Sunken City of Outcasts

Design Process - Spirit of the North 2

Role & Contribution

Level Designer / Environment Artist - Designed and constructed the subterranean environment "Sunken City of Outcasts," serving as a crucial dungeon and narrative hub in the game.

Interior Lighting Artist - Developed the lighting and atmosphere for a cold, underground city and providing illumination for key areas.

Modular Space Architect - Created diverse and distinct interior rooms and corners, each tailored to specific narrative moments and gameplay importance for the Moonwolf Tribe.

Goal & Challenge

The primary goal was to create a believably hidden, large, and complex dungeon that communicated the struggle and isolation of the Moonwolf Tribe living beneath a glacier. The main challenge was achieving a balance between the oppressive atmosphere of an underground city and the necessary visual contrast to make key narrative areas legible for the player.

Process & Creative Strategy

This project involved combining raw environmental elements (ice/rock) with elements of constructed civilization (shelter/tribal life). The layout was designed around the tribe's needs, creating distinct areas such as a blacksmith, living quarters, and sacred spaces, each detailed with appropriate assets to convey its function and narrative importance.

Reference images for the Sunken City. There was a clear descriptive direction for the concept of this area before I started gathering references.

There was a very rough and square blockout of the area that the creative director had worked on before I started working here. There was also an existing part of the final puzzle on which I had to expand on.

I started building the major outlines of the underground city with big slabs and blocks of stone.

Lighting was heavily considered in the early part of the building process.

Final puzzle was moved to a different room from the main amphitheatre area and an entrance puzzle area was heavily re-designed as well to suit the rest of the city.

A combination of ice, stone, snow were used to portray a sunken city hidden under the mountain glacier.

Unreal Engine modelling tools came in handy for creating custom statue meshes from existing assets.

The rooms and corners of the city were filled with setdressing, storytelling, clues and evidence of world history and lore.

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