Assassin’s Creed Origins
Junior Designer (Junior Level Designer)
My first professional project after university, Assassin's Creed Origins introduced me to the art and complexity of creating compelling open-world experiences. I contributed to both level and mission design in the Faiyum region of ancient Egypt, learning to blend storytelling, world-building, and gameplay to create immersive player experiences.
Here are some key highlights:
In Summary
Key Contributions:
- Created memorable level layouts in Egyptian cities and remote locations, emphasizing player exploration.
- Authored dynamic missions that blended historical authenticity with engaging gameplay.
- Learned mission scripting techniques that improved player experience.
- Fostered strong relationships between the design, art, and engineering teams to streamline pipelines.
Location Design • Mission Design • Additional Contributions
Location Design, Faiyum Region
Crafted diverse environments in the Faiyum region, including bustling towns and fortified military bases.
Karanis & Bakchias
Key Contributions:
- Designed two contrasting towns: the opulent Karanis and the rebel-occupied ruins, Bakchias.
- Created diverse content, including temple interiors, treasure tombs, and rooftop navigation paths.
- Developed strong collaboration skills with artists and narrative designers to build cohesive environments.
Kerkesoucha Granary
Key Contributions:
- Enhanced gameplay opportunities in a large military fort by designing stealth paths, cover points, and interactive elements.
- Balanced realism and gameplay by considering practical design questions (e.g., living spaces and defensive structures).
- Gained expertise in creating open-ended, player-driven spaces that can be approached from all directions.
Mission Design, Faiyum Region
Designed engaging missions that blended storytelling, exploration, and player-driven gameplay.
Curse of Wadjet
Key Contributions:
- Explored ways to seamlessly pace narrative and action moments.
- Introduced subtle player choices, like skippable objectives and multiple mission approaches.
- Developed design insights that informed the way we approached Quests in later Assassin's Creed titles.
The Bride
Key Contributions:
- Researched crisis intervention techniques to design a mission with emotional depth.
- Created an organic, player-discovered mission with multiple triggers for a natural encounter experience.
Additional Contributions:
- Collaborated with the ObjectBank team to model the Wadjet snake statuette, from initial 3D design to final refinement.
- Drafted dialogue and flavor text for missions, later refined by writers.
- Owned a sub-region from initial planning to detailed design, gaining invaluable experience in large-scale content development despite its eventual rescoping.
This project laid the foundation for my skills in creative problem-solving, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and balancing storytelling with player engagement—all essential capabilities that extend beyond game development.
Assassin's Creed Origins is an action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2015's Assassin's Creed Syndicate. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 27, 2017.
The game is set in Egypt near the end of the Ptolemaic period (49-47 BC) and recounts the secret fictional history of real-world events. The story explores the origins of the centuries-long conflict between the Brotherhood of Assassins, who fight for peace by promoting liberty, and The Order of the Ancients—forerunners to the Templar Order—who desire peace through the forced imposition of order.
Origins received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, characters, voice acting, reworked gameplay-systems, immersive world of Egypt and the visuals, while criticizing some of the pacing and technical issues. The game has been lauded as either the best or one of the best installments in the series by multiple critics.