ELLIE TSAMOULI
Overview
IRONFALL : POINT ZERO
Ironfall is a third-person PvPvE extraction shooter focused on player-driven encounters and systemic gameplay. The experience combines action and exploration, encouraging players to navigate space, timing, and enemy pressure through stealth, combat, or repositioning. Working against or with each other is a layer of PvP that this map is looking to support.
Main Characteristics
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Gameplay framework & player intent
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System and encounter design
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Spatial rules & level planning
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Zone-based layout and flow
Goals
Before opening the engine, I established a number of design goals that would guide the project throughout development:
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Create spaces that support multiple approaches and player agency.
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Teach mechanics through level design rather than tutorials.
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Encourage risk-versus-reward decision making.
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Use environmental storytelling to communicate the world.
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Build scalable workflows suitable for larger environments.
Content
*This is an active development blog. New updates are added every Sunday as the project evolves. Sections shown in dark gray are still being explored and will be updated soon.
Pre-Production
1. Defining the Pillars
The first and most important step was figuring out what kind of experience it would be.
I began by defining the core gameplay loop, player motivations, encounter types, and the relationship between PvE and PvP. This was incredibly helpful at the later stage of identifying the types of locations the world would require and the role each space would play within the player journey.
2. Defining the Locations
The map is divided into a series of interconnected zones, each designed with a specific gameplay purpose in mind. Rather than serving purely as visual landmarks, every location introduces a new layer of challenges, reinforces previous observations, or increases the level of difficulty and player decision-making.
The player spawns in a relatively safe area before progressing through increasingly hostile environments, culminating in the crash site where previously acquainted mechanics come together in a final high-pressure encounter. This structure helps guide pacing, player learning, and progression while ensuring that each location contributes to the overall player experience.
After defining the locations, it was time to construct the 2D map. I focused on placing these interconnected areas in a way that supported traversal while leaving enough space between them for players to familiarize themselves with their surroundings, gather information, loot, and potentially form alliances or weaken each other.
Once the map was established, I moved into Unreal Engine and created a high-level blockout by sculpting rough terrain shapes based on the 2D layout. I also divided the world into named areas to make communication and progress tracking easier throughout development. Finally, I identified the tools, blockout assets, and prototypes that would be needed to efficiently build and communicate the intended player experience.
3. Crafting the Map
Building The World
With the pre-production complete, I moved into Unreal Engine to begin translating the documentation into a playable space. At this stage, the focus wasn't visual quality but establishing scale, readability, traversal, and landmarks that would support the intended player experience. The goal was to create a strong foundation that could be iterated on as mechanics and encounters evolved.
1. The Spawning Area / Forest:
Design Intent
Introduce the world and teach core mechanics in a low-pressure environment.
Key Decisions
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Dense forest creates small decision spaces.
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Fewer patrols allow players to gather resources.
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Watchtower adds to environmental storytelling, informing the players of what's ahead and introduces the idea that human made spaces have more resources.
*These images are from the first iteration of the area. As development continues details will change based on testing, observation and gameplay needs.
2. First Indoors Access / Factory
Design Intent
Introduce indoor spaces while using elevation to gradually reveal the wider world, helping players build a mental map. Human-made structures consistently offer greater resources, but their value comes with increased risk, as they naturally attract both hostile machines and other scavengers.
Key Decisions
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Positioned the factory on higher ground to naturally reward progression with a wider view of the map.
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Teach players that indoors spaces have more resources.
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Used the interior as a transition space between close-quarters exploration and large-scale navigation.
3. The Divider / River
Design Intent
Use a natural landmark to clearly communicate and prepare players for an increase in challenge.
Key Decisions
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Reinforced progression by separating the initial area and more hostile regions.
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Created a clear visual landmark that helps players build a mental map.
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Increased anticipation before players commit to crossing into more dangerous territory.
4. The First Choke Point / Bridge
Design Intent
Introduce the first high-risk decision point, where players must decide whether to engage, avoid conflict, or carefully scout before progressing deeper into the world.
Key Decisions
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Designed the bridge as the first natural choke point to increase encounter potential.
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Used a narrow crossing to create tension and encourage deliberate movement.
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Introduced the first meaningful pressure from both enemy patrols and other players.
5. The Boarders / Mountains
Design Intent
Guide players naturally toward the playable space while preserving the feeling of an open, explorable world.
Key Decisions
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Use mountains as natural world boundaries.
