CLEMENCE MAURER
CLEMENCE MAURER
Senior Level Designer
I currently work as a senior world designer at Unknown Worlds Studios, on the sequel to popular open world underwater exploration games Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero.
Subnautica 2 has been recently announced and the first Early Access build is expected in August of 2025.
I'm contributing to building the new world's biomes and working closely with the narrative and gameplay teams to flesh out the progression, key moments, interesting exploration locations and fun encounters players might come across. Most of it being optional and left to players exploration and agenda, there is a lot to do to make exploration rewarding in multiple ways, big or tiny! Which is my favorite thing to do.
Before Subnautica 2, I worked on the fast-paced action game Immortals of Aveum. I have created two entire levels from scratch for that game, and taken over two existing hubs containing both golden path and side content.
I have also been heavily involved on scripting the progression of the game, from one level to the next, which made me familiar with the whole content of the game, and able to jump between maps quickly to help out and establish flow consistency. You will find videos of both the levels I designed and built from paper design to beta, and a compilation of the missions and content you can find in the main hub of Lucium, for which I was responsible during my second year to the game's shipping.
Further down this page, you will find samples of the work that I have done on my two latest shipped projects: Deus Ex Makind Divided and Dark Alliance.
I will make my own video as soon as I have the time but in the meantime, I have included existing material and chosen various bits where I go over some of the things that I have done.
If you would like to go over those videos with me live and ask me questions about anything that you see, it'll be my pleasure to answer and talk more about the process that led to the creating of all that material!
Cheers
Immortals of Aveum
A very brief teaser, but there should be more to show very soon.
PALISADE BANK
A main mission, embedded into an exploration hub.
I was contact by PC Gamer for an interview about the process and work that led to the creation of the Palisade Bank in Prague, which was by all account very well liked. It is a level I designer from scratch, layout and gameplay alike. I also designed what happens outside that level, as the plaza around the bank is part of the larger city of Prague, to make bot areas feel interconnected and real, and rewarding the exploring player who takes the time to visit the surrounding locations, with advantages and new informations to be used during the main mission.
I also wanted to make sure that how you play in the Bank, is reflected on the outer plaza's state. Guns blazing or 100% stealth, there will be consequences outside...or none at all.
The video showcases the content related to the mission you can find and use...keycards, codes, secret passages...and even that secret dialogue option with the manager, that can only be unlocked when finding a data stick with a client's ID (and backstory) I hid pretty well in an apartment outside.
EXPLORING PRAGUE
Designing compelling content for a small but dense world.
My main assignment on that game was to make the exploration rewarding in the Prague hub, using and combining our mechanics to access places around the city that challenge you and make you want to use these augs, and find cool loots and interesting stories that expend the world and make our setting shine with a mix of written words and environment storytelling.
What you see in that video is a result of that work, I can talk about each second of what you see in there. It was crafted with much love the Prague team.
PRAGUE'S SIDE MISSIONS
I was fortunate to join the Side Missions team of five great developpers a year prior to shipping. I scripted, polished and debuged 8 of those missions to bring them to shipping, and was very humbled and proud to work with this amazing small team who in my opinion, created some of the best content i've played and worked on, in a video game.
As the person responsible for Prague's exploration locations, I was already in contact a lot with the side missions team. We'd talk about the best places they could use to places their quests in, I'd either tell them to use an existing location I'd made for exploration, or made one for them corresponding to their needs (often in the sewers, which I designed all the modules and spaces for!). But after a while, and knowing what they did was great, I became interested in joining them for real and got that chance a while later!
Each of the those videos below was taken from Youtube, players generally love playing those quests and I can go more in depth about what I / the team did for each of those, from the big lines to the tiny details (such as requesting three variants of a cat meowing sound effect to trigger when a certain person's apartment door opens....)
Prague's Side Missions
A CRIMINAL PAST
Deus Ex Mankind Divided's 2nd story DLC
After shipping Mankind Divided, a small team went on to work on the second DLC, A criminal past. For this one, I designed part of the layout and gameplay for the prison cells, courtyards, the helipad, and handle a lot of the scripting for the events that happen in the DLC (conversations, cinematic, boss fight etc)
It was very well received and we had a lot of fun doing the work in a few months with a skeleton crew composed of a handful of the people we'd just shipped with and knew well.
One of the funniest part was coming up with interesting -and sometimes whacky - backstories for the inmates...that you can find traces of in the environment at certain places. If you see something strange or curious, I probably had something to do with it...
GDC TALK - REWARDING EXPLORATION IN PRAGUE
I don't usually advertise a GDC talk and I don't think it's a great selling point in general but with this one, I wanted to showcase some of the things we did to make exploration cool in Prague, as well as highlight some of the struggle that came our - and my - way.
DARK ALLIANCE
Act I - The first 3 levels
These are the first 3 levels of the game, which compose the first act of the main story act: Goblins at the gate, Halls of the Duergar, and Bangor's span.
I created those levels from scratch and built the general navigation, made the first pass for vista shots and points of interests, created and sculpted the landscape, and designed the combat encounters, puzzles, hazards, placed the loot and the exploration and environment storytelling pieces around them.
I was lucky to work with a wonderful artist on those three levels. We fed each other ideas on everything and anything so it went really well. He made the levels look great and was an excellent companion who could bring me design ideas as well as I could bring him art design. An all around collaboration.
Dark Alliance Act I
DARK ALLIANCE
Act III - The Mask of Kelvin
These are the first 3 levels of the game that go through the broken mountains and upside down city where Kelvin the Ice giant dwells, starting with Ghosts of the past, The broken city, and The face of Kelvin.
I also created those levels from scratch and built the general navigation, made the first pass for vista shots and points of interests, created and sculpted the landscape, and designed the combat encounters, puzzles, hazards, placed the loot and the exploration and environment storytelling pieces around them.
I was more involved with doing level art tasks in those levels since I was without an environment artist for a while. I took the feedback and many advices from our assistant art director, who acted as the principal artist on these levels at various stages. but I was fortunate to do a lot of work to make that environment in those levels cleaner and cooler using landscape and the kit pieces and props we had.
