“We’ve always got to make sure that we’re advancing in some area. It took a lot of trial and error.”Īlongside iteration, Rich Farrelly stresses the importance of continuous innovation. We had to rip the ship apart that we had already built to make it at least four times bigger, along with redesigning all of the combat to reflect the new space. “It wasn't playing like we imagined, so after prototyping a variety of environments, the one we found most fun was what I called the 'cover jungle': a large space with a crazy number of containers and enemies popping out from anywhere and everywhere. “Initially, we only had a few containers on the deck of a very small fishing trawler,” says April Friesen. It’s a process perfected through iteration. The design teams worked together to nail the gameplay, while the producers communicated with the other departments.” “It was basically just the moving ship and containers. “We started very early with a prototype,” Harris says, referring to the level’s second half where the Operators board a cargo ship, water sloshing on the decks, containers sliding back and forth in the rough water. This is Call of Duty it has got to be jaw-dropping. In the end, almost every department helped to make Dark Water playable. The interlocking parts involved in developing Dark Water require a concerted effort, from the animation team’s work on characters and vehicles, the lighting team’s focus on visibility in a nighttime setting, to the VFX and Tech Art teams creating realistic water and atmosphere effects. We all play the game and want to make sure it feels good and cohesive.” “Everybody is invested, and everybody speaks up to offer suggestions on making it better. From there, she was named Community Coordinator before finally joining the production team during some of the studio’s most formative years. Harris has worked at Infinity Ward since 2008, starting as a QA tester before acting as the Online Services Coordinator. “Each individual on the team has ownership of the mission,” says Candice Harris. Joining us for the discussion are Senior Producer Candice Harris, Lead Level Designer Richard Farrelly, Designer April Friesen, Expert VFX Artist Patrick Hagar, Expert VFX Technical Artist Daniel Stern, and Senior Lighting Artist Krzysztof Wójcik. We sat down with some of the key contributors to discuss the making of Dark Water - the importance of collaboration to the creative process, the journeys and influences that shaped their careers, the skills they seek in new hires looking to join the storied studio, and the pursuit of their craft to continue pushing what’s possible in game development.
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