Insomniac Games' high-flying Sunset Overdrive takes place in a huge city explicitly designed for speedy traversal, and at GDC 2015 designer Liz England revealed how the game's designers tried -- and failed, multiple times -- to build an open world that never leaves players feeling lost.

Over the course of making Sunset Overdrive, the team created and scrapped not one, but two different open world cities - before settling on the third.

As part of the GDC 2015 Level Design In A Day summit, England walked attendees through each of these worlds and showed how the changing vision of the game demanded major changes to the level design, focusing on the evolving role of traversal and the growing pains of building spaces for fast-paced open world gameplay. 

Her thoughtful talk was packed with insight and advice on building big, beautiful worlds for your players to inhabit, and now you can watch it for free over on the GDC Vault.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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