Project Blackbird
Developer: Zenimax Online Studios
Genre: MMO Action RPG
Engine: ZOS Proprietary
Platforms: N/A
Released: Cancelled. My tenure on the project was from February 2021 - July 2025
Gameplay Overview: I’m under NDA not to discuss details, but some information was revealed publicly about it after the Microsoft layoffs in July 2025: Article
My Role: Lead Encounter Designer
Duties: Combatant/AI Design, Encounter Design, team lead, product and feature owner, personnel management and career growth, design direction
Responsibilities:
Specifics are under NDA
Note: After wrapping work on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, my team and I at High Moon moved on to Call of Duty: Vanguard, where I led the development of the Rats of Tobruk mission. I didn’t stay to ship that title though, so I did not include a page for that project in my portfolio.
Although Project Blackbird was cancelled, working on it gave me the opportunity to collaborate with a very experienced and talented team on developing a brand-new IP and technology from scratch, which was hugely challenging but also tremendously beneficial for all my skills as a designer and as a leader.
On Blackbird, my design domain was combatant and encounter design. For simplicity's sake, if you break combat down to “How you fight” (i.e. the player combat mechanics), “What you fight” (i.e. the enemies), and “Where you fight” (i.e. the combat spaces), then I was focused on the latter two elements. Specifically, my mission was to help bring AAA action combat to a Bethesda open world RPG experience.
Samples: Combatant Design Methodology
An example of a generic taxonomic breakdown for action/shooter enemy combatants. Hit me up directly for details.
I’m a firm believer and avid proselytizer of rapid iteration and the “fail fast” method for finding the fun. This holds true for any game feature or mechanic. Get it stood up as quickly and as cheaply as possible so that key questions can be answered about it. Only then should it pass to another stage and have more resources committed to it.
These are examples of infographics I use to help visualize and communicate the gameplay differences between enemy factions. It’s important that each faction brings a noticeably different experience to players.
This is a simple example of a “Combatant Card”, an easily digestible, one-page overview of a combatant. Once you’ve defined the key components in the taxonomy of your enemy combatants, you can assemble them in this brief format together with a concept sketch. I’ve found this format very useful for other features as well.