Medal Of Honor: Airborne
Medal Of Honor: Airborne is a World War II first-person shooter game developed and published by Electronic Arts in 2007
Core team: ~130
Time on project: ~15 months
Contributions
Designed Neptune mission terrain and gameplay using Unreal and 3DS MAX
Sketched 2D layout design documents in Illustrator for 7 Missions including scenarios for Husky, Avalanche, Market Garden, and Varsity
Built tools and procedures for other Level Designers to fill out their Airdrop sequences (every mission began with an Airdrop)
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"Steve and I worked together on Medal of Honor Airborne for over two years. He came on early in the project and hit the ground running immediately proving himself to be a great designer. Later in the project, he was given THE most difficult level in the game to lead and he faced that challenge with professionalism and confidence and pulled it off with great success. Take that and his work ethic (Steve was always first in and last to leave) and you have one major force of leadership and creativity on your team. I would personally work with Steve again in a heartbeat." - Michael Licht
"Steve is a very creative and unique designer that brings an unyielding stream of 'outside the box' thinking toward every project he is involved in. Beyond his ingenuity, Steve's honest and warm personality makes him a pleasure to work with, and his genuine care for both the project and his teammates bolsters the performance of those lucky enough to surround him. I enjoyed working with Stephen and would love to again." - Joe DiDonato
"Stephen's great to work with. He's an incredibly thoughtful and thorough designer, and he thinks things through before he commits them to development. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of video games, and applies it as an outstanding foundation for his work now. He's fun to work with too. Very intelligent, keenly observant, and wryly funny." - Kevin Mack
Operation Neptune
Back when Airborne was a much bigger game, there were a few vehicle missions I worked on, as well as other missions, but I spent most of my time in the French countryside on Operation Neptune, laying out encounters, drop zones, and affordance graphs in Illustrator.
The three sub-missions on the left - La Fière Manor, Cauquigny, and the Road to Azeville - were all extremely detailed and historically authentic. Sadly, all three were cut for the sake of time, and the abbreviated mission (middle images) had Players dropping into a stylized version of a combination of all three.
I had a lot of fun working on the mission in the Unreal Engine and even got to demo Neptune to Steven Spielberg. I feel like this mission alone was enough to earn any Game Designer an Airborne Challenge Coin, but I also had a hand in other missions.
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was far larger than the mission that shipped in the final game. There was a pre-mission involving crossing under the bridge by boat to disable German explosives that was cut to focus on the airdrop and bridge crossing.
Grey-boxing the level was easy given the Illustrator shapes, then importing that and extruding it in SketchUp. Then it was back into the Unreal Editor with to script a giant moving box (tank) to test for vehicle clearance between buildings, and setting up patrol waypoints.
Operation Varsity
The Flak Tower is an absolutely insane structure that was based off the designs seen in Vienna and still stands to this day! Even more insane is the separation of the "G" (gun) and "L" (command) towers in this generation of Flak Towers since the vibrations of the heavy artillery guns interfered with the sensitive electronic equipment of the command towers.
Even more insane than that was the triangulation around the city center of Vienna - three sets of "G" and "L" towers ensured an impenetrable defense almost twenty miles in diameter.
The most insane aspect of this "Death Star" final level of the game was actually flying over and parachuting onto it.
Even though my initial sketches didn't make it into the game, I thought the addition of the swastika was a cool touch that would be hidden in the first-person gameplay.
Airdrop Spectacle
Every Operation in Medal Of Honor: Airborne starts with a drop Mission and every drop Mission begins with an In The Plane sequence. During this time, the Player is inside the 'Hero' C47, and many Effects and Spectacle elements are directly related to the Hero C47.
Before the move to the Unreal Engine, I worked with engineers to develop tools and assets related to the Airdrop sequence - C47 flight path, plane interior, AA Guns and Flak, searchlights, etc. These assets and behaviors made it easy for the Level Designers to sprinkle into their missions, adding Spectacle and Fun!
The title of this entry comes from a line of VO in the Neptune mission of Medal Of Honor: Airborne for the PC, Xbox360, and PS3.
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