San Saeon
Personal Project - Unreal Engine
About the Level
Developed over 7 weeks as a solo designer
Built in Unreal Engine 5 using in-engine modeling tools for all geometry (no external 3D assets)
Designed, scripted, and playtested as a narrative-driven third-person shooter campaign level
Integrated IWALS v1.3 Combat Asset Pack for character and basic enemy AI
~15 minutes of gameplay with varied pacing, stealth and combat sections
Supporting tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Miro, Perforce
Design Intentions
Build a complete mission with layered layout, stealth options, and combat spaces that support different player approaches
Improve scripting skills by modifying enemy AI and creating new gameplay logic in Blueprint
Use composition and player pathing to create striking visual moments and maintain spatial clarity
Design a boss encounter that fits naturally into the level’s structure and supports a strong gameplay climax
Miro Board
Custom Blueprint Systems
Tutorial Widget
Player Death (Teleport)
Checkpoint System
Quest System
Story Beat 1:
Boat Intro + Loading Docks
The level opens with a cinematic boat ride down a river threading through the outskirts of San Saeon, a fortress-city under Brotherhood control. This quiet insertion establishes tone and atmosphere while delaying player control until the last possible moment—dropping the player directly into enemy territory the moment gameplay begins.
Environmental Gate: Traditional “Key” Puzzle
Progress is blocked by a spinning industrial fan—no enemies, no combat.
Players must swim to locate a submerged control pipe that powers the fan.
Interacting with the switch cuts power, opening the path forward.
A simple “door-and-key” structure reimagined as an environmental obstacle.
Cutscene – First Encounter with General Draven
This is the player's first time seeing General Draven, introduced through a real-time cutscene created using Unreal's Sequencer tool.
Skeletal mesh animations were authored and timed to Draven’s dramatic entrance through a garage door—
the door begins opening seconds before he walks through and closes just after he re-enters the facility.Guards spawn dynamically and remain active in the level after the cutscene ends, maintaining gameplay continuity.
AI patrol timing: The guard ordered to check the manifest follows a scripted patrol path, passing directly by the player’s hiding spot ~10 seconds after the scene ends—
giving the player a clear stealth-or-attack decision point immediately after regaining control.Design goal: Introduce the main antagonist with cinematic weight while blending seamlessly back into gameplay without camera cuts or scene loading.
Opening Sequence: Freight Boat Insertion
The level opens with a scripted boat ride through San Saeon’s industrial riverway.
Used to delay player control and create tension—Snake enters hostile territory just moments before gameplay begins.
Establishes environmental tone: smoke-stained skylines, guarded checkpoints, and oppressive architecture.
Visually introduces key locations in the distance that the player will later reach, subtly framing the mission’s scale.
Ends with a seamless transition to control as Snake disembarks, pushing the player straight into stealth.
Crane Platform Route: Fast and Frictionless
The crane platform offers a direct route across the water to the maintenance building.
Once activated, it moves quickly and without enemy interference.
Designed for players who prefer momentum and simplicity over stealth or exploration.
A clear contrast to the rappel path, giving players a meaningful choice in how they infiltrate.
Story Beat 2:
Water Purification Facility Infiltration
Emerging from the water tunnels, the player enters the lower level of San Saeon’s water purification facility
Timed Guard Ambush
Scripted trigger with reactive stakes:
As the player enters the second floor from either route, a guard bursts through a locked side door—forcing immediate response.
Behavior-driven alert logic:
If the guard is killed before firing, lower-floor patrols remain unaware.
If he gets a shot off, any surviving ground-level guards will move to investigate.
Tension escalation through design:
This moment injects pressure right after a quiet section.
Trains the player to watch for inter-room connections and enemy alert networks.
Environmental Lighting: Path Discovery Through Illumination
The door ahead is closed, but a soft light spills through the roof opening, catching the player's eye from the hallway.
This non-verbal cue subtly signals that there’s something above, encouraging exploration without breaking immersion.
Reinforces a design principle of “light as language”—drawing the player toward climbable geometry without relying on UI or objective markers.
