In a recent article, I explored the interplay between procedural generation and traditional, hand-crafted level design. My role at Ubisoft Toronto on Watch Dogs: Legion allowed me to blend these approaches, shaping a dystopian London where every character contributes to a living, breathing world. As a Level Designer, I’m immensely proud of my work and would be honored to collaborate with Ubisoft again, perhaps on the fourth Watch Dogs title. To respect NDA restrictions, I’ll focus exclusively on ambient level design, specifically character placement and environmental storytelling, avoiding any details about combat AI or gameplay action mechanics.
During pre-production, I brainstormed concepts, drafted design documents, sketched gameplay ideas, and created 2D top-down layouts. I built greybox environments and gameplay gyms, test spaces where we iterated on mechanics to “find the fun.” While guided by design metrics, unexpected successes, such as a vendor placement that sparked immersive player interaction, highlighted the creative freedom in level design. Procedural tools, such as spline-based systems, generated base layouts, which we refined with deliberate, hand-crafted details to ensure narrative coherence and immersion.
As the only Level Designer on the Living World team in Toronto, I contributed to the E3 2019 demo, which earned over 65 awards and nominations. My role, though modest compared to the massive team effort, focused on placing playable characters (PCs), a term I’ll use for simplicity, given Legion’s “Play as Anyone” system, where every NPC is recruitable. My work centered on ambient level design: crafting a believable world through thoughtful character placement. For example, I positioned drug dealers in discreet Camden alleys, out of sight of Albion guards, the game’s oppressive private military force, to ensure logical, immersive interactions. Similarly, I placed characters in a black market illegal grow operation, tucked into dimly lit, hidden corners of London, creating an atmosphere of secrecy that reflected the city’s criminal underbelly.
To ensure authenticity, I researched London’s diverse boroughs, from the tourist-heavy Piccadilly Circus to the gritty Camden Market. I also underwent "people watching" body language, non-verbal psychological training, details of which I’ll omit to avoid NDA issues, which informed my understanding of character intentions and motivations, such as the desperation driving grow op workers. In Camden, I placed vagrants, graffiti artists, and performance artists to capture its bohemian spirit, contrasting with Piccadilly’s polished vibe, where news reporters with hovering drones and Albion guards reinforced the surveillance-state narrative. The protest scene in Trafalgar Square, inspired by London’s history of dissent, featured protesters, Albion operatives, and props like barricades and graffiti-covered boards. These were arranged to create dynamic tension and support gameplay flow through environmental storytelling, allowing players to navigate stealthily without my involvement in action mechanics.
At Scotland Yard, I placed janitors on cleaning patrols and vendors outside to make the precinct feel alive. Player starts were meticulously aligned, some PCs leaning against walls or ledges, to ensure seamless, immersive spawns. This required extensive iteration, as even slight misalignments could break immersion, teaching me the value of precision in ambient design. The design mantra of “Camera, Character, and Context” guided my work, balancing natural camera angles, character behavior, and environmental storytelling. For instance, a news reporter with a drone in Piccadilly Circus amplified the dystopian themes, while a street performer in Camden added local flavor. Other character types, like construction workers with cargo drones or street artists, further diversified the world, as seen in the E3 demo.
Collaborating with a Lead Animator, rather than a traditional Lead Level Designer, was a shift. My lead, an experienced part-time professor, guided me in aligning character placements with animation cycles, ensuring, for example, that janitor patrols matched their cleaning animations for a cohesive world. Working with the Animation Director, we recorded gameplay vignettes on cell phones, later prototyping animations using the Xbox Kinect with the Kinect SDK to capture skeletal data before Ubisoft’s motion capture studio was built. PCs were tagged by gender and one of five archetypes: Hacker, Enforcer, Infiltrator, Medic, or Operative, affecting their animations and contextual Player Start positions.
Random generation often produced inconsistent results, akin to “spray and pray” a term from other projects describing unfocused approaches. Our deliberate placements, like a sniper’s precise shot, prioritized authenticity and immersion. A key tip for level designers: always test ambient placements in-game to ensure they enhance believability, as subtle tweaks can transform a scene’s impact. For example, adjusting a vendor’s position after testing created a moment where a player noticed their banter, adding depth to the world. This project reshaped my design philosophy. Adapting to a people-first approach, informed by psychological training and cross-disciplinary collaboration with animators, taught me to prioritize cultural and narrative context alongside environmental design. For players, these placements, like noticing a protester’s graffiti or a vendor’s interaction, created immersive moments that made London feel alive.
Watch Dogs: Legion offers a masterclass in balancing procedural tools with craftsmanship, creating a world where every PC, from a graffiti artist to a spy, feels part of London’s pulse. As level designers, how do you craft immersive character placements in your projects? Share your insights to keep the conversation going!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6kNQrY5ydQ
Flow and Functionality:
...having a mix of handcrafted "Authored" professional maps ("islands"). If they are floating in the sky, we simply cover the bottoms of the missing terrain with static meshes. This is the easiest solution, with the potential for artificial semi-destruction if needed (debris and particles chip off, and some minor pieces could fracture away, but overall, the island can't be destroyed). This is a solid first step before considering full destruction.
