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Hell Let Loose: Smolensk
(2025)

Level Design Map Lead
Expression Games

I led the level design of Smolensk from initial research and concepting through blockout, development, playtesting and final release. 

50+ person team - Mulitiplayer FPS - Shipped in Update 19

Battle History

This map is based on the Second battle of Smolensk set in 20th June 1943. The battle for Smolensk was a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front. The city itself was a strategic objective, and it's liberation helped split German forces from other battles. 
 

My Contribution

  • Initial researching and concepting​

    • Researching the battle of Smolensk and gathering references​

    • Creating a map to concept along with a map layout showcasing all the CPs

  • Level to first pass

    • Implementing the initial landscape​ and gameplay setup

    • Blockout of the HQs, Capture Points and transitional areas

    • Established sightlines, vehicle routes and combat spaces

  • Level to Shippable

    • Led daily map stand ups​

    • Reviewed tasks as the map progresses

    • Collaborating with the Art, Audio and VFX teams as the map transitioned from blockout to final

    • Ran playtests, collating and actioning the feedback appropriately​

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Researching the Map

We start out every map process by researching the battle and the area. We then collate all this information into multiple documents, the most important being our Map to Concept and our Master Reference Board. 
The Map to Concept is a living document that houses a number of things: an overview of the battle and location, a breakdown of each capture point, road layouts, district theming and any important map features among many other things.
The Master Reference Board is where we collate every single reference we can find. This is mostly historical images but can also feature references from other media, real life references of the surrounding area or similar areas and also a handful of quotes about the battle.​​

Unfortunately I cannot showcase these documents however this video shows superbly how we take real life images and create our levels based on them. We pride ourselves on historical accuracy however sometimes we need to take some creative license to improve the design and playability of the map.

Design Decisions

Creating destruction using Blockout

A lot of the historical references were describing the city of Smolensk as about eighty five per cent destroyed. This is something I wanted to implement in the design of the map. The first way I did this was through the buildings. I created some rough blockout variations of destroyed buildings that could be used throughout the map during the initial passes. I then worked very closely with Ben, who was the environment artist tasked with making the buildings. Ben did an incredible job not only making them fun to play but to look fantastic as well. We went back and forth on the layouts and levels of destruction etc until we had a variety of different options that suited the design, looked great and were architecturally accurate but most importantly gave the feeling of a destroyed city.

Blocking lines of sight with traversal able rubble

The other aspect of the destroyed city I wanted to incorporate were the streets themselves. The issue I faced when designing Smolensk was that it's city centre was very grid like, which meant it had long streets. This was great for vehicle movement however it caused incredibly long sightlines. To combat this what I did was create a number of blockout rubble piles with varying heights. I would then place these all around the streets, mostly the edges but sometimes spilling out into the centre. These accomplished two things, firstly they provided great cover for infantry trying to advance down a street or cross one and they also showcased the destruction I was wanting to portray. However, initially these caused issues for vehicles traversing over them so as the map progressed I worked hard with the Enivronment Art team on the collision of these meshes to ensure they were easy to drive over.

Designing three distinct areas

For the layout of the map itself I wanted to have three distinct sections. This is because we understood that players liked maps where each area was unique, it meant they could easily tell where they were without having to open the map. To achieve this I looked for a location that could incorporate this on Google Maps, I then blocked out each area with its own distinct theming. For Smolensk we had the top row which was the train tracks, this featured bigger warehouses and long lines of train carts. The middle row of the destroyed city with it's destroyed buildings and dense urban fighting. Finally the bottom row was along the banks of the Dnieper, a space designed to be open and rural, contrasting to the areas north of it. 

Implementing vertical fighting into the Level Design

Another gameplay element I wanted to incorporate into Smolensk was vertical fighting. I wanted to achieve this in more than just the buildings. The two best examples of this around the map are the Pyatnitskii Overpass and the destroyed bridge near the Smolensk Citadel. Firstly at the overpass, having a pedestrian bridge over the railway meant we could have players directly above or below one another creating a new, intense way of engagement. Then with the Citadel I made it so there was three layers of verticality: along the banks of the river, the destroyed bridge and then ontop the Citadel walls themselves.  This meant I had to introduce ways for players to easily traverse between each level, I did it at the overpass by adding staircases and a pile of crates leading to a broken piece of the bridge. For the bridge the walls are only accessible from inside however to achieve this I blocked them out with multiple access points and then later the Art team and I came to the compromise of making them scaffolding.

Wishlist Features

I am so proud of the work myself and the team did on Smolensk and I think we captured the essence of urban fighting in a destroyed city. 
However, if I had unlimited time and no performance constraints I would of loved to add a few more things. 
Firstly I would of liked to include basements to some of these buildings. We had designs for buildings with basements however we did not have enough time to make them. I think having basements that were blown through or had entrances from the outside due to craters or trenches would of added another level of urban and vertical fighting which is what I wanted. 
Additionally, although there is already a lot of destruction in Smolensk I wanted to add more. Especially for the night time scenario I wanted more buildings on fire and the city to feel even more like a destroyed battlefield. Unfortunately we are constantly battling with making sure the maps run on all consoles so we had to pull back on the amount of destruction in the map. This was a shame but optimising maps is all part of game development and Smolensk still looks like a heavily destroyed city.

Some gameplay and community sentiment videos can be found here:

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