Red Dead 2 Mock Level
As a student portfolio piece, I made a prototype level inspired by Red Dead 2 using a variety of asset packs, with the intention of it being a possible side mission the player could run across in the world. A little side story, just like the many others already present in the game.
The Play-Though
The level takes place out in the hills in a small cabin, where a couple and their older son are currently living. Bandits have raided them, and are likely to come back soon, and it is on the player to be a force of justice and help them out. The event can be completed in one of two ways; the player can wait for the bandits to come and defend the house from waves of attacks, or go find them in the caves and wipe them out instead.
The level prototype comes with debug commands to switch to night to commence the second stage, and uses asset packs to simulate Red Dead 2 gameplay.
The idea came from the frequent moral quandaries found in Red Dead 2. The player is often faced with choices within every event; are you going to do the right thing, and risk yourself, or do the wrong thing, for the benefit of you and your peers? This theme is apparent even early on in the game, and I wanted to make a little story that captured that. So the idea came to mind for a family living in the woods, plagued by bandits. If you help them, the father offers you some money for the trouble… but also it’s apparent that they have quite a bit more than that. After all the trouble they went though, the player has a choice; take what little reward they’re given for their effort, or extort more from the man and his family. After all, you need it more, right? Even if you’re no better than the bandits that attacked before.
Notes and corrections from later in the process of creating the level are amended to the document to the left in red, added in after having received feedback on the project.
The Concept
Blockmeshing
The overall play area in the blockmesh, contained in 100mx100m walls.
The assignment limited the level to a 100mx100m play space, and I had a couple different areas I wanted to include in the design. Before blockmeshing I created a metrics level based on actual Red Dead 2 gameplay and observations. All mechanics where implemented using a third-person shooter asset pack, as a rough approximation of the mechanics of the inspiration game.
The House
The place the player is most likely to start, standing on the top of a cliff. The family is moving all their furniture outside the house, providing cover and trying to fortify their defenses for the raid that’s likely to come that evening.
The Cliffs
The way down to where the bandits are hiding out is a precarious path, which involves crouching and walking narrow ledges to get down. Environmental assets should leave a path guiding the player down, without telling them they have to go down there, since this way of completing the side quest is optional.
The Old Mine
The bandit hideout has plenty of cover, both for the bandits to live and store their things, but also for the shootout the player is about to start. Once the player is finished clearing out the bandits, the rope lift provides a quicker path back to the house.
The Secret Tunnel
A hidden tunnel connects the basement of the house and the barn. After wiping out the bandits, the player can find the family with all their valuables in the tunnel, ready to pay up, or maybe flee.
The small cabin where the family lives.
The cliff face leading to the old mine where the bandits are hiding out.
Inside the old mine and where the player can go and fight the bandits.
The secret tunnel between the house and the barn where the player can receive their reward or exploit the family for more
Dressing the scene changed a lot. A lot of the building blockmeshes where no longer usable due to discrepancies in the metrics of the level, and the sizes of the assets I had available. Because of this, a lot of the structure of the buildings changed, though all the mechanical uses were kept intact for the most part.
Terrain was added in the surrounding area to make it feel more like a part of the world, and less like a she box floating in space, and small details were added into the game to pretty up the scene a bit and tell a story. Procedural foliage was used in parts to streamline the process, though most of the trees near the house were placed individually for specific vignettes.
The thing that probably took the most time was the caves, having to place and arrange many of the rocks by hand to make them look like a cohesive tunnel carved into the earth. I also had to edit the textures on many of the rocks as well, since some came from a more desert-themed asset pack, so they had a much more red color. After tinkering with some color overlays though, I was able to make everything match well enough to make a cohesive first pass at asset dressing the level.
Asset Dressing
With all the asset dressing in place, the cabin is at home in the hills in the woods, though the surrounding area is mostly a proxy, Theoretically it could fit in at any suitable spot in the RD2 overworld.
The cabin, in a state of disrepair, showing the family has fallen on desperate times. All the furniture has been moved outside to provide cover for the next raid.
The interior of the barn, a ram-shackle building kitbashed from a few wooden planks and roof assets.
At the bottom of the cliffs is the mouth of the old mine. Two bandits guard the entrance, just in case, but there's a small outcrop where the player can sneak up behind them.
The inside of the bandit cave after first-pass set dressing.
The interior of the house feels somewhat desolate without most of its furniture, and all that remains are the items too big to move, or too small to provide any cover.
The end of the secret tunnel has a small storage cache, with a couple crates of valuables, and even the family's safe.