Black is a first-person shooter focused on intense firefights, powerful weapon design and highly destructible environments. Developed by Criterion Games, the game pushed the technical limits of the hardware to deliver cinematic combat built around weapon impact, environmental destruction and chaotic firefights.

As Senior Level Designer, I designed and implemented combat-focused levels that supported the game’s high-lethality gameplay. Working closely with design, engineering and art teams, I built spaces that balanced player flow, enemy encounters and environmental destruction, ensuring the levels showcased the game’s signature weapons and explosive combat systems.

Development on Black was fast-paced and tightly focused, with the team working to deliver the game on an aggressive schedule. I joined the project in April and, alongside one other designer, blocked out the entire campaign within three months. As the team expanded, I led and mentored three junior level designers through beta and final polish.

• Designed and built over half of the game’s missions

• Created level blockouts in SketchUp and guided art teams through final environment production

• Scripted 3 of the games 8 missions - opening mission, graveyard mission, docklands mission

• Managed and mentored junior designers responsible for scripting the remaining missions

• Designed and implemented level editor tools built on top of the RenderWare viewer

• Collaborated with the audio team to integrate VO and music across all missions

Core to the success of level design were a set of 5 ambitious game pillars. These were so important they eventually formed part of the games marketing and featured on box artwork. Just a few examples of the many ways level design lived up to these pillars are:

• Enemies placed and move near glass, metal (for sparks), destructable scenery and “stunt fall” positions

• Large-scale explosive scenery requiring specific weapons or weapon types to destroy

• Collapsing scenery kills enemies - level design encouraged aiming at world to get “multi kills”

• Level design supports opportunities for bullet ricochets and skilled grenade throws to get kills

• Chain reactions of explosive objects for creative kills and mass destruction

The level design process on Black was necessarily compact, with missions passing from ideation to signed-off blockout in approximately 2 weeks.

• Research (1-2 days) image gathering for mission location and harvesting of best ideas (art/design together)

• 2D Maps (2-3 days) loose maps made on paper or whiteboards and signed-off (sadly these no longer exist)

• 3D Blockout (1 week) modelled in SketchUp, imported into engine, playtested and iterated

• Art Briefing (1-2 hours) designer presents mission to art team, running through all design and details

Mission 3 - Naszran Town

Begins with the player approaching the outskirts of the town through a graveyard, and a tense standoff against an enemy sniper. As gravestones shatter around the player, the encounter sets an immediate tone of vulnerability and pressure, forcing careful movement between sparse cover before the player can push forward into the town itself.

From there, the level shifts into a devastated urban battlefield. The town is in ruins, and combat plays out through collapsed streets, trenches, shell craters, and cellar spaces, giving the player a more fragmented and oppressive route through the environment. This middle section focuses on clearing entrenched enemies from broken defensive positions while maintaining the destructive, high-intensity combat style that defines Black.

• Emphasis on contrast in pacing and space, moving from long-range sniper combat to using RPGs to clear tight trenches

• Large open spaces with multiple routes and approaches - rewarding exploration, clear sign-posting of direction

• Heavy use of shattering stone cover, scenery destruction, alternating underground/overground traversal

• Mission designed, blocked out and scripted by me

Mission 6 - Vratska Dockyard

This mission sees the player deployed to support a squad sent ahead to secure the industrial waterfront, a key logistics hub supplying terrorist William Lennox’s forces. The mission quickly turns into a desperate rescue attempt to saved the adavanced unit, but by the time the player arrives, they have been wiped out, reinforcing the escalating stakes.

The level unfolds across a dense industrial environment of shipping yards, warehouses, and dockside infrastructure. Players advance through container-filled yards, loading areas, and multi-level catwalks, creating layered combat spaces with tight cover, flanking routes, and elevated firing positions that support Black’s signature high-intensity firefights.

• Emphasis on tight industrial combat spaces, mixed with large scale open, danger zones

• Tight cover-based sightlines, encouraging aggressive movement and flanking

• Opportunities to switch to long-range weapons to eliminate enemy threats

• Large scale destruction: cranes, fuel tanks, vehicles

• Heavy use of metal and glass surfaces for secondary effects from sparks and fragments

• Mission designed, blocked out and scripted by me

Mission 7 - Graznei Bridge

Graznei Bridge is the penultimate combat push in Black, where the player - CIA operative Jack Kellar - launches an unauthorised assault to pursue terrorist leader William Lennox. After previous operations failed and allied forces were wiped out, Kellar leads a retaliatory attack across the heavily fortified bridge that serves as the main access point to Lennox’s stronghold at the Spetriniv Gulag.

The level centers on crossing the bridge while fighting through dense enemy resistance, barricades, and minefields. Combat unfolds across multiple vertical layers of the structure - on the roadway, underneath the bridge on maintenance gantries, and along elevated support beams -creating varied firefight spaces and sightlines.

• Emphasis on verticality and multiple routes across, under and over the bridge

• Last push to finale: difficult cover-based, multi-tiered combat, and final assault on Gulag building

• Dramatic moments: exploding vehicles, collapsing bridge sections, enemy stunt falls from gantries or into river

• Mission designed and blocked out by me, managed junior designer in final scripting and polish