area with assorted cover and hay stacks to hide in.
FOB Nite
FOB Nite is your basic military forward operating base. The buildings aren't particularly large, providing more compact interiors working off of the minimalist designs of modular components of rapid construction of forward military facilities. As such, the buildings all have blocky construction like quonset huts.
The outdoor areas provide ample opportunities for long range combat with the high towers making for excellent sniper perches.
Fallen Factories
Fallen Factories is designed to have heavier urban industrial feel. Unlike other POIs the buildings here are much larger with bigger open interiors with multilevel catwalks.
Lavish Lodge
Lavish Lodge is built around the idea of a forest lodge compound. The lodge itself is built around a few central large rooms with multiple balcony levels. Other buildings include the camp store and the bunk house.
