The Outer Worlds 2 - Cloister Planet Exterior

Cloister is a computer-planet that supports the Archive that the Order of the Ascendant faction uses for their Religion.
Cloister opens up during the 2nd act of the game. The goal here is to gain access to The Archive to find out how to close the Rifts.

When I was given the responsibility of designing the Cloister Overlands, this is what I was given. I had goals as well - the main quest gives the player the goal of getting into the Archive Lift. I was also approved to change this layout as needed.

The first thing I did was to clear the red lines - this gave more visual freedom when discussing the initial idea with my collaborators. From here we discussed what we wanted to chop out so that we could minimize Design Dead Space - places we wouldn't use

The Creative Director wanted a "hot war," so I spent time identifying the various faction boundaries, and where I would show them fighting.
blue - Order
green - Aunties Choice
grey - Protectorate
orange - cultists

Using this 2D map, I could plan where we were going to place tinyPOI content between the major POIs in the region.
Red lines - trenches
Blue T - Order faction
Green - AC
Red - Protectorate
Yellow - Cultist
Purple - Creature

This was what was created by my Environment Art collaborator, Terry Hess. We worked closely to align with the agreed upon takeaways from the 2D maps above. This defines major POIs, and provided terrain to facilitate player movement in the planet.

This is my pass on the roads that would lead the player around the region. My idea was that roads wouldn't freeze because they're made from computer parts.
Solid non-border lines - major roads
Dotted lines - snow paths

This is the final result of my effort to chop out Design Dead Space. There is far less walkable space than the original. From here we could focus on Weenies, Sightlines, Breadcrumbing, and Environmental Storytelling in the remaining spaces.

The first thing I worked on was the establishing shot - when the player first arrives -> what do they see.

The big spire is their goal, and they have a clear path forward towards that goal. This simplicity was very important to me.

To reinforce the "hot war" requirement, I added a cave-in. The tunnel serves to show what would be the normal path for anyone landing here lore-wise. The blockage within forces the player around the exterior path that features the main goal Weenie.

I created a TinyPOI near the landing pad with these NPCs. They're looking out on the war front, and commenting on the state of the conflict and war. This provides ambient context for the player entering the region.

That path from the intro here leads right to the Headquarters of the Order of the Ascendant. The player can get their help for their main goal of entering the Archive. Giving the player the option of going here was important - this faction owns the planet

When the player enters the Overlands proper, they enter go here - the border of the OAs trenches. Here we reinforce the war effort in many ways. This highlights the stark realities of the conflict for the player - this is a serious war.

I designed "Hot War Sequences" in the region to support the Creative Directors goal. If the player didn't make peace with the factions in previous content, they'll see AC drop hostile creatures to attack the OA trenches.

The creatures that may be dropped by AC can be fought. The Mantisaurs can be found in open conflict with the OA troops in the trenches. This offers experiential storytelling to reinforce the active conflict in the region.

This is another "Hot War Sequence."
Red - "Sky Mines," which are floating mines we see elsewhere in the game. I wanted to show them in action
Green - Auntie's Choice troop transports

I worked closely with an animator on these sequences. In this shot we can see what happens when the mines go off. This ship goes down (outside of player-accessible space - this kept the implementation cheap enough for us to stay within scope.

This is the last of the "Hot War Sequences." This is just an AC ship that blare advertisements as it floats by. This is seen in AC owned territory, so nothing attacks it.

The Trenches in the overlands were my idea as well. These served to give visual and tangible boundaries for the faction presence in the region. Here we can see a no-mans-land between adversaries.

I wanted to make sure there was clarity with faction presence, so I advocated for us to get banners for the various factions so that the player could see who owned what from a distance. Here we can see the entrance to Protectorate trenches.

Here we see trenches surrounding a POI. I put a lot of effort into "bleeding" content from the various POIs. I wanted there to be a gradual buildup to the visuals and gameplay in the areas the overlands surrounded.

Here we see 2 things
1 - the roads aren't frozen over. Since the planet is a computer, my idea was that the roads wouldn't freeze because they're computer parts.
2 - further reinforcement of faction presence with lighting. The green is AC

A huge part of my responsibility as the Area Designer for the Overlands was creating TinyPOIs. Here you can see a vendor that I added. They're a deserter selling scrapped parts from the war. They've joined the Scrapper minor-faction.

To make the many TinyPOIs efficiently, I designed prefabs like this to be placed anywhere. A tiny house that shows how technicians would've survived while operating on the computer parts on this harsh planet. Lore-wise, these are repurposed for the war.

I designed a quest in the overlands for the AC Faction. It can be started here or at another POI. The goal is to reconnect communications for the faction since the Protectorate won ground between them.

This is connected to the abovementioned quest. The player has to kill all the Protectorate troops here. They can use the blue stealth route to use an RPG check to turn the turrets against the hostiles for an easier fight.

This is where the aforementioned quest connects. Once the player completes the task, they'll talk to a commander past these gates by the Weenie in the distance to complete the quest. This can be started from either AC location and ended in the other.

I designed this for another Quest in this Region - a Bounty Quest. The player is tasked with coming here to kill the leader of this group. Upon doing so they can return to the Bounty Terminal at the OAHQ for a reward.

Another Quest on this planet is a Collection Quest. I designed placed little chapels around the region where the player could collect items for an NPC in the OAHQ. They offer a nice reward for collecting data that is in their adversaries territories.

For the Collection Quest, there is a chapel on this mesa. It's only accessible via an elevator once the player has progressed past the main goal and finds access up to this location. It rewards main quest progression, but is seen / incentivized early on.