Battlefield 6 Campaign: Level Designer

Studio: Ridgeline Games
Released (PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X): October 10, 2025
My Role: March 2023 - March 2024
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​About the Game:
Battlefield 6 is a Squad-Based, FPS game offering wide variety of weapons/class loadouts, ground & aerial vehicles for an all-out war experience in its Single Player and Multiplayer modes.

I worked on Battlefield 6's original campaign at Ridgeline Games, a new EA studio created to build BF6's campaign, before Ridgeline was closed and BF6's campaign was handed off to another studio to finish & ship as the final product. All my work I contributed to the campaign during my time at Ridgeline Games was heavily modified & reinterpreted, with some aspects/designs remaining in the BF6's shipped NYC Single Player & Multiplayer maps, but greatly reworked. However, I am still mentioned in BF6's credits!

My Contributions:
- Led development of Team's Vertical Slice (New York Mission):
  • I blocked-out and realized BF6's New York (Dumbo/Brooklyn) open sandbox environment, exploring ways NY Sandbox could support Main and optional tasks that Players could complete in any order, resulting in different outcomes depending on their actions.
    • Rapidly finding and solving for key challenges open world mission designs for BF6 would pose
  • Had to heavily rework narrative/mission pitch to fit urban destruction goals and overall gameplay beats
    • I designed over 8 drastically different versions of the Vertical Slice/NY mission after weeks of collaborating and problem solving
    • Required me to step up and make executive calls, on behalf as Lead Level Designer at times, to push the direction of vertical slice & overall campaign, working with various BF Studios in other countries.
- Rapidly built and led:
  • Various Mission Designs:
    • ​Explored & prototyped varying single-player objectives for open world & linear sections
    • Prototyped innovative story-telling methods in gameplay segments for modern FPS campaigns with animation support
    • Helped Ridgeline create & set game metrics for BF6
    • Worked closely with Environment Art & Narrative to realize key aspects of mission locations & beats
  • AI encounters & Enemy-Types/AI Behaviors
    • Worked with Design Leads and AI Engineers at DICE to create and outline design goals from AI archetypes and behaviors needed to support open sandbox mission structures​​.
- Learned, Created, and Organized Tool Documentations & Tutorials for Team:
  • As I led the design on the Vertical Slice, I had the most interactions with other BF Studios and departments
  • I was tasked with putting everything I learned from the various teams (Frostbite/Tools, DICE's AI Engineers, DICE Designers, etc) and create Confluence documents and tutorials for other Ridgeline Designers to be able to follow and use for:
    • AI Encounter Set-Ups
    • Level Design Basics (Starting new map & basic map metrics)
    • Basic scripting and tagging/connecting/placement of various nodes/events in levels from script

Unfortunately, due to NDAs, I could not save or show any of my actual blockouts or paper designs I worked on at Ridgeline. All pictures here represent the final product which I did not work on directly, but carry key aspects I and the Team at Ridgeline started.
As one of the most experienced Designers on the Level Design team, I greatly assisted the Lead LD in realizing & reworking the campaign missions that the Narrative team put together before key Designers joined the team, as it lacked methods to incorporate key narrative beats into immersive gameplay.

I worked closely with the Studio Heads, Leadership and Narrative team to heavily rework 70% of missions for the original campaign to be more gameplay focused, melding intended theme/narrative into more innovative gameplay moments.

Main mission contributions (ideas that would get heavily reworked/repurposed for final product)
  • New York (Dumbo/Brooklyn) Mission/Environments
  • Gibraltar Mission
  • Tajikistan Mission

New York Mission (Vertical Slice)

I led their vertical slice mission set in New York, where I worked with the team to build out and realize the New York City open sandbox environment for Battlefield's destruction and movement. I worked with the Studio Heads, various leaders of Designs, Narrative and other departments to capture every department’s needs and ensure every major beat was designed for and connected together, as well as building out a fully traversable, open Dumbo/Brooklyn, NY Sandbox environment.
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The goal was to offer players with the choice of multiple ways to approach and complete objectives (with main and optional tasks) in any order they wanted in this open environment (as was the goal for various missions originally planned for BF6’s campaign), that carried different outcomes based on the order they chose and gameplay style (stealth or guns blazing).

As different departments originally had conflicting goals with each other, for example, Art wanting to test Urban City Destruction systems while Narrative wanted the NY Vertical Slice mission to be a stealth mission, I had to collaborate and lead conversations to heavily rework the vertical slice to fit all needs while simultaneously recreating a playable New York environment, realizing game metrics for the team to follow as none existed before in the Battlefield franchise.


​As I worked with Narrative and Department Leads to heavily rework New York's mission pitches, I designed and blocked-out various versions of Dumbo/Brooklyn, NY for BF6's campaign & Vertical Slice.

Some of the key features Leadership wanted from the NY mission was:
  • Stealth Segment (Linear & Open World): Player works with their Special Ops Squad to investigate & infiltrate suspected PAX operations around Brooklyn/Dumbo
    • Exploring best practices for Stealth in BF6's campaign in linear, scripted moments, and open sandbox environments
  • Explosive Vehicle Chase Sequence: exploring scripted, on-rail segment exploring key moments of PAX's invasion starting around NY environment
  • All-Out NYC Assault (Mix of Open World and Linear Sections with Main and Optional Objectives): Once the PAX invasion kicks-off, the Player would be tasked in stopping the sudden attack in Open Sandbox environments, where Main and Secondary (optional) objectives would bring the player around the environment, where the order and how they chose to complete tasks would impact the story and lead to different scripted outcomes
    • This was the design goal for all of BF6's open sandbox mission designs

After weeks of working with various departments, the core mission flow for the NYC Vertical Slice Mission had the following beats, just executed differently:
  1. Stealth Linear Segment: Player infiltrates suspected PAX outposts, reveals hidden plans to attack NYC
  2. Stealth and/or Explosive Open World: Players complete Main & Secondary objectives as they see fit, as the world/PAX forces react and evolve depending if Player remains Stealthy or goes loud (supporting both), resulting in different objectives and story beats occurring for player agency
  3. All-Out Warfare Linear Segment: Once all Main objectives complete in Open world segment, PAX realizes they're plans are revealed and early initiation for PAX's NYC assault commences, causing chaos and unexpected start to PAX's attack, leading to intense vehicle chase and closing with heroic, climatic battle, setting up sequel.

