Call of Duty: advanced warfare - ascendance dlc

Call of Duty and zombies have become almost synonymous at this point, and I was excited to work on a new iteration of this exciting coop mode. For the Ascendance DLC pack, we had about four months to produce a zombies map. Our only high-level direction was to make an homage to the Burgertown level from Modern Warfare 2. To that end, we created Infection, a zombies map that included a reimagined Burgertown store set in the Advanced Warfare universe.

Two other designers and I dog-piled on the level and split up the work. I focused on designing and laying out the sewers, which were intended to connect each of the other zones through a series of underground tunnels as well as contain some bigger spaces for players to hold out against the horde in. The core design principle of the sewers was risk vs. reward. It was dark, confined, and narrow, but it was the main route of access to major areas of the map and also contained some of the highest value items in the game. To balance out the difficulty, the sewers were one of the only safe zones from the quarantine mechanic, which periodically flooded entire zones of the map with deadly gas. The sewers also contained some powerful traps, including my personal favorite, the sewer alligators.

It's been a tradition to include easter eggs in the zombies game modes, and we wanted ours to be the zaniest one yet. I was tasked with doing the easter egg quest, so I quickly learned the scripting systems used to create the side quest in the last DLC, and then started brainstorming a list of steps. Meanwhile, someone suggested that Beauford, the Burgertown mascot we were creating should come to life and smash zombies at some point. Lightbulbs went off all over the studio and we soon rallied around the idea of turning Beauford in to a murderous death robot that would be the ultimate reward for completing the entire easter egg quest chain. Scripting the side quest quickly became a full-time job. I ended up cooperating with virtually every department to complete my plan, which included a golden frying pan, a radioactive zombie burger, a sacrificial altar, a secret control room inside the burger tower, and a burger rocket launch accompanied by a shower of burger bombs.

The story behind the development of Infection wouldn't be complete without discussing the focus test sessions. The map was focus tested with players of a variety of skill levels, most notably the super hardcore zombies players, who were a key demographic for this game mode. Our first test session was pretty dismal. Players were able to camp in one spot and play almost indefinitely. For a game mode that was supposed to escalate in difficulty until even the best players got weeded out, this was unacceptable. They felt bored and unchallenged. With limited time remaining, we brainstormed a new mechanic that would flush players out and keep them moving. That's how the quarantine mechanic was born. As rounds progress, entire zones of the map get flooded with gas. Players who don't leave eventually die. In later rounds, two zones and then three zones get gassed, eventually leaving only the sewers as a place to fight from. After that, our subsequent test sessions were wildly successful. Players loved it, and our map got higher scores than the previous DLC. As newcomers to the Call of Duty zombies experience, this was a big win for the team.

Here's a video playthrough of Infection, the zombies map from the Ascendance DLC for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.