Warhammer: 40K Games

In chronological order, here is a list of the games I’ve worked on in the Warhammer: 40K franchise and what I’ve done for them. This category encompasses the Dawn of War series as well as a couple of other 40K related titles. Where applicable, I’ve provided a link to highlighted levels.

Dawn of War 3

  • Dawn of War 3 was a fun game to work on and we definitely experimented with gameplay, departing a fair bit from previous titles in the series. As per usual, the 40K universe is a vast and entertaining universe to explore. Although I myself prefer playing as the Imperium in tabletop, I always feel the Orks make such a fun enemy to fight against and I feel we did the Orks a great justice in bringing out their personality in this game.

    On this project, I was responsible for several single player missions. This was all achieved using our in-house proprietary world building tool (Essence Editor) and our Relic in-house dialect of LUA (SCAR - Scripting at Relic).

    A recurring theme in the projects I’ve worked on at Relic, I prototyped levels used specifically to test and flesh out gameplay mechanics for internal team use and also for approval gating. I also provided demo level support for marketing, and tutorial support.

  • Story Missions
    The Defense of Varlock Keep (Marine)

    A Dangerous Proposal (Eldar)(Shared)

    The Bloody Gambit (Eldar)

    Waking Giants (Eldar)

    A Clash of Leviathans (Ork)(Shared)

Selected Mission

Game Data
Platform Windows
Released 2017
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 Sega
Genre
 Real Time Strategy
Metacritic 77
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer

Dark Millennium Online

  • Relic Entertainment is often uncredited in its assistance to Vigil and THQ as a whole. We had a dedicated team to assist in this endeavour. My responsibilities lay in carrying out from paper design to implementation of several MMO style “instances” of varying sizes. We used a world building tool that was proprietary to Vigil, who also used this suite of tools to build their Darksiders games. Frequently, I would liaise with my counterparts at Vigil on design problems and solutions. During this time, THQ was having financial issues and the DMO project was cancelled, leading to a massive layoff at Relic.

  • MMO Instances
    3 MMO “micro” and “minor” instances - a reactor, a processing plant, and a barracks

Game Data
Platform Windows
Released Not Released - Cancelled 2012
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 THQ
Genre
 Third Person MMO
Metacritic N/A
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer

Space Marine

  • Immediately after finishing Dawn of War 2: Retribution, I was part of a team of designers that were put onto Space Marine in order to help finish and polish significant sections of the single player campaign. To that end, I helped out with portions of a level that took place on a Titan, as well as portions of a level that took place in a sewer system.

    My contributions to this project were:

    • paper design and implementation of enemy encounters on existing maps, ensuring that encounters provided an interesting and compelling experience to the player

    • used proprietary world building tool to achieve this (Phoenix Engine, tech from Vigil’s Darksiders)

    • general design bug fixing and polish items

  • Story Missions (Unpublished)

    Portions of an unpublished level that took place on the Titan in the game.

    Portions of an unpublished level that took place in a sewer system in the game.

Game Data
Platform Windows/PS3/XBox 360
Released 2011
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 THQ
Genre
 Real Time Strategy
Metacritic 74 (PC) 70 (PS3) 76 (XBox 360)
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer

Dawn of War 2: Retribution

  • Dawn of War 2: Retribution was the last expansion for Dawn of War 2, and therefore had the highest amount of factions. Like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, this meant that every mission had to take into account every faction available (6 by this time). The gameplay for DoW2 was very finely honed by this point, and I recalled the design team having so much fun making the missions and their variations because we had the full range of 40K factions to play with.

    My responsibilities on this project involved paper design, layout, LUA scripting, and World Builder (the mission creation tool we used at Relic) implementation as well as some in-game cinematics. Specifically, I was tasked with the responsibility of coming up with a tutorial for all the races in addition to one other story mission which also had alternate versions to support all the available factions. As a result, the work required to make these missions fulfill the requirements was probably more than double the equivalent!

  • Story Missions

    Ladon Swamplands (had to support 6 different factions so had 6 different variations depending on the faction)

    Awakening Ulkair (had to support 6 different factions, and depending on the faction, one of 2 alternate versions was used for story reasons)

Selected Missions

Game Data
Platform Windows
Released 2011
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 THQ
Genre
 Real Time Strategy
Metacritic 80
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

  • Dawn of War: Dark Crusade marked the first time we had a dynamic campaign map for any Relic strategy game. To that end, we made all sorts of interesting gameplay modes, and rewards for playing the map. The map was mainly organized into skirmishes and Strongholds interspersed with some special areas that would confer bonuses to your campaign if captured. The player was encouraged to build defences and the opposition (and your forces) would change in size depending on what the attackers and defenders brought into the level.

    On this project I was responsible for a few skirmish maps, as well as 2 Stronghold missions. This all involved taking these levels from paper design, to layout and scripting implementation of objectives and mechanics, and post launch support. I also hand made some of the in-game cinematic sequences for the levels under my purview.

  • Story Missions

    Or’es Tash’n (Tau Stronghold)

    The Green Coast (Ork Stronghold)

    Skirmish Missions

    A few of the Skirmish Maps, too minor to remember, but with gameplay elements added to account for enemy and player defences and reinforcements.

Game Data
Platform Windows
Released 2006
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 THQ
Genre
 Real Time Strategy
Metacritic 87
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer

Dawn of War: Winter Assault

  • I had re-applied to work at Relic after my stint at EA as a tester and I got hired to work on Winter Assault. Little did I know that this title would be the first of a few Dawn of War franchise games that I have worked on over the span of my career. Winter Assault was the first expansion for the excellent Dawn of War. Its two campaigns were organized according to the forces of Order (Imperial Guard, and Eldar) and Disorder (Orks and Chaos).

    At this point in time in my life, I was a rabid fan of painting Warhammer: 40K miniatures so I was over the moon at being able to work on something from 40K. Here, I cut my teeth working on my first levels (as opposed to just gameplay elements, testing, or production work).

    My responsibilities on Winter Assault would be a portent of things to come working for Relic. I was responsible for a couple of single player levels at this point, and did my very first paper designs, LUA scripts, and my first steps into World Builder use (building off what I remembered from my time doing technical writing on Impossible Creatures). I even got to try my hand at doing some of the cinematics in the game for my missions and they came out great.

    My biggest achievement while working on this game was my work getting awarded Gamespy’s 2005 Level of the Year!

  • Order Campaign

    Between a Stone and an Axe (Eldar), Titan of the Emperor (Imperial)(Gamespy Level of the Year 2005)

    Disorder Campaign

    Gather the Clans (Orks)

Selected Missions

Game Data
Platform Windows
Released 2005
Developer
 Relic Entertainment
Publisher
 THQ
Genre
 Real Time Strategy
Metacritic 85
My Role
 Mission/Level Designer