Overview

On Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, I worked as one of the first 3 zombies designers on the game and developed the game from the first zombie’s map concept to shipping the last season of Black Ops 6 zombie content.

While developing Black Ops 6 zombies, I worked as a designer with many hats but mainly focusing in Quest and Narrative Design. I also worked to bring designs to life from concept to live service utilizing our in-house tools!

I had a load of fun working with my fellow devs and I’m grateful I was able to have a hand in every zombies map in Black Ops 6.

The sections below provide more information about my specific contributions - enjoy!

    • Liberty Falls

      • Bank Vault unlock Quest

    • Terminus

      • Pack-a-Punch Quest

      • Main Quest

    • The Tomb

      • Pack-a-Punch Quest

      • Wonder Weapon Quest

      • Main Quest

      • Jump Scare Easter Egg

    • Citadelle des Morts

      • Maya Side Quest

    • Reckoning

      • To Be Announced

    • Trap System Messaging

    • Bank Vault & Terminus Armory

    • Spawning Setup (Liberty Falls)

    • Door-buy Setup (Liberty Falls)

    • Economy Tuning (Liberty Falls)

    • Liberty Falls

      • Zone barricade setup

      • Aetherella Trap

      • MQ sequence ending

    • Terminus

      • Facility’s power setup

      • Maya & Nathan’s story

      • Main Quest beats and ending

    • Citadelle des Morts

      • Maya Side Quest (wrapping up her side plot line)

    • Tomb

      • Power/Aether Energy setup

      • Wonder Weapon Quest features and Sir Archibald’s Tale

      • Main Quest trials and ending

      • Jumpscare Side Quest background

    • Reckoning

      • To Be Announced

    • Liberty Falls

      • Spawning system

      • Door-buy system

      • Aetherella Trap

    • The Tomb

      • Wonder Weapon Quest

      • Wonder Weapon respawn functionality

      • Save/Load functionality for Power Quest, Wonder Weapon Quest, and Aether Lantern feature

      • Area-limited Combat Sequences that were not lock-downs

    • Reckoning

      • To Be Announced

Key Learnings

    • Liberty Falls

      • Aetherella Trap

      • Dark Aether Field Generator Trap

      • Bank Vault and Key Dropping

    • Terminus

      • Pack-a-Punch quest defend sequences

      • Nathan’s battle

      • Main Quest combat encounters

    • Citadelle des Morts

      • Maya Side Quest Vermin Hallway

      • Maya Side Quest Doppelghast Showdown

    • Tomb

      • Wonder Weapon Quest constellation combat

      • Wonder Weapon Quest final defend

      • Main Quest Evolution Trials

    • Reckoning

      • To Be Announced

    • Liberty Falls

      • Map spawning setup

      • Map door-buy/zone creation setup

    • Citadelle des Morts

      • Maya Side Quest Vermin Hallway

      • Maya Side Quest Doppelghast chamber

      • Maya Side Quest ending area

    • The Tomb

      • Custom spawning setup

      • Feature Placement

      • Combat sequence and trial location setup

    • Reckoning

      • To Be Announced

    • Finding a good balance between original ideas and scope considerations is hard - especially when you’re super passionate about an idea’s potential. Incredible designs are great but what’s even greater is getting good designs and content into the hands of our players!

    • My technical abilities improved drastically throughout this project. I came into development and learned in-house tools and scripting language in a trial-by-fire method. Not only did I end up tripling my implementation time from my first script to my last script (as well as my script being much more polished), but I also added functionality into our engine alongside engineers to streamline our tools!

    • Understanding who you are creating content for is integral in design - however, a learning I have taken from this project is that this philosophy applies internally as much as externally. Knowing when to present an idea, how to present a design pitch and when to show content for feedback

  • It’s very easy to get carried away while in the scripting zone. Learning to work on one small component at a time and ensuring the foundations all work before creating more complex functionality was something that proved to be very beneficial, especially in the AAA environment where requests and designs are consistently changing. Implementing in this method allowed for easier flexibility, faster iteration time as well as earlier playtesting time for different aspects of a design.

WARNING:

THE BELOW SECTIONS CAN BE QUITE DETAILED (wordy).

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK

Jump to a map:

Launch Map: Liberty Falls

  • System Design

  • Economy Tuning

  • Scripting

  • Quest Design

  • Feature Design

Skillsets Applied:

Overview

During the development of Liberty Falls I…

  • Designed two unique map features, designed the systemic language of the traps in Black Ops 6, and implemented the Aetherella trap.

  • Designed the Bank Vault system and the side quest to unlock it.

