Fallout 76

Responsibilities

Role: Game Designer

  • Implementation of Seasonal/Event Updates for Nuclear Winter, Fallout 76’s Battle Royale Mode

  • Implementation and Design of gameplay systems for Fallout 76’s Adventure Mode

  • Design Support and Usability Testing for Engine Development Team

  • Creation and Upkeep of Documentation

Development Info

  • Team Size: 300+

  • Genre: RPG

  • Engine: Creation Kit

  • Release Date: October 2018

 

Design Challenges

Context Switching: Nuclear Winter and Adventure Mode were two entirely different player experiences with different goals and methodologies. I had to learn how to quickly shift my mind between PVP and PVE content when solving problems to ensure that players had a consistent and consistently fun experience.

Remote Work Before It Was Cool: Working alongside the Systems Design Team and Engine Development Teams in Austin required me to be able to adapt to being one of the only remote workers on a team even before quarantine and work from home was the norm. This uniquely prepared me for the remote work challenges the world threw at us all starting in 2020. I already learned the “Overcommunication Is Key” lesson for remote work when I worked with Vicarious Visions at Bungie, and then got to hone it further with BGS Austin.

My Role

As a Game Designer on Fallout 76, my role evolved over time with the needs of the project and I eventually wore many hats and switched contexts several times:

Fallout 76’s Battle Royale Mode: Nuclear Winter:

  • I owned maintenance of overall game balance of the skills, abilities, and dozens of weapons with each new content drop

  • Updated and maintained battlepass and challenges for Nuclear Winter

  • Designed and balanced three new weapons from the main game into Nuclear Winter for Wastelanders DLC

  • Implemented the three new weapons into the loot spawning system and integrated their unlockable skins into the Battle Pass

  • Decorated public pregame area and in-game world for seasonal events

  • Interfaced with QA and Production to ensure studio playtests went as expected

Fallout 76: Adventure Mode:

  • Stepped into Systems Design and supported the BGS Austin Systems Design team with quality of life improvements for Adventure Mode, including implementing a new contextual-ammo loot system

  • Designed and Implemented new pinnacle armor set rewards and more than a dozen new weapons for the Wastelanders and Steel Dawn DLCs requiring Gold Bouillon, an endgame ritual currency

Fallout 76 Engine Development and Private Worlds Development:

  • Provided design input and Usability support for mods in Private Worlds to the Engine Development Team