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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

1 player
Action Adventure Open World RPG and Stealth game
 
Worked on the game from January 2018 to August 2020
(2 years and 8 months)

My specialty is to make what we call ''exotic'' gameplay, meaning that I was able to use the existing tools to make new and original gameplay that you see nowhere else in the game. I also helped develop some major development tools by gathering feedback from myself and peers, then working with Technical Directors and Programmers to create them and make the life of all Quest Designers easier. Many of those tools are still used to this day.

Being a Quest Designer, I was at the center of everything, so despite not having the word ''Lead'' in my title,  I had to work with multiple departments like Programmers, Writers, Animators, FX artists, Concept Artists, World Designers to share my vision and work hand in hand to achieve the result that was wanted by my superiors and myself. I was also very efficient, so I often inherited a lot of quests and world events from colleagues who were in difficulty, to help them lessen their workload.

 

Hordafylke Territory :

This territory was my main mandate, which is the ending of the game in Norway.

- Main Quest "Where Legends Are Born"

The main challenge with this quest was to make branching dialogue that includes some choices you made in the beginning of the game. Before leaving for England, you could steal or leave the resources of your adoptive father. You also had an invisible counter for the different dialogue choices in that scene, which determines if Sigurd has a bad or neutral outcome with his father.




- Main Quest "A Brother's Keeper"

The quest was the biggest quest in the game in terms of logic. I had to take a paragraph written by the Creative Director and translate it into gameplay. Even in it's earliest form, when he played the quest, he said he ''felt the emotions he wanted to feel'' and that I perfectly translated his vision into something playable. This quest includes a lot of exotic gameplay, like the repeating cycle, the fact that you are invincible and can one-hit enemies, three boss fights, where some of them require out-of-the-box thinking like letting yourself die and unequipping a weapon in order to progress. I also had to include a chase sequence where I had the idea of recording ourselves doing perfect parkour and integrate that recording instead of using AI navigation, which would have been slower and at risk of bugs. At the end, you also have a big dialogue with Sigurd, where you have an invisible counter of how many bad decisions (according to Sigurd) you made throughout the game, which determines if he'll stay in Norway or follow you back to England. This meant that I also had to work with other Quest Designers to track those decisions that were often made way earlier in the game.

Present Day Territory :

- Main Quest "Present Day Part 2"

This quest also was quite unique and I had to work hand in hand with World Designer Vincent Ouellette to re-design the huge Yggdrasil tree supercomputer to make it look like more than a millenia had passed and the ice melted. I also found FXs that were made for another part of the game (The Animus Anomalies) to make Eivor's Valhalla look glitched, and created a logic to pull off a visual trick/illusion where when you enter the hall, you need to turn back and see through the gate behind you a new place named ''The Grey'' that wasn't there before. You can even see the Grey only from one side of the gate, and it's much bigger than it actually looks from the gate, so it's quite trippy. Once you enter the gate again, you transition into the Grey seamlessly. There, you meet a major character.

 

Rygjafylke Territory :

- Main Quest "A Seer's Solace" (With Davuth Hy)

I wasn't the original owner of this quest, but since I was very efficient, I inherited this quest to help my peer Davuth Hy with his workload. I reworked the dialogue between the Seer and Eivor, and made the dream sequence work. I made Sigurd walk away and disappear in the blizzard, placed the Seers and used some tricks to have Odin "transform" into a wolf that can go through the gate.




- Main Quest "A Rude Awakening"

I placed the guards at the beginning in strategic locations to make the player practice using stealth. I then worked with World Designer Jacques Robert to place the burning item in the village you attack in strategic locations. This quest was also used as a test case and reference about how to make a ''Raid'' objective. I worked with Technical Directors and Programmers to make a tool that was friendly to use for Quest Designers when they wanted to make that type of objective.


- Main Quest "Birthrights" (With Davuth Hy)

Again, I wasn't the original owner of this quest, but since I was very efficient, I inherited this quest to help my peer Davuth Hy with his workload. I mostly reworked the beginning of the quest and changed the navigation with Basim, and placed the guards in the little camp you infiltrate in strategic locations to make the player learn how to use the Cloak mechanic.

World Events (Rygjafylke & Hordafylke Territory) :
 

Those are small events with one or two objectives that aren't explicitly told in the UI to the player. I started with only one World Event (The Hunt for Honor), but then inherited the vast majority of the World Events of my team to help many peers lessen their workload.

The Hunt For Honor

A Desperate Bounty

The Rekindling

Battle Born

The Dreamwalking Warrior

The Plight of the Warlock

Comb of Champions

Eivor back to her childhood village (Silent)

Deserted Chalet (Silent)

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