  • Performed the initial map setup, including setting up doorbuys and zombie spawn functionality as well as created documentation detailing the process.

  • Performed the base economy tuning throughout the map and created the spreadsheet and formulas that were then used and referenced throughout rest of the Black Ops 6 project.

See Liberty Falls Details

Details

As a part of designing and scripting traps on the first map of Black Ops 6, I also designed the trap system language including color-coding the interactions with traps with active color-blind friendly considerations.

In Liberty Falls, I designed the two traps you will find in the map and scripted the Aetherella trap:

The Dark Aether Field Generator is a generator which produces areas of aetheric damage around the emitters branching form the main generator.

Dark Aether Field Generator (DAFG)

Aetherella is a powerful anti-hero featuring in their own comic book series within the Liberty Falls world. This life-size figure in the comic shop can be utilized as a trap that shoots lasers from its eyes!

Aetherella

Economy Tuning

I designed and tuned the initial passes at economy tuning for Liberty Falls and in doing so also created the format and formulas which were applied to the rest of the maps throughout the game’s development.

Map Setup

I designed and implemented the door-buys and the spawning set up for the zombies in Liberty Falls.
Along with this, I created documentation for the door-buy and spawning set-up systems to allow for easier implementation and onboarding in future maps and projects.

I also designed the Liberty Falls Bank Vault including the quest to unlock it

This feature allows players to use a variety of keys dropped from their fallen foes to receive surprise rewards throughout their match! To unlock the bank vault players must find the combination code around the map that a crew of attempted bank robbers have cracked for us.

Hide Liberty Falls Details

Launch Map: Terminus

  • Quest Design

  • Narrative Design

  • Combat Design

Skillsets Applied

Overview

During the development of Terminus I…

  • Designed the quest to unlock pack-a-punch and power the island facility

  • Designed the Main Quest with heavy narrative design

  • Designed a mini-boss fight from intro-cinematic to end cutscene

See Terminus Details

In Terminus, I designed two of the three storyline quests: the Pack-A-Punch Quest and the Main Quest

Pack-A-Punch Quest

This quest requires players to activate 3 local power sources before allowing them to reach the Pack-A-Punch machine.

In order to activate one of the local power sources, players must start up an Aetherium Maturation Pod Generator to grow the crystal inside the AMP Generator into a bio-galvanic aetheric organism. This organism’s naturally electricity has been utilized by the scientists stationed on Terminus Island for power!

Once all 3 local power sources are online, players can then dive into the waters at the bottom of the Bio Lab to resurface the Inclinator, which got submerged during the initial outbreak chaos.

After players ride the Inclinator up out of the water, they are now able to use the Pack-A-Punch machine that resides upon the Inclinator (be careful - the Pack-A-Punch will move up and down with the Inclinator)!

Main Quest

This quest focuses on the following main story points:

  1. Rescue Maya’s brother Nathan

  2. Find Peck’s Inversion Warheads

  3. Escape Terminus Island

Once the players have obtained the map’s Wonder Weapon (the Beamsmaher) they are able to complete this main quest. There are a variety of steps utilizing the map’s unique location and history as well as including our operator’s backstories.

The video above will walk you through the gameplay. The videos below, however, will walk you through the story.

Main Quest Story Beats

Players need to work on saving Maya’s beloved brother Nathan while Peck gathers his data. Nathan is locked away in a containment unit in the Bio Lab. Players can find a 3 digit code around the map to release him

Once he is released, poor Maya is faced with a tragedy: during his time in the Terminus labs, Nathan had been being experimented upon by Janus scientists and has been turned into an Amalgam. With only part of himself still intact, his insatiable hunger drives him to try and kill our team. Maya must now fight the brother she came to save in his new form.

If players use the Maya operator, they will receive unique voice lines where Nathan tries to connect and plead with his sister, his humanity being strangled out by insatiable hunger. At the end of the battle, Maya ends Nathan’s life to spare him from the cruel fate has had been given. She swears revenge upon everyone who had a part in Nathan’s torment, including the French Syndicate that sold her brother out.

Our map’s antagonist, the evil scientist Dr. Modi finally reveals herself. After completing a few tasks around the map, Dr. Modi drives her submarine up to the main island to tell off the team. Seeing the opportunity for revenge, Patient 13, a previous employee of Modi’s who had been turned into a tentacle monster, crushed her submarine and dragged it to the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately, Patient 13 wasn’t considering the warheads Modi had attached to her submarine. The power of the warheads combined with the aetheric experimentation, turned Patient 13 into a violent and giant monster that the team has to fight in order to escape the island for good.

