Making combat spaces for SpidermanPS4
Combat spaces with verticality are difficult to design and Marvel’s Spiderman for PS4 does it masterfully. So I decided to study it’s different arenas and develop a process to create some of my own.
I started with Fisk construction site arenas. Some factors to consider for this type of the arena design.
1. Player is Spiderman
Obviously! Assuming his traversal and combat moves are defined and the entire skill tree has been unlocked.
2. Enemy cast
Fisk’s army of black/purple baddies will be the focus of this arena. These are some of the first enemies introduced in the game and the player can beat them comfortably with a limited moveset.
3. Arena Location
Construction sites are open which afford enough space for player movement. They are a nice blend of smaller and larger spaces that form an interesting arena together. Also, there is enough room to experiment with my own ideas here, especially new potential interactables in the space.
After that, I started studying a few of these arenas and here is some rudimentary analysis from them. I think about verticality, metrics, number of perch points, number of enemies, how to break up the arena, interactable objects, etc. Basically, trying to understand the design intent behind every object in the space.
After posting these breakdowns on Twitter, one of the originals designers on these arenas, Shane McCloskey, replied with the images below and the following insights:
“Our number one goal was to keep the player in the flow state. Keeping bots infilled was key, making sure have spawns nearby each space and to kickoff a new wave half through the current one.
Our number two goal was to move the player throughout the space, providing them with 5-6 mini combats vs one big arena brawl. We accomplished this with shooters, bringing them out at the start of a new wave, poking the player, encouraging them to push over and take them out.
From a layout standpoint, if structural geo wasn’t an option we would use smaller rows of breakables to create enclosed combat spaces. Trying to let the player know psychologically, ‘this is where I should be fighting.’”
After gaining a better understanding of the design process and goals, I did a scale test to figure out a few metrics for these spaces. (Assuming player height is approximately 2m, I moved around the arena in the actual game and tried to calculate heights of columns and beams as well as the arena size in terms of player height.)
I created a quick reference sheet exploring building rooftops.
The next step was blocking out these shapes in Maya and seeing which ones were interesting to make combat spaces with and how I can add verticality to the arenas by creating multiple floors.
As per the analysis above, I added columns and beams for perch takedowns. It was important to not place them everywhere and balance out the takedown opportunities with open ceiling space to fight enemies in the air.
I also added elevators as spawn points and as was the goal, I placed them around the arena so that they would keep the arena filled with enemies and prevent the player from going out of “flow” state.
I modeled simple objects to be used as primary breakables that Spiderman can instantly drop on enemies from a distance with a single key press and other objects as to be used as secondary breakables that will be sprinkled around the space to break up the arena into smaller arenas.
After that I brought all the assets into Unreal Engine and added railings to make sure that the player cannot easily knock enemies out of the arena. The railings are 1m high.
You might have also noticed, that I added constructions grills to block off certain areas. This was to generate an illusion of space to make sure that the arena doesn’t get too big but seems big.
Adding enemy AI was important to get a sense of how many breakables opportunities are needed and to confirm the fact that the arena is not too big.
Cranes and other primary breakables were added to create more stealth takedown opportunities in the space.
Final step was to add secondary breakables to the final arena to break up the open space and provide more opportunities to the player while in combat.
And that was my process of recreating Spiderman combat spaces- starting from analysis all the way to creating some of my own.
Below are the images of the final four arenas that I ended up with after going through the workflow mentioned above. These were made on a 2m grid.
