GAME BLURB: Travel across vast realms inhabited by the gods in pursuit of the Trickster God Loki, who threatens to undo the threads of the universe. It's up to you to battle gods and monsters alike as you take on one of the biggest and most epic scale Action RPGs ever experienced in VR. The sequel to one of the most critically-acclaimed VR games ever, Asgard's Wrath 2 is the massive VR adventure you've been waiting for.

Asgard’s Wrath 2

Asgard’s Wrath 2 is an action adventure Virtual Reality game released in 2023 on Oculus Quest 2 and 3. The game won Immersive Reality Game of the Year award at DICE awards 2024. Regarded as the largest VR game of all time with over 60 hours of gameplay.

I started working on the game in early production and shipped the game.

ROLE: Level Designer

PLATFORM: Meta Quest 2 and 3

TOOLS: Unreal Engine 4, Autodesk Maya

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT:

LEVEL DESIGN

• Worked on the project throughout production to ship to take multiple linear narrative driven levels from blockout to ship.

• Owned the design and implementation of multiple linear story levels and a large open exploration area, totaling 6+ hours of shipped content, using Unreal Engine 4 and Maya.

• Partnered with art, narrative, and systems teams to drive levels from blockout through ship quality, ensuring performance and gameplay clarity.

ENCOUNTER DESIGN

• Owned the design and implementation of tens of combat encounters throughout multiple large open exploration areas.

• Designed and tuned complex combat arenas and encounters, focused on complex compositions to drive the narrative idea of a challenging hellscape that the player has to escape from.

DUAT HUB - Exploration AREA (3+ Hours)

Focus: Exploration, traversal, puzzle design, combat encounters, progression gating

The Duat Hub is a large, interconnected exploration area that serves as the player’s first true entry into the Egyptian Underworld. It was designed as the final major exploration space in Asgard’s Wrath 2, and intentionally challenges the player to apply their full skillset—combat mastery, traversal mechanics, puzzle solving, and situational awareness—before progressing into the game’s final trials.

This hub connects multiple combat encounters, traversal challenges, optional rewards, and the gates leading to the Silent Caverns trial levels.

Design Goals

The core goals for the Duat Hub were:

• Create a high-challenge exploration space that tests all player abilities unlocked so far

• Encourage curiosity-driven exploration with meaningful rewards

• Balance combat, traversal, and puzzles without letting any single pillar dominate

• Establish a strong sense of place and narrative tension as the player enters Egyptian hell

Because this was the last exploration area in the game, difficulty, readability, and pacing were tuned assuming a highly skilled player.

Level Structure & Player Flow

The Duat Hub was structured around a central landmark (the Tower) with multiple branching paths that loop back into the main space. Each branch introduces a different gameplay focus:

• Traversal-forward routes that test movement and spatial reasoning

• Puzzle-centric setups that require understanding companion abilities and tools

• Combat encounters that escalate enemy composition and arena complexity

Critical progression paths are clearly readable, while optional routes reward deeper exploration with loot, upgrades, and narrative beats.

I focused heavily on sightlines, vertical layering, and return paths to ensure players always felt oriented, even when tackling non-linear objectives.

Traversal, Puzzle & Combat Integration

A major challenge was ensuring that traversal, puzzles, and combat interlock naturally rather than feeling like isolated beats.

Examples of design integration include:

• Traversal routes that double as combat arenas when ambushed

• Puzzle solutions that unlock combat advantages or alternate encounter flows

• Companion-based mechanics that gate progression while reinforcing mastery

Many setups were intentionally designed to teach through execution, allowing players to apply previously learned mechanics in new combinations rather than introducing new rules late in the game.

Difficulty & Progression

Since the Duat Hub appears late in the game, encounter difficulty was tuned to:

• Assume full player kit mastery

• Push enemy density, spacing, and sequencing

• Require spatial awareness and positioning rather than raw damage output

Progression gates ensure that players engage with the hub’s core challenges before accessing the Silent Caverns trials, reinforcing a sense of earned advancement.

Outcomes & Learnings

The Duat Hub successfully served as:

• A capstone exploration space

• A skill-check for traversal, combat, and puzzle systems

• A narrative bridge into the final bodd sequence

From a design perspective, this level reinforced the value of:

• Clear spatial readability in non-linear environments

• Reusing mechanics in escalating combinations rather than adding late-game complexity

• Designing exploration rewards that feel meaningful, not optional filler

Silent Caverns — Linear Story Level (45 Minutes)

Focus: Linear progression, combat encounters, traversal gating, narrative pacing

Silent Caverns is a tightly authored, linear story level set deep within the Egyptian underworld. It represents the player’s trial by Anubis, both narratively and mechanically, and was designed to push combat mastery through a sequence of escalating challenges.

The level is structured as six distinct trials, each combining traversal, puzzle solving, and high-intensity combat encounters.

Narrative & Design Intent

Narratively, Silent Caverns tells the story of the player’s descent into Egyptian hell and their progression through Anubis’s trials. Design-wise, the goal was to create a focused, pressure-driven experience that contrasts with the open exploration of the Duat Hub.

Key goals included:

• Deliver a highly controlled, linear experience with strong pacing

• Test the player’s combat proficiency under evolving conditions

• Gate combat encounters behind traversal and puzzle challenges to create rhythm and tension

• Make each trial feel earned and distinct

Level Structure & Trial Gating

The level is composed of six major trial spaces (“boxes”), connected linearly. Each trial is gated behind a traversal and puzzle challenge, ensuring that combat beats are spaced and contextualized rather than continuous.

This structure allowed:

• Clear separation between challenge types

• Mental resets between intense combat encounters

• Escalation of difficulty across trials

Traversal and puzzle gates were designed to reinforce mechanics already taught earlier in the game, preparing the player mentally before each combat trial.

Combat Encounter Design

Each of the six trials centers on a challenging combat encounter, with arenas designed to actively evolve during the fight.

Key combat design considerations:

• Encounters span 4–6 enemy waves per trial

• Enemy composition escalates both within a trial and across the level

• Wave transitions introduce new spatial constraints or opportunities

Combat was tuned to reward:

• Positioning and spatial awareness

• Efficient use of abilities and companions

• Adaptation to changing arena layouts

Arena Evolution & Wave Design

A defining feature of Silent Caverns is that each combat wave alters the arena in meaningful ways. Environmental changes force players to continuously re-evaluate positioning, movement, and tactics rather than relying on static strategies.

This approach:

• Prevents combat from feeling repetitive

• Keeps tension high across long encounters

• Reinforces the idea of Anubis actively testing the player

Arena changes were intentionally readable and telegraphed to maintain fairness while still demanding mastery.

Difficulty, Pacing & Player Mastery

Silent Caverns was designed assuming a high-skill player who has access to most core mechanics. Difficulty ramps steadily across the six trials, with later encounters requiring near-complete mastery of combat systems.

Pacing was carefully tuned by:

• Alternating traversal, puzzle, and combat beats

• Allowing brief moments of recovery before escalating encounters

• Structuring trials to feel climactic without overstaying their welcome

The result is a level that feels intense, deliberate, and purposeful from start to finish.

Outcomes & Learnings

Silent Caverns successfully functions as:

• A narrative centerpiece for the Egyptian underworld arc

• A combat skill check for late-game players

• A contrast to open exploration spaces elsewhere in the game

Key design takeaways included:

• Evolving arenas significantly increase encounter depth without adding new mechanics

• Traversal and puzzles are effective tools for pacing combat-heavy content

• Linear levels benefit from strong internal structure and clear escalation