Positioned just after a tense stealth sequence, it offers a quiet moment of spatial clarity and upward motion to shift the pacing.
Optional Cutscene: Draven Executes the Scientist
Triggered through exploration:
Players who climb to the rooftop and loot the binoculars from the sniper’s poach trigger a cutscene showing General Draven executing a nuclear scientist in the adjacent facility.
Narrative reward for curiosity:
This moment is entirely optional, but players who explore are given an exclusive narrative payoff.
It reinforces Draven’s ruthlessness and escalates the mission stakes without breaking pacing.
Real-time cinematic delivery:
The cutscene is rendered in-engine and framed through the binocular lens—keeping the player grounded in the world.
Ground Floor Multi-Route Layout
Two routes, one outcome: Players can either engage the two guards patrolling the long hallway or bypass them entirely by climbing a stack of boxes to reach the second floor directly.
Stealth-first design:
One hallway guard faces away from the player.
The second patrols a short loop between the main door and his comrade.
Designed to feel doable but tense—encouraging either calculated takedowns or avoidance.
Traversal-based bypass:
A stack of boxes offers a way to reach the second floor without triggering enemies.
Meant to reward spatial awareness and encourage players to scan the room for vertical options.
Post-Cutscene Sniper Setup
Weapon placement with narrative logic:
After the optional binocular cutscene, the player finds themselves positioned at a rooftop sniper nest—with a rifle conveniently left by the guard they just eliminated.
Long-range visibility, low-pressure engagement:
Enemies are visible in the distance but unaware of the player’s presence.
This creates a moment of calm tactical dominance, giving the player space to line up shots or choose to hold fire entirely.
Player empowerment through restraint:
There’s no forced action. The player chooses how and when to engage.
This reinforces the tone of the mission: observe, infiltrate, and control the pace.
Story Beat 3:
Pursuit Through the Nuclear Sector
After leaving the rooftop, the player descends into a branching combat encounter that responds dynamically to earlier choices. Guards who were visible from the sniper nest may already be eliminated, while others lie in wait around blind corners—creating a varied and reactive opening.
Draven’s Army and the Rally Point
This moment was built to create a sense of scale and tension—Draven giving a speech while the player hides just feet behind a live formation.
The goal was to make the player feel like they’d slipped behind the backbone of a war machine, not just watching from safety.
Originally, I planned to implement a look-back detection system to add timing pressure, but even without it, the layout supports controlled, high-stakes stealth through spacing and limited cover.
The sequence reinforces the theme of being unseen inside something far larger and more dangerous than you.
Locked Door & Alarm Shutdown
After the firefight, a locked door blocks progression, requiring player interaction.
Button in the offices disables the alarm and unlocks the door.
Designed to create a brief moment of tension before moving forward.
Encourages environmental exploration and reinforces the level’s interconnected layout.
Rewards spatial awareness by making players engage with their surroundings.
Room Breach: Forced Combat Spike
Pressing the conference room door button triggers a short sequence: four guards begin storming the room from multiple angles.
The player has about two seconds to react, forcing immediate decision-making after a quiet stealth section.
Designed as a controlled ambush—tight space, limited cover, and flanking pressure.
This encounter shifts the tone from infiltration to desperation, leading directly into the elevator and the fortified Guard Wall.
Story Beat 4:
Bell Tower Assault and Wall-line Push
Beat 4 begins as the player emerges atop the Guard Wall into full alert status—the bell is ringing, and the Brotherhood forces know Snake is nearby. There’s no time to regroup. The first enemy must be taken out immediately to progress, with the only path forward requiring an Uncharted-style rubble climb onto a sniper’s platform.
Elevator Timing: Controlled Guard Introduction
As the player descends into the second half of the Guard Wall, a guard is scriptedly spawned just before the elevator doors open, ensuring he’s always walking away and unaware.
This guarantees the player lands into the space with a clean stealth opportunity and avoids cheap detection.
It acts as a pacing reset after the loud bell tower fight—slower, deliberate, and back under player control.
Reinforces the level’s rhythm of alternating pressure and release, while subtly teaching the player to look for stealth patterns immediately on arrival.
