On Days Gone, I was a tech designer/scripter. My duties included:
Building and maintaining the Open World VO Manager
Building and maintaining a stealth system and the levels associated with it
Gathering telemetry data and supporting the team’s requests for telemetry
Scripting gameplay sequences such as combat encounters, stealth scenarios, etc
Buddy scripting (where to go, where to look, etc)
Mission, job, and open world dialogue
Cinematics and cinematic continuity
Working as tech and bug support for the mission team
Hooking up Playstation Trophies
Polishing the timing for everything
Primarily, I spent my time scripting in Unreal Blueprint, programming in Unreal C++, editing levels, and collaborating with teammates.
Open World VO Manager
I built this system from scratch, specifically to prioritize and play dialogue in the open world. This system handles all conversations outside of missions and jobs, and plays them when they best fit in the sequence of events as the story unfolds. These often tie into the main story-line, but they can also be less consequential dialogue that is meant to flesh out characters’ personalities.
I worked directly with engineers and our writers to put this together such that it could manage a wide variety of dialogue and situations.
Stealth System
I also worked on a stealth system specific to one enemy faction, and that is used during seven different missions. I built the original prototype, then we passed it on to one of our outsourcing teams. When they had finished their work on it, they passed it back to us and I went back to work integrating it into our missions.
The final version controls the NPC’s in a new way that forces the player to focus on quiet, stealthy gameplay. I also worked with other designers to finalize the format and with our writers to help sell the atmosphere and make sure that nothing felt out of place.
Missions
Along with working on more global systems, I also worked heavily on missions, combat encounters, and level layouts. I worked directly on everything you can see in this video at one point or another, but I ended up primarily handling from 33:40 on to the end of the video.
We were a much smaller team when I started working at Sony Bend, so I wore many hats throughout my time, and worked on most of the missions in the game. As we grew, I was able to focus more deeply on specific missions and jobs and bring them to a polished state. For each mission, I did the layout, combat encounters, VO, logic scripting, and playtesting, along with handling requests to our art teams. engineers, and writers.