Warzone | Mickey Blumental

Studio: Activision (Beenox)

Tool used: Propriety, excel

The system design team designed and implemented seasonal content using Activision's in-house tools involving a level editor, scripting, asset editor tools and more. The highlights of my work on the project include mission design and easter eggs creation, as described in more detail below..

DMZ mode was a new mode introduced with the launch of Warzone 2.0. The PvE extraction mode challenges players to complete missions and fight AI enemies with the lurking threat of other players. I designed and implemented the majority of the missions for the new Phalanx faction, working closely with the narrative team to provide synergy between the gameplay and story.

With the introduction of the new map Vondel, I designed two easter eggs, one for Vondel's launch in season 4 and another for season 6.

The Body Scan Easter Egg in season 4 required players to find a backpack which downloaded mysterious map coordinates, leading to players trying to work together what it means. After a week it was solved when players realized there were secret underwater codes to scan in the mentioned coordinates.

In Season 6, during the Halloween season, Vondel received a spooky nighttime makeover for which I designed the Chess Board Easter Egg. A mysterious haunted chess piece was hidden in one of several spawn points. The player has to make it follow them to the board while worrying about enemy players also trying to complete the easter egg. To make things trickier, the piece only follows the player when they don't look at it.

For the Vondel map we added staged weapons. These are powerful weapons that sometimes appear in certain places and offer players a quick leg up. As opposed to regular loot guns lying flat on the floor, the guns are placed into the environment in an organic way, making them blend into the environment in a way that rewards exploration of the map.

For Resurgence mode we used popular blueprints. These are cosmetic versions of existing weapons with specific set up that players can either purchase or win through the battle pass or events.

For the DMZ mode where player can extract weapons they find to use later I went a different route by create gold plated gun with the very best configuration to make them the most effective.

One of the guns is placed in a secret house that can't be reached from the outside. Both in DMZ and other modes the house is full with top tier loot. This was designed by me working closely with a level designer.

The only way through is through secret underwater tunnels that are too long for swimming with one breath. For that you need to pick up a rebreather to be able to get extra breaths. Once inside the door of the house can be opened for a quick exit.

Joining the seasonal team late into the development of the last season of Warzone 1, my first task was to place bombsites around the map for a limited time mode requiring players to either arm or defuse bombs around the map. This involved coming up with the most interesting locations and manually placing them organically into the environment.