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MEDAL OF HONOR: ABOVE & BEYOND

ENGINE: Unreal Engine 4

GENRE: Action / Adventure / VR

DEV ROLE: Mission Designer

(2019-2020)

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 OVERVIEW 

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is an action-packed, immersive VR experience set in World War II, where you step into the boots of an agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in war-torn Europe. A deep single-player campaign bursting with authentic detail takes you through historic events on land, air, and sea, sabotaging Nazi bases, subverting enemy plans, aiding the French Resistance, and partaking in the biggest moments of the war.

Overview

The Team and my role

I entered this project as a Mission Designer and helped the team ship this game in December 2020. I joined the team led and mentored by Chris Dionne - it was a thrilling experience getting to work on missions and levels pitched & built by Alexa Kim and Andrew Clayton.

The levels were built and art-ready when I joined the team. I was responsible for gameplay scripting - fun combat, main story moments, chase sequences, and action setpieces. Worked on several multiplayer maps and multiplayer components to create a fun MP experience.

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This game won an Academy Award and I proudly say I was a part of the team that made it. 

Duties
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RECRUITMENT & DOCTOR'S CHECK UP (02:30)

Gameplay

GAMEPLAY HIGHLIGHTS & COMMENTARY

  • Scripted the opening act of the game - players join the OSS!

  • Players are led to a "Doctor's examination" which is an onboarding experience for players to choose a variety of VR settings for a smooth gameplay experience

  • With limited time and resources, I had to make a fun gamified tutorialization confined to one room. So I collaborated with the game director to bring this experience to life with our very own Dr. Thatch.

THE MOTLEY CREW (10:48, 19:30)

  • Scripted and maintained "Ollie's Age" and "Secret Base"

  • These two segments are heavy on narrative and have minimal gameplay 

  • I had to use our in-house systems and integrate the moments to match our director's vision - which involved iterating on on-rail segments, and other background scenes to make the scenery and the narrative moments dynamic and lively

BLOWING UP A TRAIN! (30:00)

  • In this mission, I was responsible for integrating all the story moments and scripting gameplay, and my fav - punching a traitor in the face

  • Collaborated with several disciplines to deliver a polished action setpiece - blowing up a train!

  • Set up combat where players feel supported by their companion, Manon, and also made her feel badass via by making her use the environment via some scripted AI pathing trickery

  • Scripted a miniboss fight and designed the fight around using the Panzerfaust

STEALING WEAPONS ON A STOLEN TRUCK (01:45)

  • Improv Scripted several moments in the drive-in to make it lively 

  • The truck chase - an on-rails segment - was an interesting design challenge, it's hard to hit a small target like the AI when you're in constant motion in VR

  • Adding some bigger targets - exploding barrels - added to the player choice for some environmental destruction and complemented the spectacle of this high-speed chase - an explosive way to get out of the base!

RESCUING A FRIEND & BLOWING UP TWO TRAINS!! (14:50)

  • An ambitious mission set on a moving train and has a cinematic flair, this was the most fun mission to work on.

  • Scripted all the combat throughout the train - had to creatively improvise squad reactions as several of them were cut due to time constraints

  • Collaborated and scripted on the ambitious Stuka fight - created flight paths and attack waves for a fun, tension-filled experience

  • Scripted all the narrative moments - including the one where you blow up two trains!!

COVERT OPS BOAT CHASE & BLOWING UP SEAPLANES! (04:00)

  • I jumped in to shape up this high-speed chase sequence towards the end of development. 

  • Just like the truck chase, the design challenge here was to payoff the use of mounted weapons to destroy constantly moving targets at very high speeds

  • Pathing the enemy boats alongside and closer to the player's restricted side of the PT boat, making them weave between bigger ships, and adding a dash of seaplanes diving dangerously close to the players made the chase fun, and cinematic.

JANITOR SHENANIGANS (16:30)

  • A mission all about lurking around enemy territory disguised as a janitor, and recreating some iconic moment for the older MOH games

  • Scripted the combat, narrative moments, and several background scenes to make the submarine base look lively and lived in.

  • An encounter inspired by Half-Life 2's "Pick up that can" moment set in this mission evoked strong emotions among players an worked very well in VR

SWIMMING AMONGST THE BIG FISH (18:00)

  • This claustrophobic mission takes place in a destroyed U-boat and the players have to get out of it and swim their way up.

  • The challenge was to make the swim up to the surface engaging and filled with tension.

  • I ended up working with our VFX artists to add fake floating bodies and added some circling sharks to amp up the tension

  • This small mission again evoked strong emotional response of fear from the players and worked very well in VR

DEFENDING THE TEAM! (09:30)

  • After a fatal air crash, the crew of the B-17 bomber is injured and players have to protect the crew. Scripted all the narrative moments in the aftermath of the crash and the end of the mission. 

  • I scripted waves of enemies flowing in from multiple parts of the map and gave the players an...Arsenal...of weapons to choose and approach combat in their own play style

  • Originally had trucks driving in to deploy troops but had to refactor due to performance issues (it was super fun to blow them up)

CAUSING A "SMALL DISTRACTION" (25:14)

  • This mission is all about wrecking a V1 missile and launching it to cause some mayhem

  • The level is set in a launch testing area and had to be pretty open. I designed multiple paths and POIs to give the player different choices to take their own path to reach the objective and support different play styles.

  • Once players reached the objective and looked back - I wanted them to experience the mayhem they had caused - conveyed through fire, destroyed truck and destroyed barrel piles - wreckage from combat

  • Scripted combat and all the narrative moments, set pieces

CONSEQUENCES OF THE "SMALL DISTRACTION" (34:20)

  • In this mission, players are fighting through a warehouse filled with thick gas as a consequence of their actions from the previous mission

  • I worked with VFX artists and sound designers to sell the experience of toxic smoke filling up the facility and scripted several skits throughout the level to sell the experience

  • Also, juiced up the level with some smoke explosions close to players to sell the mayhem

  • Scripted combat, rocket launch, and Dr. Gonek's narrative beats 

DR. GRONEK'S BADASSERY (08:05)

  • A character, Dr. Gronek plays an important role in taking players to their objectives while surrounded by enemies  - in a non-lethal way

  • Scripted those moments with Gronek and scripted interesting combat before and after those moments

  • I diversified the combat with ground forces deployed by trucks when players were at high ground and close-quarters combat with enemies on the high ground

  • Scripted all the narrative moments and set-piece sequences to build a strong emotional connection with Dr. Gronek

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