Those who love AAA action games have a panel to look forward to at GDC Europe, that will be held in Cologne between August 15th and August 16th, just before Gamescom.

Creating Conflict: Combat Design for AAA Action Games

Michael Barclay | Lead Level Designer, Cloud Imperium Games | Speaker

Sam Howels | Principal Designer, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios | Speaker

Pete Ellis | Level Designer, Guerrilla Cambridge | Speaker

Experienced developers from studios including Guerrlla Games, Dambuster Studios and Cloud Imperium Games discuss creating combat scenarios for AAA action games.

The panelists will take audience members through the various steps and considerations when creating action packed scenarios for first and third person action games.

Takeaway

Attendees will learn about pacing, flow, challenge design, environmental balancing, difficulty tuning, tutorialising mechanics, narrative context and how emotion is reflected within the environment layout. Multiple elements that go into developing fun, challenging encounters for a range of action games.

Pete Ellis worked on Guerrilla's Killzone: Mercenary and on Killzone: Shadow Fall. He's currently working on RIGS: Mechanized Combat League. Sam Howels worked on the Crysis series and on Homefront: The Revolution, while Michael Barclay is currently at work on Star Citizen.

Incidentally, I might be one of the few remembering that Guerrilla Cambridge was hiring for a game set in a "high profile, multi-million selling franchise" a while ago. I wonder what happened to that project.