Now ready to escape, S.A.M. gives the team their next objective and they’re off!

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Hide Terminus Details

Season 1.5:
Citadelle des Morts

  • Quest Design

  • Narrative Design

  • Combat Design

  • Environment Design

  • Cinematic Design

  • Level Design

Skillsets Applied:

Overview:

During the development of Citadelle des Morts I…

  • Designed the secret quest that allow players to reach the conclusion of Maya’s vengeance story

  • Designed the original gameplay space for this quest encounter

  • Designed a custom combat sequence to highlight the map’s new AI

  • Designed a pitch for the quest’s end scene cinematic

  • Designed narrative for the quest’s gameplay space and AI encounter

See Citadelle des Morts Details

In our Season 1.5 zombies map Citadelle des Morts I was in charge of designing a secret quest which provided an ending to Maya’s hunt for vengeance in Black Ops 6.

In this secret quest, players hear Franco (the man who betrayed Maya’s brother and sent him to be experimented upon) hiding somewhere in the castle and frantically reaching out on a radio for one of his crew members to save him.

Maya takes this opportunity to trick Franco into opening the door to his location and makes her way into the encounter to make Franco pay.

After fighting her way through creepy Vermin and Franco’s old mate Laurent in his new Doppelghast form, Maya takes a final descent down to Franco’s hideout.

Franco, thinking his crewmate was coming rescue him, sees Maya and immediately locks himself back in his hideout. A cutscene then begins showing Maya blowing in the door and having a final confrontation with Franco.

To create this experience, I worked with Level Design to create an original play space for this encounter, including custom zombie spawning and narratively-tied details.
I championed the cinematic vision of Maya entering a creepy cramped corridor and coming face-to-face with Vermin crawling out from dark holes in the walls and ceilings - showcasing the AI’s unique movement.
I then took a beat to highlight our new AI type debuting with this map - the Doppelghast - and give a stage for the AI to display it’s dodging technique while providing an intensely engaging encounter for the player.

I then worked with the Creative team to bring the vision of the cutscene to life in which Maya and Franco’s characters are both clearly displayed. Franco - cowering and attempting to hide from his poor choices and Maya showing creatively violent solutions to her problems.

My favorite part of pitching the design of this cutscene was the image of Maya blowing open the door and standing in the doorway of fire - staring down at Franco.

Hide Citadelle des Morts Details

Season 02: The Tomb

Skillsets Applied:

  • Quest Design

  • Combat Design and Tuning

  • Economy Tuning

  • Scripting

  • Live Service

  • Onboarding Assistant

  • External Partnership Collaboration

  • UI Implementation

  • Save/Load Functionality

  • VO Implementation

  • Script and Entity Optimization

  • Obfuscation and Leak Prevention

  • Accessibility in Design Advocacy

Overview

During the development of The Tomb I…

  • Assisted in on-boarding our Vancouver team to the engine and tools used for this project

  • Worked closely with our Shanghai Activison partner studio on the development of this map from concept to live-service

  • Implemented unique UI functionality alongside the UI engineers for original player encounters

  • Scripted and de-bugged save/load functionality for the Wonder Weapon Quest, Pack-a-punch quest, and a trap feature

  • Analyzed entity optimization of all features in this map and performed script optimization on target features

  • Implemented leak prevention tactics such as hashing and obfuscation

  • Worked as live service on this map upon its release

  • Designed the quest to unlock Pack-a-punch

  • Designed the quest to build the Wonder Weapon

  • Designed the Main Quest

  • Championed accessibility within the quest designs on this map

  • Scripted the Wonder Weapon quest

  • Designed, Scripted and Tuned custom combat sequences

  • Performed Economy Tuning with special focus on combat and quest rewards

  • Implemented VO

See The Tomb Details

Details

I was the sole in-house designer on our Season 2 map The Tomb for the majority of its development and worked closely with our partner studio Shanghai Activision during this time period. As such, I wore quite a few hats on rotation for the development of this Season 2 content.
I first began on this map as a quest designer.

Quest Design

I designed all of the base mainline story quests (Pack-a-punch -> Wonder Weapon -> Main Quest) with the provided goal of making an engaging, repeatable and simple questline for our casual player demographic .

To hit the goal of a friendly casual map for players - unlocking the pack-a-punch is a straight-forward and simple process.

Players must reach the back of the creepy underground area in The Tomb where they will find a pedestal and a “Door to Nowhere”.

