Unannounced UE5 Open World Co-op Sim

About

This is my most recent professional work which is yet to be announced, so bear with me while I vaguely explain what I can and what my part has been in its development so far.

The game is being made in Unreal Engine 5 and has the player take on the role of a REDACTED while they maintain and explore a large, open world ALSO REDACTED alone or with friends in cooperative multiplayer. It features a wide range of gameplay systems and tools, and falls into the AA category.

My Contributions

I have been working on this project for over a year now. As a Games Designer I have undertaken many responsibilities including the following:

  • Researching various topics to influence the designs of relevant features, the most complex of which is animal behaviour to be simplified for animal AI systems.
  • Writing a large majority of the Game Design Document to a high standard, as well as maintaining the GDD’s space in Confluence.
  • Ownership over designs for the World Map, Tool Systems, Animal Systems, Progression Systems, GUI and Input Designs.
  • Chairing project-wide meetings to discuss complex systems and how to implement their designs with department leads.
  • Running a daily stand-up meeting for nine team members, including production, audio, narrative and GUI designers.
  • Regular meetings to discuss and iterate on designs with other departments.
  • Addressing and responding to publisher feedback when necessary.
  • Managing Jira tasks, creating and assigning them for myself and others to assist with production and planning.
  • Ensuring PlayStation TRCs are upheld at the design stage to minimise future Certification issues.

Tool Familiarity

While working on this project I have also gained a lot of experience with a variety of professional tools including:

  • Unreal Engine 5
  • Perforce
  • Confluence
  • Jira
  • Houdini