Satisfactory

Game: Satisfactory
Job Title: Level Designer
Studio Project at Coffee Stain Studios

Engine: Proprietary Engine
Early Access Since: March 2019
Latest Major Update: December 2021

Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game. The player is a stranded pioneer on an alien planet. They are to construct a vast manufacturing network and explore the planet for an unseen interplanetary corporation. As its motto goes:
Construct, Automate, Explore & Exploit.

Because Satisfactory is an Early Access game with a largely blocked out world my assignments varied between polishing areas to redesigning areas or caves from the ground up.
My responsibilities included everything from sculpting and texturing the terrain to the final placements of all static meshes and foliage actors. One of the main challenges arises from the game being live. Resource nodes present in previous updates cannot be moved, and any iterations had to take into consideration that players may already have built factories there.

As Satisfactory is largely driven by systems, I worked closely with the systems-designers to ensure that their vision was achieved.
As previously released terrain may not always be compatible with a new vision, this often needed creative problem solving. Digging deeper into the terrain to allow new pathways to be created and limiting certain areas to more destructible foliage to make up for any potential overlap. Apart from factory-friendly plains, I also created more 'adventurous' locations, such as dense forests, rocky mazes, and caves where the player can find valuable resources at the risk of running into dangerous beasts.

As the player can simply build platforms over the world, or cut everything down with a chainsaw, one challenge is to convince them that the world is too precious to devastate by making it fun to navigate. For this reason, I had to ensure the moment-to-moment traversal remained engaging for the player at all times.

In-game screenshots of my design & art on the Dune Desert and the new caves.

Responsibilities include:

Open World Design

World Design:
- Concepting
  - Blockout the environment using basic cliffs & terrain sculpts
  - Build around existing limitations
    - Resource nodes
    - Areas previously ideal for factory building
    - Previous heightmap, to prevent entombing existing structures.
    - Additional requests from System Design
- Early optimisation
  - Reduce the number of terrain textures in use
  - Reduce the number of types of foliage actors in an area to acceptable levels
- Add new adventure locations, such as rocky labyrinths, densely grown forests, and cave entrances

World Polish:
- Environment Art
  - Improving sculpt quality of the terrain
  - Improving texture blends of the terrain
  - Adding additional foliage actors
  - Overhaul cliffs & canyons to look more natural
- Improve pathways clearance for vehicles & creatures
- Add new terrain features
  - Small navigational landmarks
  - Craters big enough to host a small factory
- Create new shortcuts through the existing terrain
  - Frequently adds verticality to environment
  - Results in lookout points to encourage further exploration

Dungeon Design

Clean up the environment
- Remove out-of-date meshes from the caves
- Fix issues in the nearby open world to prevent future knock-on effects
- Take note of any existing mechanics or visual concepts in use
- Create an inventory of all previously made caves & set them up as seperate levels for easier tracking and working conditions.
Concepting
- Create a fully enclosed shell for the new cave
- (Re)create the core concept
  - Usually based around a lighting scheme, traversal, gameplay mechanic or enemy type
- Verify new blockout with design
- Add pools of water & other major elements
- Select decor type & create basic decoration pass to make it visually distinct.
Implementation
- Perfect moment to moment gameplay, such as jumps, reveals and enemy movement
- Complete decor pass
Polish
- Set final lighting
- Decorate entrances
- Add VFX