Chaotic Cavern (POI)

Type of Project: Personal Solo | Role: Level Designer | Size: Independent | Duration: 7 weeks | Year Created: Early 2025 | Software: UEFN, Fortnite Creative

Overview

Battle Royale POI Design

  • Designed a POI to seamlessly integrate with past Fortnite maps while providing a new and enriching player experience.

  • Applied single-player guidance principles, architectural design, and competitive multiplayer space design to create a visually appealing, balanced, and easily navigable location.

  • Expanded design skills by crafting a large-scale POI with multiple interconnected locations.

Work Summary

  • Made a significant design pivot to strengthen player experience and reinforce the POI’s thematic identity.

  • Designed traversal options to address the challenges of a large POI and maintain satisfying player movement.

  • Used ambient storytelling through prop placement, landmarks, buildings, and lighting to enhance immersion.

Planning & Research

  • I studied Fortnite POIs to inspire me and align Chaotic Cavern with Fortnite’s level design philosophy. POIs including:

    • Retail Row

    • Slappy Shores

    • Shifty Shafts

    • The Grotto

  • Studied lane structures to inform my own layout design.

  • Developed a top-down layout based on research findings.

  • Gathered feedback from peers and professors before moving forward.

Project Pitch and Planning Documents

©Fortnite. (2020) . Epic Games

Location Design and Player Traversal

  • Balanced loot distribution by concentrating high-tier loot in the central cavern, making it a high-risk, high-reward hot drop, while decreasing rarity and density in outer areas.

  • Designed three primary areas (Retail, Cavern, Radio Station) to support a 20-player lobby, ensuring dynamic combat and looting opportunities.

  • Developed a central hub interconnected by cave systems and zip lines for fluid movement.

  • Crafted locations using the modular kit that accommodates and rewards different playstyles.

Environmental Storytelling

  • Used loot placement and props to draw players into the location’s narrative.

  • Utilized buildings to inform players about the POI's origins and the cavern's mystery.

  • Set dressed interior and exterior spaces to convey the POI’s story.

  • Placed the most visually interesting areas in high-loot zones to encourage exploration.

POI Pivot and Refinement

  • Problems:

    • The initial POI design lacked uniqueness and depth.

    • The central pit was not visible from a distance, reducing its impact.

    • Traversal to the cavern/pit felt uninteresting.

    • The lack of verticality made the POI visually and gameplay-wise unappealing.

Original POI

Early Version Of Current POI

  • Solutions:

    • Transformed the pit into a hollowed-out mountain for greater visibility from the Battle Bus and ground level.

    • Created distinct terraces (retail/suburbs, mining, cavern, radio station) to make the POI approachable from all sides.

    • Added tunnels, zip lines, and porta-potty teleports for fluid traversal to support the verticality of the new POI design.

    • Designed the cavern area as a parkour-friendly space to encourage movement-based gameplay.

Ending Notes

Learning Outcomes

I found with this project that playing it safe doesn’t foster creativity and makes levels lack an identity. Throughout building this space, I realized I was trying to do what I thought was safe and would be ‘guaranteed’ to work. I wanted to design a POI where I could lean more into the research of previously made spaces since the POI previously closely followed the layout of Retail Row.

With that realization, I realized my driving force was not wanting to mess up the feeling of a POI. It then pushed me to think of ideas with a stronger identity that could set themselves apart from previous POIs and be recognizable. Though it was my first time building a custom Fortnite POI I knew that if I wanted to make something that would stand out I needed to trust my intuition, do my research, and create something that would stand out.

Complications/Issues

I hit a creative roadblock early in this project. After giving my level pitch to fellow students and professors, I got a lot of approval for this idea. When I started work, I would sit down and not know what to do. The vision of the POI wasn’t there, and every time I worked on it, I felt that something was off, which slowed down my process heavily. I met with mentors and peers to get ideas and finally found the solution. I looked for help from others to solve this problem, and I found a new, bolder path to take with the project.

Creative roadblocks are a problem every developer and human faces. Though it was an issue at first, once I caught my stride, I built something I knew I could be proud of.

Apotheosis

Fusion