Action metroidvania (Unreal Engine 5)
2.5D action metroidvania and roguevania, unannounced new IP
- Role
- Senior Technical Designer, team of 6
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5, C++, GAS
- Focus
- Action combat, traversal, data driven design, editor tooling
- Status
- In development, unannounced
A 2.5D action metroidvania with roguevania runs, a new IP in Unreal Engine 5. I designed the core gameplay architecture: the foundational systems for character and combat.
Combat on GAS. I architected the C++ structure for the character classes and integrated combat through the Gameplay Ability System: a custom Ability System Component, layered attribute sets with damage as a meta attribute, and base classes for abilities, effects and cues. The C++ core is exposed as a designer facing Blueprint API, so designers build on it without touching code.
Combos as data. Input combos, upgrades and combat flow run on extensible frameworks. Combos live in a graph with typed edges (light and heavy inputs, a direction bitmask, combo windows and finishers) stored as text backed JSON, so they diff and merge cleanly, with a custom editor for building them.
Characters from components. Inventory, upgrades, save, team relations, teleport and status buildup are separate components. Status buildup is a generic framework: a threshold triggers a state, with decay, resistance, immunity and element interaction. Its first use is freezing, which also drives elemental traversal, where a sustained projectile spray freezes water and surfaces into platforms you can stand on.
AI and world. Perception driven by stimulus volumes and vision, State Tree AI, a data driven state machine framework, a camera manager, and checkpoint, dialogue and save subsystems. Data driven pipelines on Unreal’s Data Assets let designers iterate on gameplay quickly.
I mentor the junior designers and programmers on the team, delegate work and give technical guidance, and help plan milestones and timelines alongside my own technical work.