Open World Mission Design Tutorials from Assassin's Creed III

Original author: Stanislav Costiuc
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Assassin's Creed III was the game that prompted me to start a blog in which I talked about the design of its different levels. This series of posts has become quite popular in the Assassin's Creed community. Although, to be honest, I recently tried to re-read them, and it would be better for me to leave them alone. What I wrote a few years ago now makes me feel ashamed (even if from the outside it seems that there is no reason for it). On the other hand, this shame at least shows that over the years I have gained experience.

Now I will return to Assassin's Creed III again in this article regarding the entire franchise and the theme of mission design in general. I think this game is very suitable for studying the principles of design of open world levels, and not because it is perfectly implemented in the game. If you take the game as a whole, then this is not so. However, there are many positive and negative examples of missions in the open world. This means that analyzing them will allow you to draw useful conclusions that I will share with you.



0. Violating the rules is permissible if it makes sense


Before starting, I want to mention that you do not need to take each lesson as an instruction. It is quite possible not to follow them, if that makes sense from the point of view of the player. Therefore, for each principle, I will try to find an example in which it can be ignored.

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1. Let the player reach the desired point in a convenient way.


If you want a player to get from point A to point B in an open-world game, just put a marker on point B and tell him to get there (this is what creates a lot of movement opportunities in the world). This may seem obvious, especially considering that in previous Assassin's Creed games this was often used. But in Assassin's Creed III, this does not always happen.

Take, for example, the Battle of Bunker Hill mission, whose first mission is to get to Putnam. You should not only be next to a random continental soldier who will lead you to the goal. He also refuses to move until you are on a horse. If you do not fulfill these two conditions and try to get to Putnam alone, then the mission will fail and restart from the save point. This is incredibly limiting. If you need the player to follow a certain linear path, then create a classic linear environment. For example, like the Tomb levels from previous games, or in the case of Assassin's Creed III, the Treasure Map levels. For example, Fort Wolcott is a linear level, and it is very interesting.

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On the other hand, in the same mission, “Battle of Bunker Hill” (Battle of Bunker Hill) there is an example of when it makes sense to not allow the player to move along an arbitrary path. I am talking about the accumulation of British forces and their lines of fire that are between you and your victim. The British will kill you if you get too close. In my post, written several years ago, I argued the opposite - that the player MUST be able to get through these troops. But, to be honest, basically I thought so because of the desire to see the event from the E3 trailer in the game itself.

I do not think that it is technically possible, because there are too many NPCs that affect the speed of the game. Assassin's Creed: Unity with next-generation technology is okay, but Assassin's Creed III uses tricks and mirroring to display large crowds. From the point of view of logic, it is also obvious that a lone fighter fighting a whole army will perish. Even if he is an almighty assassin.

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2. NPCs must adapt to the player, not vice versa


In Assassin's Creed, it sometimes happens that you need to have a conversation with a friendly NPC to a certain point. Or just go somewhere with the NPC. And you either follow the path of the NPC, or risk failing the mission. In the general case, the player wants a marker, as in the previous paragraph, and that the accompanying player of the NPC adapt to his behavior.

An exception may be cases where a player MUST see a certain location, for example, in training at his base. Or if you need to track down a hostile NPC, then the player must adapt to the NPC to complete the task.

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3. Additional tasks must match the character. Better that they do not determine the style of play


Oh, additional assignments. In Assassin's Creed III, there are a whole bunch of them for every taste.

There are arbitrary ones that have absolutely no meaning. For example, in the mission “Conflict Looms” there is an additional task - to kill a grenadier in a jump on one of the ships. The trick is that there is still an additional task to go unnoticed. Therefore, to complete this task, you must first clear the entire ship, and then prepare for the killing in a jump. But the main task is to set fire to gunpowder and destroy all ships, so stealth and killing in a jump seem unnatural.

There are also tasks that contradict the character. In the mission “The Angry Chef”, we must quietly kill five guards (non-lethal knockouts do not count). At the same time, Connor is trying to convince an angry cook from the mission name that violence is not a solution to the problem. There is a clear contradiction. All this is complicated by the fact that in Assassin's Creed, completing additional tasks is considered to be “full synchronization”, i.e. completing missions as an ancestor did. And Connor looks like a hypocrite, claiming in cut scenes that he is against optional violence, while additional tasks in many missions are related to optional violence. And the Animus excuse “this is not necessarily a repetition of what happened” is not appropriate in this case.

There are also tasks that force the player to complete the mission in a certain way. For example, in “Battle of Bunker Hill” there is an additional task to kill a victim in a jump. The problem is that it immediately forces the player to go through the playing area in a certain way, without trying to improvise and look for his own path. And this is in a game where freedom of choice and style of play are considered important.

Of course, there are good additional tasks. For example, in the Battle of Monmouth mission during the retreat, there is a side task - to prevent the execution of patriots. This corresponds to the character - Connor would not allow the execution of his allies during the battle. This adds complexity - there is a time limit for the entire retreat and the player must have time to complete the main and secondary tasks on time. And the task does not determine the style of the game, it does not require "kill the executioners from the bow" or something like that. In fact, the player is not even obliged to kill the executioners, he can simply distract them so that the patriots can escape.

As an exception, we can give a good example of the Broken Trust mission, in which the additional task is to stop the people of the tribe in non-lethal ways. Yes, completing this assignment determines the style of the game, but it also matches the character of Connor - he would not kill his own tribesmen.

