The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

I have been making multiplayer maps in the Call of Duty modding community for past 8 years. Over the years, I have learned a lot of design rules and principles that I have successfully integrated in my level design process. I will take you through all the steps that will help you make a fun multiplayer map.

For the purpose of this blog, I will talk about designing a multiplayer map for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Lets name this map 'Tugurios' and set it in slums. Now we can talk a little about the story and setting of the map.

Tugurios means slums in Spanish and the map is based around slums in Venezuela

Gold was discovered in hills and slums developed close to the hills to provide labor

Years later the hills dried up. With jobs no more available, the slums became the hub for weapons and drug trafficking

When things got out of control, the government sent in special forces to deal with the situation

The match takes place at noon time and one team spawns in the slums while the other team spawns on the road on the other side of the map

Here is the top down view, to give you a clear picture of the map

Here are all the locations in the map:

Hills

Hills and surrounding areas will be shown dry and dusty with a lot of corners and jagged edges to show effects of mining

Any buildings in this area will resemble corrugated metal sheds with windows which were once being used as offices

Ditch

Ditch will have a muddy ground with water flowing in the middle and vegetation growing on slopes and banks. Few large rocks will be placed on the bed to provide cover

Slums

Small shanties made out of red brick, cinder blocks and corrugated sheets

Piles of rubbish and debris everywhere which can also be used for cover

Some shanties are piled on top of other shanties to make 2 or 3 story shanties

Hanging electrical wires everywhere

Walls have a lot of grime and graffiti

Ground is either made up of broken concrete with open drains or green grass with plenty of vegetation

Road

Road is where Team A will spawn. It is made up of broken, dusty asphalt with cars parked at places to provide cover.

It is half or one story above the ground so that it is not visible from ground and the player has to either climb the stairs or mantle up at certain locations

Crane base

A large concrete base for a crane that was used during mining operations. The crane is gone but the concrete base is still there.

Looks like a concrete bunker with rebar and metal rivets poking out of broken corners and surfaces

Has a large circular bracket on top that hides one entry location from another.

The base resembles the concrete bases used for heavy anti aircraft guns during Second World War

The area marked in red shows the slums

Small, irregularly placed shanties piled on top of each other and some are 3 stories high

The area marked in green is the road next to the hills. Hills have blocky appearance because of mining

Both areas are separated by a deep ditch, marked in yellow. It is one story deep and has to be crossed to get on other side of the map

Height Variations

There are a lot of height variations in the map. These are used to block long lines of sight and make the map more interesting.

1 is considered ground or first floor which is about 10 feet high from floor to ceiling. It will be used as reference. Ditch is at height 1.

Other numbers represent the height as number of floors

For example, the road is 3 floors high from ditch

Team Spawns

Special forces, or Team A, spawn on the road shown by the green patch

Militia, or Team B, spawns in the slums shown by red patch

Objectives

I have always designed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer maps keeping Domination game type in mind. This helps a lot in designing a well balanced map to make sure that one team does not have unfair advantage over another.

Three points in the map shown as A, B and C represent the three flags in Domination styled gameplay

Teams can capture A and C easily as they are close to their spawns

B will be the hardest to capture and hold as it is in the middle of the map and covered by many positions

Paths

Critical Path

The red line connecting the two sections of the map shows the Critical or the shortest path

The path is shortest, but goes through the most dangerous areas of the map

Flanks

The green lines show the secondary paths

Both of these paths are longer than Critical path, but offer flanking positions and bypass the action zone in the center

These paths, however, have long lines of sight making it easier for snipers to pick targets off

Points of Interest

There are several points of interest or hotspots in the map that give advantage to the team occupying them

The first spot in circled in red. This is a ledge overlooking the ditch. It is 3 stories high from the ditch

Players can cover the ditch and two other hotspots from here which will be shown next

It is more accessible to the team A spawning on the road

The spot is circled in red and is 3 stories high from the ditch

It is accessible only from the back side therefore players playing as militia can reach this spot quickly

This spot covers the ditch, the hotspot on the opposite side and one on the upper right side shown in the next slide

The spot is circled in red. This is a large concrete base for a crane that was used during the mining times

This spot can be accessed from both sides by stairs

The spot overlooks the ditch and is 3 stories higher than ditch.

The players can cover the whole length of the ditch from here and also two other hotspots shown in the previous slides

The spot is circled in red. Here the three passages meet and is also the Critical path

A 2 story tall building on the right side of the spot can be used by team A to overlook the critical path

Enemy team players can go to the ledge on the left from here and take out friendly players overlooking the ditch

If the enemy controls this spot, they can control the ditch and domination point A

The spot is circled in red. It overlooks the domination point C and also the paths coming from the ditch

Its a 2 story tall building that can be accessed from both sides by stairs. A passage on the back side of the building can provide safe passage to attacking enemy players

Team B has to hold this point to watch the paths leading to base and also lay down fire on domination point C

Lines of sight

Lines of sight are very important in a multiplayer map as they decide the engagement lengths and also control cover and AI placement in a map. I have integrated the lines of sight in the top down view of the map for better understanding.

Blue cones show the players’ sight from ledges or 2nd or 3rd story windows

The cones are shown small just to demonstrate players’ sight. Actual lines of sight will be much longer in the level

This helps in understanding where windows and other high places are located in the map and which areas they cover

These are just some of the basic design principles that I have discussed here, but they will help you start your level design journey. Later I will include other design elements like cover mechanics, level flow, and weapons and vehicle placement.