Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
About the game
Discover a new breed of Action-RPG game powered by an enhanced version of the Source Engine by Valve.
Set in the Might & Magic universe, players will experience ferocious combat in a dark and immersive fantasy environment.
Swords, Stealth, Sorcery. Choose your way to kill.
Release date: 25 October 2006
Platforms: PC
Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Ubisoft
Engine: Source Engine
My role
I joined more or less one year before the end of the production, so I didn't start any level from scratch but either reworked or iterated on the design of multiple levels.
I took over the level design for 3 chapters, representing about ten separate levels, working on the layout in collaboration with Level Artists and also handling the scripting for these missions.
This included chapter 3: Dead Man's Trail, the first half of chapter 7: Fire in the Blood and chapter 8: The House of Ashes.
More info about my work
Chapter 3: Dead Man's Trail started with a
chase mostly happening on the city rooftops, which was quite different from the classic gameplay of the game.
It then continues with the
infiltration of the Necromancer's outpost, offering a more open playground.
A playthrough recorded by a player:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM1_GKT8dhU
For
Chapter 7: Fire in the Blood, it was initially two different missions which we had to mix together quite late in the production.
You start this mission waking up
without any equipment, but with a
new demonic power. Going through the Orcs territory, you also encounter a
Cyclop, and we put a lot of effort into this encounter, having various interaction between the creature and the environment both to surprise players and offer some cool tools to fight against it using physics-based objects for example.
I worked on the first half of the mission and on the very end of it, but the rest was designed by someone else in the team.
A playthrough recorded by a player:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2A95aB-E74
Chapter 8: The House of Ashes takes the player to the
Necromancer's Lair, a massive and creepy complex full of challenging enemies.
This mission also included a boss fight againt a
giant spider in its underground cave.
A playthrough recorded by a player:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObNvSKbvECs
For all these levels, my work included working on the layout in collaboration with a Level Artist, placing enemies and their patrols so that it's fun and challenging both for combat and stealth playstyles.
I also did the scripting, specific physic setups configuration to create traps for example, adding secret areas, loot placement, etc...