At the start of the design process, the artists mocked up a number of creative briefs together with level designers Inge Jøran Holberg, Diego Jimenez and Niklas Åstrand. These briefs explain the gameplay type and idea, story and visual theme. Everyone on the Battlefield 3 development team was encouraged to vote for their favorites among the briefs and also add ideas of their own. From there, prototypes of the favorite levels were produced in so called pods -- pairs with a level designer and artist per map -- so the team could play them to see which ones were the most promising.
Then, the team as a whole weighed the maps against one another to see which ones would make the most compelling and diverse package to ship the game with. We finally ended up with the 9 cherry-picked multiplayer maps you can read all about here today and in yesterdays blog post. Theyre the best of the best, the maps that shone the brightest in our playtests, and the ones that combined bring out everything we want both veteran and new Battlefield players to experience in Battlefield 3 multiplayer.
