High Moon Studios | Activision
Level Design Intern Summer 2025
Overview
During my internship at High Moon Studios, I worked on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, focusing on level design, iteration, and post-production polish. My contributions spanned creating playable spaces, rapid prototyping, and supporting the team with bug fixing and design adjustments. This experience gave me hands-on exposure to AAA development pipelines, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and iterative design at scale.
Gameplay Video
While respecting NDA, my contributions can be illustrated through shipped missions I assisted with:
Mission: Distortion
Mission: Suppression
Note: My primary role was assisting with pre-production polish, bug fixing, minor gameplay adjustments, and playtesting, while also designing my own level internally focused on rapid prototyping and core level design.
​Key Responsibilities
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Player Flow & Pacing: Smooth spatial transitions, minimized abrupt turns, guided player navigation.
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Visual Guidance: Consistent blockmesh usage and visual cues for clarity.
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Rapid Iteration: Prototyped new layouts, tested ideas, and integrated feedback quickly.
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Attention to Detail: Polished combat spaces, minor gameplay tweaks, and environment refinements.
Workflow & Tools
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Proprietary in-house tools for level design.
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Playtesting sessions to gather and analyze player behavior.
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Bug tracking and post-production documentation.
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Light scripting for environmental and gameplay elements.
Team Collaboration
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Worked closely with fellow level designers, artists, and engineers.
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Presented layouts, pitched iterations, and incorporated cross-disciplinary feedback.
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Learned to communicate design intent clearly and adapt based on technical constraints.
Key Learnings
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Iterative design at AAA scale enhances player experience significantly.
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Cross-disciplinary collaboration is essential for cohesive level and gameplay design.
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Observing and analyzing player behavior leads to actionable design improvements.
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Rapid prototyping and structured feedback are crucial for refining gameplay systems.
Dev log
This internship strengthened my skills as a generalist designer, capable of taking ownership of levels from ideation to polish while collaborating effectively with a AAA team. It also gave me valuable insight into the realities of shipping content at scale and the professional expectations of AAA production pipelines.
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