Dawn of War III - The Wayfarers

Dawn of War III is a AAA real-time strategy game set in the Warhammer 40k universe, focusing on intense, large-scale battles, and hero characters. Control hundreds of units ranging from belligerent squads of Ork Boyz, to towering walkers like the Eldar Wraithknight. The campaign consists of 17 linear missions jumping between 3 armies while telling one cohesive story.

On this project I was a Mission Designer, overseeing 3 missions from paper plan to ship.

My tasks included:

• Creating paper designs and level layouts

• Greyboxing levels

• Scripting encounters in Lua

• Scripting objectives and dialogue

• Creating in-game cinematics and non-interactive sequences

• Collaborating with environment artists, sound designers, and gameplay designers on custom assets

• Conducting regular playtests to gather feedback and iterate on the mission

In addition to my typical Mission Design work, I also designed the Daemon boss- the only custom boss character in the game- and a handful of minion enemies to be used in the final two missions.

These tasks included:

• Designing the units, abilities, and behaviours

• Collaborating with a gameplay designer to implement the units

• Working with an AI engineer to get reliable tools to script the boss’ behaviours

• Syncing regularly with artists involved in the creation of the model and animations

The Wayfarers

This mission has the player controlling all 3 main characters from each faction as they fight the Daemon Boss and minions through a series of stages. The goal is to get to the final stage and destroy the blood altar the daemon is using to heal itself. Each encounter layers on new boss abilities and new minion units to challenge the player’s behaviour patterns. The mission culminates in a final encounter with all ability and minion types included.

Full Mission Walkthrough - No Commentary

Highlights

To break the fight up into multiple stages, the Daemon returns to the center of the level to heal at the blood altar. This also provides players with a clear goal: Destroy that altar. (VFX by Rob Hartley, model by Lee Salo, and animations by Eric Luhta)

These Dark Ronahn units fire a long range projectile, foreshadowing the Daemon's fireball ability introduced in the next encounter.

Each stage the boss is fought in was made to feel reminiscent of a Last Stand stage- a fan favourite horde mode from Dawn of War II.

The mission concludes with a final payoff moment where the boss is locked in place and our characters deal their final blows.

Challenges

Designing this mission along with the final boss posed several complex challenges, both technical and design. Being the only custom boss in the game there were systems and tools I needed to work with the engineers to create so that I could effectively script and iterate on the boss’ behaviours. Perhaps the biggest design challenge was teaching the player the daemon’s behaviours in a way they could recognize, learn, and overcome the boss in each encounter.

The solutions to this came from careful planning and iteration. There were several approaches taken:

• Each encounter features only a select few abilities, and they’re introduced gradually as the boss’ health lowers. This ensures we’re only ever teaching one new ability at a time.

• Minion enemies were intentionally designed to function similar to the boss' abilities. For example, the Ronahn unit fires a ranged projectile that can be deflected black with one of the player’s abilities. In the next encounter the boss begins throwing fireballs at the player which can also be deflected back.

• All the boss’ abilities were designed to be interrupted by the player’s abilities. The boss was also given a very clear flinch animation, so once it is recognized this skill can be applied throughout the mission.

Result

This mission involved a huge effort from so many departments and I’m proud of how it all came together. We were able to deliver a very unique experience both as a mission, and a boss battle, that closed out the campaign nicely.