Rewriting the Narrative:
To help solve the "Why" PAX was attacking NYC, I pitched a new narrative direction that solved many of the design and narrative issues I and the team had. Problems such as:
  • Controlling where the player can/can't go in open NY environment that didn't break immersion
  • "Why" and "How" PAX was attacking NYC at this specific time
  • "How" Pax could operate undetected in busy NYC, setting up military outposts with Anti-Air weaponry and military vehicles around Brooklyn without anyone noticing
  • Where were all the civilians in the area and how to remove possibility of players from putting civilians in harms way

The mission narrative I pitched and most of the team liked was a UN Peace Event/Celebration Parade in NYC that included large, prestigious Naval Ships and military vehicles to occupy the East River. This would shut down parts of Dumbo/Brooklyn for PAX to operate freely out of without public eye, and for the Player to infiltrate in stealth sections.

This narrative allowed the civilian crowds gathering around Dumbo to act as spaces for the player to avoid or enforce stealth approaches, acting as visual indicators of where combat zones were and ended without breaking immersion, as well as keeping a majority of civilian crowds out of gameplay space. This pitch also allowed PAX to have non-civilian targets and a grand spectacle of PAX taking down military vehicles in cinematic fashion from the player's perspective on the ground or rooftops of Dumbo as PAX would be targeting the military parade in the East River and shoreline.

One of the NYC missions that shipped in BF6 NYC would put a spin on many of my ideas/pitches from the original mission I designed. The UN event was turned into a NATO Signing PAX was using to kill the US President. The released mission would also keep US Naval ships in the East River, but instead of a parade, it would be one ship and what PAX would "hack" to initiate the attack on NYC instead of having supplies at outposts around Brooklyn.

The Final Vertical Slice (NY Mission) direction I pitched and was leading before Ridgeline closed in 2024 was:
  1. Player is part of undercover special ops unit exploring Dumbo for PAX outposts as they were hiding under a fake construction company to conceal their outposts & supplies.
  2. Players repelled down from the Brooklyn Bridge into PAX warehouse undetected to investigate and confirm which construction sites are PAX outposts to hit (POIs included a parking garage, construction. sites/warehouses, and key landmarks (tall apartment building and Time Out Market) around Dumbo, NY).
  3. Once Player gathers location intel, mission turned into Open World sandbox, allowing player to complete main and optional objectives in any order and in full stealth or guns blazing around Dumbo.
    • Each approach offered different outcomes, scripted events, objectives, and gameplay experiences that reacted to player's actions.
  4. No matter the order Players completed objectives or playstyle, the mission would progress from open world to a linear, scripted Vehicle Chase Sequence, just in different ways based on player's order of objectives completed.
  5. At the end of the Chase Sequence, Players partake in a linear, climatic showdown where the player and his squad fight an uphill battle to stop a major WMD from going off and decimating Brooklyn, saving millions and lowering the devastation PAX's assault could've resulted in, setting up the Big War BF6's original story would have ended on and set up for future content.
Ideas I Designed That Made It Into Final Campaign:
Several core gameplay and narrative beats I pitched, designed, and helped realize at Ridgeline for the NYC missions would find ways into the final missions shipped in Battlefield 6's campaign, but in very different executions and ideas such as:
  • The Stealth Mission where Player infiltrates suspected PAX outposts to reveal their plans to attack NYC and how would be turned into the "No Sleep" mission
    • This mission would also take one of my favorite ideas I blocked out for a Vertical Slice pitch where Stealth was removed and the Player was ambushed on the Brooklyn Bridge by PAX forces as PAX, resulting in the player pushing along the bridge as it was collapsing
      • ​Players would engage PAX forces along the Brooklyn bridge using traffic, train tracks, and various parts of Brooklyn bridge as cover/routes
      • PAX forces would be blowing up the bridge and attack the player from elevated rooftops that had great LoS from the bridge in real life (ref images below)
      • The bridge segment would be reworked into a full on train wreck that broken the Brooklyn Bridge​
    • This mission also use my idea to use crowds and barricades to keep civilians out of combat gameplay spaces (only way to do it in a busy place like NY that makes sense)​​​
  • Instead of the UN Event/Celebration Parade in NY, it would become a NATO Signing
  • The scripted vehicle chase around Brooklyn would become an intense escorting of the President's vehicle
    • With more focus on protecting the President than chasing a high-target PAX vehicle carrying a WMD around Brooklyn with scripted moments fulfilling a full blown assault on NYC happening along player's route like my prototype
  • ​Missions utilizing the Time Out Building (iconic market in DUMBO I blocked out and used in my prototypes) used as combat area with military supplies/vehicles around for cover to fill open spaces around building and shoreline
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  • Several other ideas and geo I explored would make it's way into the Multiplayer Dumbo map in Battlefield 6
    • ​Ideas such as:
      • Using a farmer market in a key area around the Dumbo tunnel for better cover and engagements
      • General placement of warehouses and POIs in area that were based on reality but redesigned to work for a FPS game