Hello again, We continue #Blocktober with another section weve shown off previously, the Xen cave. This part shows up after last weeks arch island, and exists in the same badlands biome. The goal was to call back to the original Half-Life, where water and life collected more on the interior of the Xenian land formations.

Concepts

The initial concept by Xen Lead Chris Horn was to have a bridge, built by the scientists in order to cross the dangerous water. The bridge would mysteriously have a section missing and the player would need to long jump the gap in order to proceed.

The Blockout

We planned on having islands throughout the cave that the player could explore optionally. This would create a risk vs reward scenario as the player would have to jump over water that MAY (OR MAY NOT) contain Ichthyosaurs.
An initial subdivide of the blockout geometry with sculpt changes to help shape the caves look.

Feedback

After we added the bridge from the initial concept, we ultimately decided that while it may have looked cool, it lead to the whole cave section being a simple straight shot which provided minimal gameplay. There was little chance that the player would fall into the water and it didnt encourage exploration, due to how direct the player path was.
From there, we changed the plan. Working as much as possible with our existing geometry, we forced the player to long jump between platforms, added more obvious resources for the player to find through exploration, and made the path to the exit much more indirect. This lets the player take in more of the environment and makes them feel like they are progressing through a challenging environment, instead of simply following a line.
This was a paint over of the existing environment by Project Lead Adam Engels, designed to help convey the intended new look and feel. The Level Designers did a great job of building new gameplay out of the shape we had already created. A great example of creativity through constraint.

Iteration

Things start to come together here with better lighting, some stalactite placement, and underwater foliage props.
Throughout the process, we iterated on the shape of the cave to feel more natural and support gameplay. You can see in the image below (brightened for visual clarity) that we lowered the ceiling and the height of the outcroppings on the left and right of the players view.

Dialing In

By identifying problems and addressing them in iterative passes, we were able to utilize more of the environment, improve/maximise gameplay, and still keep optional risk vs reward sections in the playspace. This is a design process that we have followed throughout the entirety of Xen. After these revisions, we handed the scene to Level Designer/Artist Spencer Rose to push it up to the quality of something that was worthy of a public screen shot. He further sculpted the displacements, propagated the cave with assets made by the art team, and used lighting to guide the player through the scene; for instance, making the hole in the ceiling stand out with lighting and volumetric rays (which subliminaly point to the cave exit). He also tweaked the water to look more alien and unique. The new water added some much needed contrast to the environment.
We hope this was an insightful peek into our design process. More to come for #Blocktober!