Mission 01: Darkness Falls
Frontlines was my first professional level design job. I was ultimately responsible for the first, second, and final missions of the campaign, representing 2-3 hours of gameplay, depending on the player.
The game was built around the idea that the player always had multiple objectives, that they could complete in any order of their choosing, using a wide variety of weapons ranging from tanks to remote controlled flying drones.
The team, including myself and senior management, consisted of a large number of developers who cut their teeth making multiplayer mods, and suddenly found ourselves responsible for a large budget title with single player targeting PS3 & 360 release. It was a major learning process for all of us, and my first experience with usability testing and single player development. A large gatehouse structure that required a drone to infiltrate was added very late in development in response to poor focus testing scores. We found that if a player used a drone, they scored the game significantly higher, so we found a way to gate player progression on drone use.
While there are many many things I would do differently in hindsight, I still feel that many of the values that Frontlines was built upon informs me as a designer today. These include giving the player freedom to use their tools as they see fit, and the ability to approach problems in a fashion of their own choosing.