Dynamic Combat: Bell as Moving Cover
As the player is ambushed mid-climb, four guards charge from across the wall, initiating a forced rifle engagement.
The swinging bell in the center of the arena provides dynamic cover, blocking sightlines and shifting lanes of fire for both player and enemies.
Designed to create chaotic, reactive gunplay in a confined space, encouraging players to move, time shots, and use their environment.
After the fight, the player rope-swings across the bell's support rail, turning the environment from obstacle to traversal—resetting tension while keeping momentum.
Environmental Vista: Framing the Skyscraper Objective
After climbing the ladder and stealth-attacking the perched guard, the player is met with a sudden, sweeping view of San Saeon’s central skyscraper.
This moment serves as a level weenie—reminding the player of their final objective and how far they’ve come.
Carefully framed to occur right after a stealth encounter, it gives players a brief pause to reorient and refocus.
Reinforces scale through sightlines: distant patrols, guard towers, and glowing industrial zones all support the illusion of a living city wrapped around a single point of power.
Story Beat 5:
Guard Tower and Rooftop Helicopter Showdown
Beat 5 transitions from controlled interior skirmishes to an explosive mid-boss encounter. The player first pushes through a three-tiered guard tower: a mess hall skirmish, a brief locker room breather, and an invisible checkpoint trigger that primes the rooftop encounter.
Interior Combat: Mess Hall Skirmish
The mess hall serves as a tight combat space with 3–4 guards patrolling and idling in line of sight of each other.
Designed to disrupt pure stealth—most players are forced into a fight, but can still use cover and sightlines to control the pace.
The space includes multiple entry points, food counters, and support beams to encourage flanking, quick positioning, and short-range weapon use.
This fight builds tension before the rooftop and signals the escalation to full combat—you're no longer sneaking behind enemy lines. You’re in their stronghold now.
Boss Encounter – Helicopter Fight: Rooftop Chaos
The helicopter boss fight begins immediately after Draven's cutscene, with the vehicle circling the rooftop and four guards spawning simultaneously to force immediate multi-angle engagement.
The helicopter has 450 HP, split into three reactive phases:
300 HP: first explosion effect triggers
150 HP: secondary explosion, fire starts to spread
0 HP: helicopter catches fire and flees to the central skyscraper rooftop, setting up the next chase
All explosion effects are handled through sequenced Blueprint triggers, synced with a health system for readable feedback.
Dynamic Hazard System:
Bombs randomly spawn around the rooftop using a blueprint with a radius-based spawn system.
Each uses a dynamic material that shifts from yellow to red over two seconds as a warning.
A sphere trace checks for the player, dealing damage and knockback if they’re caught inside when the blast hits.
These environmental hazards start and stop in sync with the helicopter’s appearance—framed as part of the aerial attack rather than abstract arena mechanics.
Design Goals:
Combine chaotic range combat, area denial, and visual pacing without pulling the camera or slowing momentum.
Deliver an encounter that’s cinematic in look, but fully under player control.
Cutscene – Draven’s Rooftop Monologue
As the player reaches the rooftop, a short sequenced cutscene begins: General Draven delivers a final speech before boarding the helicopter.
The helicopter is a custom-modeled mesh, animated entirely within Unreal Engine 5.
Blade rotation is handled via Blueprint rotator components, synced to sequencer timing as the helicopter powers up during the speech.
Designed to maintain real-time presence and pacing—no camera cutaways, just tension, buildup, and the sound of rotors swallowing the skyline.
Story Beat 6:
Skyscraper Penthouse: The Final Confrontation
With the helicopter damaged and fleeing, Snake zip-lines to the rooftop of San Saeon's central skyscraper—finally reaching the structure that’s loomed over the entire mission.
Zipline Transition: Chasing Draven Into the Heart of the City
After damaging the helicopter, the player zip-lines from the Guard Wall directly to the rooftop of the central skyscraper.
The burning helicopter fades into the skyline as Snake closes in—visual closure on Beat 5 and a clean momentum shift into the final confrontation.
