Bavarian Beer Trials was one of the first Arena maps we designed for Versus.
As the only non German level designer, it was quite an honor to be responsible for designing a beer garden level.
Ancient City was my first professional PvP level, a mirror symmetry 1v1 level.
I had a lot of fun designing a brand new biome while ensuring readability remained intact.
Evergreen Forest was my final PvP / skirmish level I contributed to the project.
Built from the ground up with constant feedback and suggestions from the Spellforce community.
OVERVIEW
MY ROLE
I worked as a Level Designer on SpellForce 3: Versus, a standalone PvP-focused edition of the game. During the Reforced rework, I designed two new multiplayer RTS levels and one Arena Mode level, working closely with the community and internal teams throughout development.
My daily tasks involved:
- Created blockouts, final layouts, and composition for navigation
- Placed enemy spawns, loot, and RTS resource points
- Iterated based on community feedback via Discord and public betas
- Collaborated with the art team for biome and theme alignment
- Mentored junior designers and contributed prefab setups
- Ran performance checks and gameplay tuning across all maps
LEVEL LIST
- During my time on the project I was lucky enough to design three new multiplayer levels
- - Bavarian Beer Trials
- - Ancient City
- - Evergreen Forest
For more detailed info on individual levels and additional screenshots, please see my Artstation profile.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
COMMUNITY DRIVEN DESIGN
The challenge was creating a forest skirmish map entirely through Discord community collaboration. Managing constant feedback from blockout to final while parsing conflicting requests from dozens of voices made traditional design iteration nearly impossible.
I set up structured feedback phases and clear communication channels to avoid feature creep. Winding lanes and chokepoints had to satisfy both casual and competitive players, so I focused on changes that improved clarity and balance rather than chasing every suggestion. Regular playtests helped show why certain requests worked or didn’t.
The trickiest part was staying true to the design vision while making the community feel genuinely heard, not just consulted.
NEW ARENA MODE
The challenge was creating an arena map for a brand new game mode with no existing framework to build on. I had to innovate from scratch while making it work for short-form PvP in a Bavarian beer garden setting.
I designed natural terrain flow around combat hotspots, using the Southern German countryside theme to create clear navigation while balancing spawns and wave pacing for the new Arena mode. The beer garden aesthetic had to look authentic but still read clearly during fast combat.
ASYMMETRICAL BALANCE
The challenge was designing an asymmetrical RTS map with a completely unique biome not found anywhere else in the game. I had to balance fairness without mirrored layouts while creating visual identity from scratch.
I placed resource nodes and strategic zones to create different but equally viable paths for each side, using the ancient ruins theme to justify terrain variations. Working with art meant developing new assets and color palettes that felt cohesive but distinct. Community feedback during alpha helped refine the core routes so asymmetry felt intentional rather than broken.
