I started as a designer at Respawn Entertainment in May 2010, when the studio opened.
Apex Legends was released in Februrary of 2019 on PC and Xbox One and Playstation 4.

Every level shown is a product of the whole team, with many assets being designed and implemented by other departments such as art, fx, audio.
While I was the principal designer of Kings Canyon through developement, other designers and even artists helped design some areas. It was truley a team effort.

KINGS CANYON

Kings Canyon In-Game Map The map is 1.1 mile squared (or 1.8km squared) and contains about 29 uniquely designed towns.

Skull Town is the largest town on the map, named after the giant Leviathan skull that sits off to the side. DESIGN BREAKDOWN The spine acts as a prime sniping location for the entire zone, which is designed like an X in the middle of a ring of rocks and sand dunes. The ring of rocks acts as a border wall, signaling to the player that they are entering a new space, and to check the spine for snipers before entering. The arms of the city act as welcoming roads into the center, with plenty of tarps and interiors to act as vertical cover from anyone controlling the spine or the rooftops of the tall apartment buildings in the center. These buildings are the main loot paths through the PoI.

click on a thumbnail to see a larger image

Market is popular partly because it's near the center of the map, but also because it's an enclosed space that players can easily understand. It's also a very visible shape from the plane. DESIGN BREAKDOWN It's designed to be its own little deathmatch area. I use this idea in lots of Kings Canyon locations, but this is the one that embodies it the most. It's fully enclosed and could be an entire, small deathmatch map. Being enclosed forces some different gameplay. There are very little positioning & flanking options compared to fighting out in the open. There are no airstrikes or distant snipers. Getting third partied is less frequent because that team would need to breach the Market doors, which is a lot scarier than engaging 2 teams fighting from afar with a Longbow. Later in the game, the Market meta shifts. The inside has been looted, so the rooftop becomes a power position to hold a very heavily trafficed junction. The windmill town to the South is used precisely to give options for players to loot and fight against a team on the Market roof. This is one of my favorite fights in the game. If the team at windmill town can supress the Market team for just a bit, they can push past the open space and get underneath them. Then, it's all out chaos, players poking up at different angles to fight the rooftop, and controlling that Market roof feels very scary. On a personal note, you can find a small homage to my pup of 12 years (Shadie) in a corner of the Market. She passed away while I was working on Kings Canyon, and this little shrine remembers her.

click on a thumbnail to see a larger image

Where my Caustic mains at? Bunker, up until about a month before shipping Apex Legends, was just an unnamed cutthrough in the mountains. It wasn't designed to be a drop location. It was designed to allow our defensive characters to have areas where they felt powerful against the more aggressive assault characters. As we playtested Kings Canyon, people would describe to me epic fights they had enjoyed in "that military hallway in the mountains... I don't know what it's called."

click on a thumbnail to see a larger image