VALORANT Map Blockout

Role: Solo Developer
Team Size: Solo
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Development time: 2 Weeks

In this project, I made a Blockout intended for the game VALORANT - "VALORANT" a AAA Competitive First Person Hero Shooter developed by Riot Games. This project included a recreation of the character "Jett" in order to experience how some abilities will impact gameplay throughout the map.

Doing this project allowed me to gain experience with Unreal Engine 4 as well as getting comfortable with blueprints within the engine.

Design Intentions

The first step in the project was to ask a question that I wanted to answer with the map design. I had chose to do this after reading many VALORANT dev blogs where they also incorporate this into their map design. This allowed for a more similar style of blockout process and helped my design choices to be more meaningful.

The question that I wanted to answer was this: “What if mid control from a team gave them a lot of power?”

Development Process

After thinking carefully about angles, sightlines and abilities, I had developed a paper prototype. This would be the foundation to build upon through iterations.

My first ideas were to make sure that the middle of the map was appealing to control, I did this by having many branching paths allowing for a range of movement from either team. This means that teams can move quickly through mid to gain an extra angle on each bomb site which can help eliminate the enemy team.

I also had to think about cover within the map, especially on the bomb sites. This is vitally important as the defenders will have to use this cover to defend themselves from the attacking team. So I began thinking about what attackers will see when entering the site from different angles and thinking about how they might use abilities to help them enter the site.

Next, I had to recreate the character "Jett" to have an understanding of how the abilities will affect gameplay within the map. Since this was my first time using blueprints, I decided to look online and ask some of my programmer friends in the year above me to help with my project. After a couple of weeks, I had "Jett" recreated to a good standard, the only thing I did not create was her Ultimate Ability. The blueprint code for each ability can be seen here:

After getting a basic blockout done in engine, I needed to gain feedback from playtesters and designers alike. Many of the playtesters also had lots of hours in VALORANT, with one of them being a professional player. Look at the images below to follow the level design progression and changes with each iteration.

The main changes from the first design to the final design were:

Adding walls around the map.
Marking where the players were able to plant the spike on each bomb site (yellow square on each bomb site).
Cutting down the amount of long corridors that would allow players to use snipers and hold an unfair angle.
Changing the amount and placement of cover on each bomb site to make sure that attackers/defenders have a range of places to take cover from.
Pushing the entries to each site in mid further up towards defenders side spawn.
Turning Crates/Boxes into environment pieces to make the map look more believable.
Adding ramps to make straight sections feel less plain and allow for more interesting gunfights to be made.
Annotating callouts that could be used by players onto the map.
Adding dummies to be shot by the default gun within UE4.
Giving the Map a name: Labyrinth.

This blockout in engine was completed with no additional plugins.

Post-Mortem

After successfully completing the Blockout, I feel like I have answered my question to a good degree. The map is heavily focused around mid control as if a team can secure it, then they have access to flank routes and can catch the other team off guard. This means that it is vital for the defenders to not let any attackers sneak through, and for attackers to try to take down any defenders guarding the area.

This project was my first introduction to Unreal Engine 4 and I feel like I have gained a significant amount of knowledge where I would be happy to work in it again.

What would have I have done differently with more time/done today?

If I were to do this project again, I would try to implement a basic multiplayer feature as playtesting without a full team might not give a true representation of how the map would play out. I would also try to recreate more of the agents within VALORANT as there are a wide variety of abilities that can impact gameplay. This would require a better understanding of UE4 Blueprints which I am always trying to improve upon.

Final Thoughts

So in short, consistantly iterating upon feedback and making a good blockout that I am happy with is a highlight for me. The knowledge that I have gained from this project has been vital for my progression as a level designer, learning about how to act upon feedback, as well as getting involved in other disciplines. The lessons learnt from this project are key points that I will definitely take with me in my future projects.

For a more in depth analysis of the project, feel free to check out my blog post here: https://journal.falmouth.ac.uk/oj253002/2022/04/07/gam230-development-journal/