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Avoid invisible walls and hard gates.
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Guide exploration through terrain design.
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Reinforce immersion with environmental cues.
6. The PvP Hud / Industrial Ruins
Design Intent
Create the map's primary PvP hotspot by concentrating valuable resources in a high-risk environment, encouraging player-driven conflict before the final Omnibot encounter.
Key Decisions
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Concentrate high-value resources.
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Reward risk with stronger progression.
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Encourage player-driven conflict.
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Maintain PvE as environmental pressure.
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Support multiple combat approaches.
7. The Boss / Crash Site
Design Intent
Create the highest-pressure area of the map, where PvP and PvE overlap to test the player's decision-making and mastery of previously learned mechanics.
Key Decisions
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Combine PvP and PvE pressure.
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Arena-style encounter space.
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Multiple tactical approaches.
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Reward movement and positioning.
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Culminate the player journey.
PCG Development & Workflow
PCG As A Blockout Tool
Blocking out large outdoor spaces takes a lot of iteration. An idea that seems great on paper might simply not work once it's in-engine. That's where PCG workflows really shine. They give world designers a fast and scalable way to prototype, iterate, and communicate ideas.
You might ask, "Isn't your role centered around gameplay and world building?" Absolutely—but having tools that let me quickly test layouts, visualize ideas, and adapt to feedback is just as important. The faster I can iterate, the more time I can spend improving the player experience instead of manually placing thousands of assets.
This is quite a large map, and if this were part of a bigger studio production, these workflows would also act as a shared language between designers, making ideas easier to communicate and iterate on across the team.
Characteristics & Use
To keep the workflow scalable and readable, I created three distinct forest archetypes:
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Old Pine defines the map boundaries.
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Young Pine dominates the main biome and traversal routes.
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Hornbeam naturally appears around wetter terrain.
Rather than manually placing vegetation, I combined PCG Volumes with Landscape Layer Painting, allowing me to paint biomes directly onto the landscape while keeping the system modular and easy to iterate on.
To support rapid prototyping, I exposed parameters such as density and height variation, enabling quick adjustments without modifying the graph itself.
Developing ATLAS
During my time on Equinox: Homecoming, I was introduced to an internal tool that automated repetitive level design tasks and significantly improved the team's workflow. Inspired by that experience, I decided to develop my own version tailored to the specific needs of our project and the day-to-day workflow of level designers.
Since gameplay systems and production features often take priority, quality-of-life tools for level designers can naturally end up lower on the backlog. I wanted to help bridge that gap by creating a tool that removed repetitive setup and made iteration faster for the design team.
ATLAS is a one-click utility that automates common level design workflows. It currently includes two core features: a Level Loader, allowing designers to instantly load frequently used maps, and Quick PCG Graph Access, providing direct access to the PCG graphs used most throughout production. These were the two most repetitive actions in my daily workflow, and reducing them to a single click has already saved me approximately three hours of manual work.
ATLAS in a few words:
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Reduces a repetitive multi-step workflow to a single click.
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Improves iteration speed and streamlined the level design pipeline.
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Eliminates repetitive setup, allowing designers to spend more time designing and less time navigating tools.
Functionality so far
Level Loader
This is the simplest feature of ATLAS, but also one of the most frequently used. Instead of searching through a large Content Browser every time a level needs to be opened, designers can load commonly used levels with a single click, making it an easy way to jump straight into work.
Quick Access
Following the same philosophy, this section is designed to provide one-click access to the assets and tools used most frequently throughout the development process. At the moment, that means quick access to our PCG graphs, as they are a core part of my daily workflow. While each search may only take a minute or two, removing those repetitive interruptions allows me to spend that time iterating on level designs, improving Blueprints, and focusing on the work that adds the most value.
Future Implementations
Enemy Setup
One of the next areas I'd like to explore is streamlining enemy setup. Encounter creation is a repetitive part of the level design process, and reducing the amount of manual setup would prototyping, iterating, and rebalancing encounters much more efficiently.
Teleport Bookmark
A bookmarking system for quickly teleporting between key locations in the level. This would make it easier to compare before-and-after iterations, revisit important gameplay spaces, and navigate large maps during development and playtesting.
Adding Assets to Quick Access
A favorites panel for commonly used level design assets. During blockouts, for example, I could instantly access tools such as my spline wall blueprint or indoor modular kit without repeatedly searching through the Content Browser, helping maintain design flow and reduce unnecessary context switching.