On Battlefield 2042 I was tasked with creating the biggest map that Battlefield multi-player had ever seen.

The map is set in Antarctica and features the Russian army drilling for oil and the American army coming to stop them.

The map features a village, a huge glacier, a mountain top and a big oil rig that itself could be a small map.

I made this map together with two level artists and one 3D artist (along with various other disciplines). The map was a huge undertaking and went through several iterations to get to the state that we shipped with the game.

In order not just to make the map big but also make it feel big we added large terrain features such as a big mountain, a large glacier with a huge ravine going through it. We also had to think a lot about performance so a lot of the map is negative space in form of an ice sheet, large areas of snow on top of the glacier etc.

We decided quite early on to section the map of in to chunks each with it’s own unique game-play.

So for players who wanted a more vehicle experience they could go to the ice sheet or ravine. These areas features large features in form of ice bergs and containers where tanks can take cover but infantry will be exposed in the open.

Helicopter players could fight over the mountain top which is also a great point to capture for anyone who wants to parachute or wingsuit in to the rest of the map.

People like myself who like close quarter combat will have the best game-play on the oil rig. Which features a mix of interiors and exteriors with multiple levels to allow for a free roam movement with a lot of moment to moment choices.

For a mix of everything the village has medium distance fighting where both tanks and infantry can roam around. This is also the area with the most flags to pull players in and let them stay for a long time to keep on fighting for the control of the area.

Also… penguins