Designed as a cooldown moment with spectacle, this transition gives the player space to breathe while keeping tension high.
Extraction: Parachute Escape
After the final shot lands, Snake grabs the data drive and heads for the shattered balcony at the edge of the penthouse.
With sirens rising in the distance and the city below still burning, the player parachutes into the night, escaping the way they came—by river.
The getaway boat, visible during the mission’s opening, now waits below—bringing the level full circle.
No score. No celebration. Just silence and wind as the mission fades to black.
Final Showdown: Draven’s Penthouse
The final encounter unfolds in Draven’s blood-red penthouse, towering above the city in eerie silence.
Tall glass windows wrap the space, framing San Saeon’s burning skyline in a wash of cold red light—not warmth, but warning.
The room is clinical, controlled—designed to reflect Draven himself: powerful, detached, and already halfway gone.
No reinforcements. No escape. Just a final, deliberate confrontation—a kill with a view.
Full Playthrough
Top Down 2D Layout
Level Design Techniques
Framing - One of my biggest priorities throughout the level was ensuring that objectives and pathways were clearly framed through composition, vantage points, and lighting contrast. To achieve this, I placed POV cameras in the editor at major entry points to evaluate how players would first see each space. This allowed me to iterate on geometry, lighting, and environmental storytelling to naturally guide the player's eye toward their next goal.
Pacing - To maintain an engaging rhythm, I mixed high-intensity combat encounters with non-combat action sequences like the zipline chase after General Draven. This moment was designed as a high-energy traversal moment, breaking up the pacing while offering a dramatic skyline vista, keeping the momentum high without overloading the player with back-to-back firefights.
Lighting for Tension - Late in development, I adjusted the combat spaces to enhance tension. By switching the lighting to a deep red and introducing an alarm sound effect, I created a more urgent atmosphere as the player rushes to escape the energy section and turn off the alarm. This shift made the sequence feel more intense and climactic, reinforcing the stakes of the mission.
First Blockout
Initial Blockout of the Guard Hallway
Initial Blockout of the City
Initial Blockout of the Helicopter boss
Initial Blockout of the Zipline from rooftop
Initial Blockout of the water facility interior
Initial Blockout of the Water Facility Interior second floor
Initial Blockout of the Water Facility Exterior
Initial Blockout of a second route that was going to exist
Initial Blockout of the water facility exterior secret tunnel
Initial Blockout of the City
Initial Blockout of the Energy Facility Exterior
Initial Blockout of the City
Key Design Iterations
Guard Tower Rooftop
First Iteration
Highest level of blockout generally assigning the space and that it was going to be used to provide a zipline to the final boss building
Second Iteration
Began Developing the transportation from the fourth floor with the elevator and added some light cover along with a maintenance area beneath the platform
Final Design
Removed the maintenance hole based on the lack of interest in playtesting and added a helicopter pad. This idea snowballed into adding a helicopter fight
Water Facilities Exterior
First Iteration
Highest level of blockout generally assigning the space and that it was going to be used to provide a passageway to the next area through the pools
Second Iteration
Added geometry to the surrounding environment to shape the area and give it more of an open area feel with lots of cover and varying sightline lengths
Final Design
Added a second route out of the area through the nuclear facility passageway, added area lights to light up important walkways on the catwalks, added a rooftop to the water offices with a sniper for players to enjoy the longer sight lines
Energy Plant Interior
First Iteration
Highest level of blockout generally assigning the space and that it was going to be used. Not a clear direction with this area on the first iteration, but I knew that it needed to connect the water facilities and the guard wall. I also knew that this area needed interesting combat and to feel different than the previous area
Second Iteration
Added a primary facility to this area and made the gameplay indoors to juxtapose the previous wide open outdoor section. The facility still includes a wide open space with long site lines, but climbing into the scaffolding allows tighter close quarters combat
Final Design
To really separate this area from the previous water works I changed the area to trigger an alarm that activates when you approach from any angle except the hidden passageway through the vents. This created a high tension moment with a very different pacing tempo than the previous go at your own pace area
Early 2D Maps
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