The Last of Us Multiplayer Level Design:
Midtown East

Download prototype from itch

Midtown East is a The Last of Us 2 Multiplayer map designed for both Team Deathmatch (classic 4v4, 5v5) and FFA Deathmatch (8-12). It is inspired by real locations in midtown Manhattan.

Feb 2023
Unity 3D, PC
Role: Level Designer

Please note that this project is unofficial. The purpose of this project cannot be disclosed.

Overview

The map contains 5 looting points, 7 indoor spaces as well as 12 short to mid range zones, 2 long range zones and 2 high grounds.

Unique mechanic: Helicopter. Aerial vehicles are still maintained in the NYC military base. Every 4 minutes, a helicopter flies across the map, reducing movement sounds and “listening” ability effective range by 80% for 20 seconds. This encourages the player to actively rotate and approach camping enemies.

Worldbuilding Research

This map sampled from a real location: Lexington Avenue & 57 st Manhattan.

– 4-Star hotel
– Old and worn-out apartments
– Cheap restaurants and parking lot
– Collision of luxury and declines

NYC is a city that never gets depicted in The Last of Us. This level was designed under the world setting that NYC, while mostly destroyed, has established active military base and bunkers 25 years after the virus outbreak.

Level Design Research

Interviewing the Playerbase

Decade-old factions players in a TLOU discord server voted “Checkpoint” and “The Dam” their favorite and second favorite maps.

  • Checkpoint: Highly symmetrical three-lane design, close-range combat with plenty of covers, encouraging aggressive strategies. However, the strategies are sometimes too simple: Shotguns, molly, fighting over the sides.
  • The Dam: Perfect execution of verticality, balanced between close and long-range combat, enabling a variety of strategies. However, the fog near the endgame can make everyone extra passive.

Studying "Checkpoint" map: Why is it fun?

  • Three-lane design with indoor spaces on both sides. High grounds on ends.
  • Sides: Lots of full covers. defendable but hard to flee.
  • Middle: Accessible with many retreat options, but easy to be flanked.
  • Ends: Good for sniping, but very limited lines of sight. The hunters have better high ground covers and the fireflies have more horizontal depth.
My approximate recreation of “Checkpoint” in TLOU1

Paths and Nodes

Midtown East, just like Checkpoint, took the classic 3-lane design and gave it a unique twist. From left to right:

  • Lanes 1 and 5 consists of indoor spaces and well covered outdoor spaces. Lane 1 favors team 1 and lane 5 favors team 2.
  • Lanes 2 and 4 are originally designed to be the streets. They are later strengthened with two high grounds since the first 3D blockout showed that capturing the streets doesn’t bring a player any advantage.
  • Lane 3 goes through 3 out of 5 loot points and is designed to loosely gather the players around it. Both teams have a defendable space on their ends, which leads to either a high ground or the central area.
The 5-lane design (classic 3-lane plus two middle sections with high grounds). The stars stand for looting points.

Final Placements of Nodes, Paths and Areas

Points of Interest

Looting points

Similar to TLOU Factions 1, this Factions 2 map contains a total of 5 looting points that provides essential crafting materials. The two loots near spawns are in safer indoor areas, while the other three are located in behind 90-180 degree half covers. Those three are designed to be collected after you eliminated all threats around, and are almost impossible to defend. To sum up:

  • The 2 loots near spawns (hotel, restaurant): indoor, safe, >3 escapes
  • The 2 loots on both sides (mall, playground): half covers, surrounded by 3 angles, 1-2 escapes
  • The loot in the middle (garden): double resource, full covers, surrounded by >4 angles, no escape
The looting point at the mall entrance, suppressed by all three areas around.

High Grounds

Considering TLOU is based on console and it’s harder to flick vertically on controller, an easy-to-camp high ground will break fairness significantly, like in the map “Capitol”. Both high grounds in this map has very good sightlines, but can also be targeted from various angles. Hiding behind one cover exposes your back to the other side.
Both high grounds have two entrances and another way to jump off. Both have unsafe half covers on their outer sides and restrictive full covers on their inner sides. With that being said, they are still valuable spots for 1-2 people and can be defended to an extent.

The high ground on the hotel bridge, suppressing the playground but can be attacked from many angles, vulnerable and climbable from behind.

Intersectional Relationship

Windows vs. Pillars (Peeking Points)

A lot of the encounter areas in Midtown East is asymmetrical, with one side being a solid wall with one window, and the other side providing loosely distributed pillars. The window wall is safe but predictable and restrictive, while the pillars create more peeking spot at the cost of more exposure. Overall, the safer side (window wall) is at disadvantage. Example:
Around playground, the deli shop (left, team 1 side) is more passive and usually the laundry shop (right, team 2 side) will make the first move towards the covers around the loot.
In garden, the hotel terrace (right, team 1 side) has multiple half covers that suppresses the restaurant (left, team 2 side) from progressing into the garden, at the cost of being exposed to the condo above (team 2 side).

The looting point at the mall entrance, suppressed by all three areas around.
The looting point at the mall entrance, suppressed by all three areas around.

Slow vs. Fast spaces

Level Designers use the flow of space to shape player behavior, and the intuitive slow-to-fast change of pace between areas in Midtown East is a great example.

  • Restaurant is the relatively slowest space, with 2 rooms each of 3 exits and with many covers. Players in a slow space takes longer to rotate but are safer with more options.
  • The hotel lobby is a medium speed space. It has several covers but is too vast to defend for long.
  • The construction site and laundry shop is a fast speed space. The players inside is vulnerable from one or more directions and is forced to keep moving towards the objective.
Restaurant: “Let me craft, listen and plan my next move…”
Hotel Lobby: “Can’t stay for long, I need to keep moving.”
Construction and Laundry: “Move forward or get shot!!”

Environmental Storytelling

Rescue Camp for the Previleged

An abandoned military helicopter in the garden with supply cases shows that it had escorted important supplies here in emergency times.

A sign in the hotel lobby mentioned that this hotel had been a survivor camp for only officials, VIPs and sponsors.

Attack from Fireflies

Vehicles with firefly sign seemed to broke into the hotel violently, loading the supplies. Two trucks and a car was left behind and the fireflies’ fate were unknown.

Desperate Survivors

Some wooden cases seemed to be moved in a hurry to block the entrance to the lower hotel building, with sharpened sticks poking out. These survivors’ fate were unknown.

Barry Dillan Died a Human

The second floor of the condo building was deconstructed by an explosion, with lines on the wall that reads “Barry Dillan died a human” and “Luv u Jayden see u soon”. It can be assumed that a person named Barry Dillan wrote these as their last words before committing suicide though destructive means.

Full Walkthrough

Credits

Congzhou (Nicky) Du

Level Designer, Environment Designer

Sketchfab

All assets downloaded from this platform belong in the public domain.

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