Unannounced Survival Game - Systems Leadership - Crafting, Building, Tech Tree, Combat
Blizzard’s take on survival, AAA and mass market. Cancelled 2024.
I served for two years, primarily as lead system designer, but in the final 6 months of the project, also as the combat design lead, driving survival systems, itemization, tech tree, FPS weapon development and tuning, and power progression.
In my first year I oversaw all building and crafting systems, ultimately accountable for multiple cross-disciplinary strike teams through senior staff that reported to me as I coached them on how to run things with my preferred process, delivering quality, predictable results in a timely manner with minimal thrash and good clarity of direction for the team, while keeping regular check ins with our game directors to ensure their criteria are met or exceeded, and surface decision points to them as quickly and clearly as possible.
In many ways, my childhood dream job. I made lifelong friends and learned vital lessons.
Wikipedia has a good round up of stories, some of which are even true.
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Summary of Work:
Drove story mapping for key milestone deliverables and oversaw progress towards target milestone experiences, overseeing multiple cross-disc strike teams to deliver key components focused on combat, systems, and survival-specific mechanics
Managed 6 total direct reports, mentored and successfully promoted one into a lead role
Built hiring/interview/evaluation process for the system design team & did all hiring.
Product owner for survival mechanics for 2y, for crafting and progression for 1.5y, building for 1y, combat for 6 months.
Delivered specific crafting technical designs, showcased good patterns for sustainable game data management to influence engine development.