Back in Egypt.
The great temple of Hatshepsut took several iterations of the big shapes and then was transfered to another designer.
Then onto the Valley of the kings, the village of Seth Ma’at and its Necropolis. The layout was really fun to create as the prototype village of the builders of the pyramids – the current Deir-el-Medina is flat. And we needed it to be on a mountain slope. Making the village work and look logical and navigable by the NPCs was a challenge but in the end it did look alive and full of people.
Creating the necropolis next to it was a bit easier as the small pyramid tombs did not take that much place and the actual necropolis looks a lot like the version in the game.
The Valley of the kings was the real challenge. I think that in the end the blend of its modern day state and the ancient textures made it look recognisable and at the same time to not feel anachornistic and break the atmosphere of the game.
Along with one level artist we made the big shapes and then I added the outsides of the tombs and the insides of the few small ones that had content and NPCs. And I added the NPC life in the valley.
The big tombs that were the gateways to the afterlife worlds were done by other designers and artists.
For this project I also worked on some of the small bandit camps and the navigation of the NPC boats and ships on the water in the “real” and the “afterlife” worlds.
In this project I helped the writers come up with some of the small narrative items in the world. Including my take on the most famous part of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
