Atlas Fallen is a solo and two-player co-op Action-RPG developed by Deck 13, a German game development studio also known for the souls-like games series, The Surge. Armed with a magical gauntlet, the player must face colossal creatures and ride the sands across the forsaken lands of Caladrias to free humanity from the gods’ grasp.

The game features an intense, fast-paced and highly-customisable melee combat system paired with an intense platforming and exploration gameplay, empowering players to live out their full power fantasy and face mythical creatures.

Our team and my role:

Atlas Fallen’s development team consisted at its peak of around 80 developers. The design team started with only 3 Game Designers and 2 Level Designers but grew to more than 20 employees of various specialisms, including Systems, Combat, UX, Technical Design, etc.

As I took responsibility over the the Design department’s direction, it was my responsibility to evaluate the hiring needs based on project goals, update the team structure to allow more specialised and efficient work, establish a strategy and processes for evaluating and hiring fitting profiles, as well as develop new methodologies and a team culture in a rapidly expanding department.

Furthermore, as I joined the project post failure of a pre-production gate, I took charge of revamping the design vision for the project, communicating it internally and externally, and driving forward the development of the project’s design in line with this new direction.

What I learnt:

Through this experience I strongly reinforced my understanding of human dynamics in a team: how to drive change, create a common culture and references in a fast-growing team with widely different backgrounds, etc.

It also expanded my problem-solving skillset, figuring out how to reshape existing features and assets to create a more coherent and player-centric experience, aiming at offering more depth and a lessened complexity.

Working on Atlas Fallen has definitely moulded and helped me become a better developer in a wide variety of ways, making it one of the most influential milestones of my career so far.