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The Context
The Leviathan Hollow is a small dungeon in the open world of Shatterscarp, the desert region of Avowed. Long ago, a huge aquatic creature died and was fossilized in the rock, which is now inhabited by xaurips, a very territorial, lizard-like race.
In its early implementation, it was much simpler with a small hard-load into a recycled cave, but we received playtest feedback that swimming through the open mouth of a creature and finding a small cave was very underwhelming, so I was given the chance to dramatically increase the scale of it and place it as an external point of interest.
I was also very pleased when after it was (allegedly) finished, this area was chosen as the location for our first gameplay deep dive for Avowed, basically the first public look at our game and gameplay. Which meant that we were also completing this section of the game before virtually anything else in the game.
Throughout that grueling process, I was able to collaborate with pretty much every department. The quest went through even more iteration, adding ending reactivity and tightening up the writing. It also included working with other departments to workshop full character animation, integrating voice acting, and at least a couple dozen combat encounter iterations and working with the gameplay team to test a new enemy archetype system and refining a whole suite of lizard enemies.
The Development and the Quest
This core image, of swimming through the Leviathan's mouth was the only piece that remained completely intact through all iterations.
I hit some pretty early snags, and got really stuck on the design and I ended up having to ask for another week to do the blockout. What eventually helped me through that was talking to my lead through the whole flow and bouncing ideas around (which I should've done a lot earlier) and focusing on the key aspects: exploring the skeleton, and learning the story of the people who died here (more on that below).
While doing the blockout, I was also developing the quest with Katie Tenney--what eventually became a story about a group of overzealous weekend warrior types who are trying to clean out a nest of xaurips, but quickly get in over their heads.
The story also gradually developed into a story of cowardice and betrayal, with the leader of the squad abandoning his mates at the first sight of danger, who were then all slaughtered. So the player would hear an initial version of the story from the cowardly leader, and then the rest of the story is pieced together by finding the bodies of each squadmate, culminating in finding another survivor on their death bed.
For the interior, I was inspired by Mexican cenote, sinkholes filled with water. I also added some underwater gameplay for extra exploration.
Site of the first squadmate's body. The player can sneak up behind this xaurip by taking an alternate route, but when the fight breaks out, a second wave of ranged enemies spawns on the balconies above so that the player has to deal with both waves at once.
The next two bodies can be found non-linearly.
This room was built anciently, and served as a ritual or prayer site. Now it is overgrown with mushrooms, and is the resting place of squadmate B, who died while fleeing and was able to prop himself against this table and died awaiting rescue.
This spot was the campsite of this squad, who fought off a few measly xaurips before proclaiming their mission a success. Little did they know that the rest of the xaurip party would soon return. The overturned table served as a temporary shield before the crewmates were scattered. A pair of xaurips celebrates their victory at the opening of the cave, which can be seen when the player approaches from the road.
To find the other surviving member of the squad, the player must fight a large group of xaurips. These cliffs serve as the xaurip's main living space.
We were very loose with the idea of the skeleton's limbs, choosing coolness over complete accuracy or believability. Here the player can cross this bridge and then up the creature's leg to reach the boss fight and the survivor.
I carefully crafted this encounter space to create a really interesting flow, with a main arena at the bottom, but with ranged units up on the bridge, and a ramp on the left. I'm very pleased with how the AI handles it, with companions often fighting on the bridge or ramp while the player is fighting xaurips on the bottom, which makes for a really cinematic experience.
The survivor sheds more light on how they were abandoned by their leader. He was originally going to be sitting down, but due to technical constraints with our animation and conversation system, he had to remain standing.
This arena is elevated, meaning the player has to be careful not to dodge over the edge and fall to their death, which adds a fun challenge to this encounter, but is also mostly a cooldown fight.
I was also really glad we could keep the idea of the huge creature's spine being visible behind this section.
I was overall really pleased with our work here, thanks to the amazing team.
Writer
- Katie Tenney
Environment Artists
- Peter Wano
- Seth May