The Settlement Defense Front (Enemy Faction) have looted and destroyed a UNSA Weapons Lab on the ice moon of Europa, killing SCAR Team 7. Back on Earth, Captain Raines, Lt. Reyes, and Lt. Salter get notified of the attack during a “Fleet Week” celebration in Geneva, Switzerland. As the soldiers board a small drop-ship, the cities defensive AATIS Guns begin attacking the city. The SDF have taken over the AATIS Guns from the cities control tower. Fending off an ensuing battle, our heroes have to navigate through the crumbling city to take back the Control Tower and push back the Settlement Defense Front.

“Black Sky” was the level that we used to reveal the game at E3 2016. The mission was initially blocked out by 2 other designers. When we reached the First Playable milestone, I was tasked with redesigning the C6 Robot combat area, and the street portions leading up to the end of the mission. I was also assigned to do a first pass of art on the streets and building facades. The ending was heavily inspired by “Hill 400” and was a big focus for the studio. It was heavily featured in our marketing material and the Single Player reveal video. I took over the area during the E3 push, and shortly after took responsibility for the entire mission to work on until the game shipped.

Concept Art | Thomas A. Szakolczay

• Designed C6 “Robot Alley” Combat | First Pass Art

• “Hill 400” Polish | Redesign tasks based on Director feedback

• Supported Animation and Narrative on all mission beats

Lt. Nick Reyes (Player) and crew are tasked with retaking the cargo terminals on the Moon Gateway Port. The terminals hold valuable freight and other ships the UNSA have deemed critical for rebuilding their fleet after the recent SDF attack on Earth.

This mission was the first to go into production for Infinite Warfare. An early prototype of the mission was used as a green-light for Activision. The original geometry was built by myself and Stephen Okasaki. Our goal was to prove that the gameplay of Call of Duty would work well in a space environment. After a few direction pivots, a lot of that work was removed and the team restarted on the version that eventually shipped. During the reset, we revisited an idea that I had initially pitched (the large curved structure) with another designer, David Savage. The interior combat spaces that I built were used as the tutorial sections for wall running and double jumping. A lot of iteration went into this but I’m overall happy with how things turned out. Later geo optimizations and adjustments were made by Paul Sandler. I had also built and scripted a prototype intro to the mission that saw players dropping onto the moon landscape in a vehicle during a large scale battle. Players were attached to a mounted weapon and had control to aim and shoot where they wanted. There were moments along the way where enemy ships would fly by and attack the player and friendlies. The narrative context was that dropping further away gave the characters the time and distance to secretly and safely infiltrate the structure. Later in production, teams were shuffled and like many, I was moved to help with the E3 content. That intro prototype was eventually trimmed down to the on-rails version we see in the shipped game.

Concept Art | Thomas A. Szakolczay

• Pitched ideas for Mission Narrative | Gameplay Mechanics

• BSP Blockout | First Pass Art

• Designed wall running and double jump tutorials