In general, I think it is best to do additional tasks with side tasks, rather than ways to complete the main task.

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4. Mission failure should not be the end


In the ideal case, one should strive to ensure that the failure of the mission would be only the death of the player. If you retired from an ally or were discovered, then the game should not stop, but change its context. If you are discovered, then you enter the battle and the situation changes (for example, the protection of your victim is enhanced). If you are far from an ally, then he is either following you, or at least standing and waiting for you.

A good example in Assassin's Creed III is the Hostile Negotiations mission. This is the kill level where you need to eliminate William Johnson. The player does not fail the mission if they discover him (however, he fails the additional task of killing Johnson unnoticed). A player does not fail a mission if Johnson sees him. In this situation, he begins to run away and the player must pursue him. Also, the mission is not failed if all local residents are killed in battle (however, an additional task will be failed).

Failure of the mission may become mandatory when a change of context is not possible. For example, if an ally is killed. Or if the detection is not acceptable from the point of view of the plot. Perhaps this is not ideal, but is understood by the player and makes sense to him.

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5. Try to use as many tools as possible in missions


Assassin's Creed III provides the player with quite a few tools, both items and abilities of assassin recruits. The problem is that most of the time missions are not designed to use these tools.

For example, assassin recruits have the opportunity to dress up in the uniform of guards and imitate imprisonment. This is a good rethinking of the possibilities of the Monk / Courtesan from previous games. The problem is that this ability, which appears in the second half of the game, is actually used only in the side mission in which you receive it. Although it can be used to capture forts, but in the main missions it has no useful use. Therefore, it is simply inactive.

An example of a mission in which there is a great use of tools is The Tea Party. In the first part of the level you need to clean the playing area from the English soldiers. Of course, you can complete the task simply by engaging in close combat, but you can also use smoke bombs and poison darts to simplify the job. Oddly enough, the Riot assassin recruit ability gained earlier in the game is inactive here. But the abilities of other Boston recruits are available, and Marksman can be used to clear the area.

The second part of the level is built to protect the playing area on ships, while the allies throw out tea. Here, the player can use assassin recruit combat abilities such as Bodyguard or Calling to kill attacking Britons. This, as far as I remember, is the only mission in the game where I used trap bombs. They can be placed strategically on boarding boards to get rid of the attacking enemy while you are fighting on the other end of the playing area.

I cannot come up with exceptions for this principle. Because it is impossible for each mission to have the opportunity to use all the tools a player has. But I think it’s worth making sure that there are enough reasons to create tools at the levels that will be used throughout the game.

There are, of course, other lessons learned from Assassin's Creed III, but they seem to be more applicable to level design in general. The above are especially important for open world missions, although now I think they can be used for level design in general. Having listed these principles, I want to give a brief overview of where in Assassin's Creed III there is a good design and examples of open-world missions, and where is bad.

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Good Mission Design Examples: Part 6


In missions of part 6 there are some miscalculations, mainly in additional tasks. But they are still a very good example of the design of open world missions.

There is “On Johnson's Trail”, the mission of which is to study Boston and carry out side tasks in the process of moving to an open guarded area with contraband cargo that needs to be destroyed. Also, you move around the game area and perform interesting tasks for you.

Then comes The Angry Chef, which is a good example of an escort and defense mission. Since the player had a lot of freedom at the previous level, a more linear approach does not interfere with the game.

There is also The Tea Party, which begins as a script for a free sweep of the playing area. Then she goes into a situation of active collision with the enemy, in which it is necessary to throw out tea boxes, while protecting the allies from attacking British soldiers. This and the previous missions give less freedom, but they still have variability and the possibility of choice in the context of tasks, which is important.

The part ends with Assassin's Creed's classic Hostile Negotiations assassination mission. You know your starting point and the location of the target, you can get to it in any way, eliminate it and escape.

The player goes through this part and gets used to it. This is exactly what Assassin's Creed is all about - a sense of plot in an open world. This part is completely interesting and this is probably my favorite part of the game.

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Examples of Poor Mission Design: Part 8


Now we will look at part 8, which I can call my most unloved of the whole game.

The first mission, Something on the Side, shows the first visit to New York, but the player cannot explore the city at all. Once you get into it, you must follow the ally along the given path (or fail the mission). Immediately after this, you need to track down the victim along the given path (or fail the mission again). Then you need to chase another victim through the city or, of course, fail the mission. After catching the victim, you do not proceed to explore the open world, but end up in jail.

This is the scene of the Prison Bridewell mission, long and boring. You need to eavesdrop on your camera, then sleep, then talk to the NPC and play a board game with him. A bunch of cases in the same place. After all these worries, you cannot even escape.

The next mission is “Public Execution”. This is a murder mission, but it consists of a linear path through the crowd, which you must first go through, then watch the cutscene, quickly pack up and run to the victim. And after completing the mission, the player teleports to a completely different place outside of New York.

This part introduces the new city, but does not allow you to explore an inch of its territory. For linear passage there is a linear passage. The player takes away all the tools and most often there is only one way to perform this or that action. In my opinion, this is an example of how you do not need to do missions in an open world.

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In conclusion, I want to say that the basic principle of the design of open-world missions, which I took from Assassin's Creed III, is to provide the player with opportunities for self-expression in the context of the mission. Ideally, the context should be as free as possible, but for variability it is possible to limit its limits and introduce additional barriers where it makes sense. At the same time, you should not completely deprive the player of the opportunity to act independently.

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