Competetive map

Level Design

1/9

Summary

This is a competitive first-person shooter map designed to be played in a 5v5 environment where attackers need to kill the defenders or plant the bomb and let it explode while the defenders need to defend the sites or defuse the bomb to stop the attackers. Once the players spawn in they will have time to run around where they want within the glass wall boundaries and buy weapons for the coming round. Once the time ticks out the round will start, and the walls will disintegrate and open the map up.

Specifications:

Created in Unreal Engine 4.26
Created in 4-Weeks (4hrs/day)
Assets Used:
- Low Poly Shooter Pack - Free Sample
- Blockout Tools Plugin

The Idea

The idea for the map came from the fact that I personally really like to play games like CSGO and Valorant and have always been amazed at the level design of the maps in them, such as how most of the game's angles are all 90 degrees so that the player has an easier time to line up a shot, yet the maps never feel stale or boring. So, I wanted to make a level of my own and to use the experience I have gotten from playing the games and my education of level design together.

Level Overview

The level uses the glass walls to stop the teams from running into each other before the rounds start so that the attackers can plan their attacks where they are, and the defenders can get into positions that they want to hold. This makes it easier for the player to buy guns that suit what type of angles they will be put into, so they can buy a shotgun if they are going to be close range or rifles and snipers if they will go for longer ranges.

A Site:

This site has one main entrance for the attackers, that then splits into the site and one path to a higher elevation that could lead to a height advantage over the site. For the defenders they could hold from the high ground to try to catch to attackers when they are not ready or defend from the site itself where they have both the house-like structure where the bomb can be planted or walls with holes in them.

B Site:

This is an open site where there are rooms that the attackers can sneak into, or the defenders can use to hide in when waiting for the attackers to come. The plant area has two main places where the attackers have cover, however both of them are in corners so if they decide to plant there it will be a hard spot to get out of.

Middle:

Middle is understandably the middle of the map, and it is the main connector between the two sites. I wanted to design it to be a big part of the map so both teams need to fight for control over it to have a big advantage which is why it connects quick paths to and from the sites.

The process

I started the process of making the level by making a Photopea file where I made 4 layers where each layer was A, B, CT and T because those are the standard for CSGO. Afterwards I started to draw paths between these different points. I made two different versions of these drawings and asked for feedback from some of my friends who also have played Valorant and CSGO as well as my fellow Level Design students and teachers. After the feedback I decided to make some changes and chose one of them to start blocking out.

As I started to use the shooter asset pack, I found the targets which I used in this level to show angels and where you could meet an enemy and how it would look for the player. While making the level I started to add in more elevation as well as change some paths, but all the while making these changes I jumped in and tested the angels so that they would work. Once the ground and walls were in place, I got feedback from the other students in my class and made changes based on it.

Reflections

I am happy about the map that I made, and I liked the amount of feedback that I got during the process of making it and how it changed the original design. One of the problems I ran into while making the level was that playtesting was going to be difficult since it’s a multiplayer map, however I think that the target dummies function as a suitable replacement. If I would have had more time for the project I would have tried to make it in Hammer, CSGO’s own editor, to be able to play it in the game to get even better feedback.