Upon interacting with this pedestal, the amulet that the zombies team canonically received in Citadelle de Morts (the most recently released Black Ops 6 zombies map at the point of The Tomb’s release) will float above the pedestal and be utilized as a key to unlock the portals to the Dark Aether Nexus. Once players travel through a portal to the Dark Aether Nexus, they will find the Pack-a-punch machine!

Activating these portals also restored the flow of aetheric energy from the Dark Aether Nexus throughout the rest of the map, opening features for player use.

Pack-a-punch Quest Design:

Wonder Weapon Quest:

In this quest, players must retrieve an ancient artifact by killing a special enemy, reveal and solve two puzzles by utilizing unique map features, survive the combat trials, and then defend the Wonder Weapon and charge it with the souls of the zombies trying to attack it to complete the reformation.

This quest provides some narrative background on the fabled character Sir Archibald Fotherington-Smythe and (spoiler) his untimely demise.

We utilized the map’s Aetheric Lantern feature to hide puzzles players needed to solve! The correct lantern would reveal the puzzle only if they had already retrieved Sir Archibald’s monocle.

Above is the Taurus puzzle that has not been interacted with yet

Above is the Orion puzzle that has all symbols correctly shot and is shown right before the final connections between 8 -> 10 and 2 -> 10 are revealed

Here is a clip from RoflWaffles EE Hunt stream when they first complete their second constellation sequence.

You can see the whole hunt video here

In this quest, players must complete the Trials of Evolution and reform the bridge to the final arena.

Each trial is themed after a zombie type that is part of the evolutionary chain in Black Ops 6. The trials start with the weakest/beginning form of the evolution and ends with the strongest/final evolution form.

These puzzles involve connecting symbols in a specific order to form two constellations. If you shoot an incorrect symbol three times, the lantern will be set off and the puzzle will disappear. You then need to bring the lanterns around and try again.

Above is a clip from RoflWaffles’ EE Hunt stream when they first encounter one of the puzzles. This clip shows the winstate.

You can see the whole hunt video here

Above is a clip from RoflWaffles’ EE Hunt stream when they first encounter one of the puzzles. This clip shows the fail state.

You can see the whole hunt video here

The aetheric energy from the completion of a puzzle condenses into a flying orb that leads players to a location within the constellation’s area.

A giant portal forms where the orb stops (near one of the Aetheric Lanterns in the area) and arcs of light shoot out from it onto the ground around the portal.

Above is a gif from RoflWaffles’ EE Hunt stream when they first complete a constellation puzzle.

You can see the whole hunt video here

SUPRISE!

If you followed the orb you are now surrounded by zombies spawning all around you from the ground portals. Players must now defeat 5 waves of zombies (each more difficult than the last). After each wave is defeated, the Aetheric Lantern at the orb portal location will be set off, and create a fiery Area of Denial for the rest of the challenge. The area is now in a semi-lockdown. Players are able to enter and exit the area but if all players leave the area, the combat step you are on will repeat from the last uncompleted portal and all of the fire will remain active until the challenge is completed! The combat will restart as a player enters the space.

Above is a clip from RoflWaffles EE Hunt stream when they first participate in a constellation combat sequence.

You can see the whole hunt video here

When the final portal is completed, it will disappear and the Wonder Weapon part related to that puzzle will appear. Players must complete the other puzzle and combat sequence which follows the same flow - though one puzzle and combat sequence is slightly more challenging than the other

When players have both pieces of the Wonder Weapon, they must travel into the Dark Aether Nexus and place the two parts they have gathered onto the Energizing Plinth in the center of the Nexus area.


When this happens, the two pieces will float towards each other and the final defend event will begin! Zombies will spawn from portals existing on either side of the Energizing Plinth in waves. Players must kill the specially charged zombies (indicated by a purple VFX) that are going after the Wonder Weapon. As these zombies are killed, the portals begin to shrink and the energy from these portals begin to flow through the grooves of the Energizing Plinth to the Wonder Weapon. Players must kill a certain number of these zombies to fully close the portal and provide the portals’ energy to the Wonder Weapon to reform and recharge it.

Above is a clip from RoflWaffles EE Hunt stream when they first participate in the final Staff defend.

You can see the whole hunt video here

Once that occurs, the Wonder Weapon is restored and players are able to pick it up, upgrade it and then progress to the Main Quest!

Jump Scare Side Quest:

Main Quest:

The first evolutionary form is the Vermin

Trial of Vermin

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The second evolutionary form is the Vermin

Trial of Parasites

The first evolutionary form is the Vermin

Trial of Doppelghasts

The second evolutionary form is the Vermin

Trial of Amalgams

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