Sandstorm

Dense, Chaotic, Dynamic

Description - 

Sandstorm brings a new dynamic to POLYGON with dynamic dust storms, flyovers, close quarters combat within buildings, and a map that is densely packed with players. Additionally, Sandstorm is the first map to be available on both the Conquest (16vs16) and the King of the Hill (12vs12) game modes.

Screenshots - 

Design Goals -

With Sandstorm, I wanted to bring a new kind of chaotic and dynamic combat to POLYGON, this was my primary goal. On top of this I aimed for the map to have competitive viability and feature a large amount of verticality.

I achieved this style of gameplay by combining the theme of a war torn desert town, with dynamic weather and a densely populated map. Players can and will be everywhere, they will have to adapt as objectives are taken quickly across the entire map, and when the dust storm comes in, their playstyle will be forced to change.

Concept - 

The original concept of Sandstorm was to take a linear map like Metro (a different map in POLYGON) and flip it on its side. A wide layout would lead to a unique style of gameplay and allow a plethora of different avenues for the player to push the objective. Additionally, Sandstorm was meant to be an 8vs8 King of the Hill map, but I expanded and changed the layout to allow for Conquest and more players to fit on the map.

Metro's Linear Layout

Sandstorm's Layout Plan

The first concept of this layout in engine really just looked like an old western town, but it got the point across. The plan was to have an entire town, one team would "own" one side, the other team would "own" the other, and they would meet in a central street to battle for the objective.

Inspirations -

There were two main games that I took inspiration from while working on Sandstorm, Insurgency Sandstorm (duh!) and Battlefield 2042. I really enjoy the themes presented in Insurgency and really wanted to use a similar setting on my map. As for Battlefield, who doesn't love the dynamic weather effects? Sandstorm features a dust storm that significantly impedes the players vision, inhibiting them from sitting holding long angles. This forces the player to be dynamic and adapt during random points in the match.

Design Problems -

During early playtesting of Sandstorm, there was one apparent problem that needed to get fixed, the wide layout. While I believe this layout could work in a different map, with the way the central street is designed it produced very underwhelming gameplay. Player's expectations on how the map should play were not being met, they wanted more fighting inside of buildings, and they did not like that the main play area was limited almost entirely to the central street. 

Original Spawn Borders

In the image above, you can see roughly what the sawn borders looked like. The enemy team, could not pass your team's spawn wall. This confined gameplay to mostly take place on the central street, limiting the amount of emergent behavior players could present, decreasing the amount of routes you could take to defend/attack the objective, and severely inhibiting the players from fighting within buildings. Looking back, in order to make this layout work the entire map needs to be increased in size, the spawns (Alpha & Bravo) need to be pushed back away from the objective. The spawn borders would be pushed back with the spawns to allow for more gameplay space.

Another negative side effect of this wide layout is the Conquest game mode would need major changes to the layout in order to be playable. I wanted both game modes to be available on Sandstorm, and I wanted the maps to be the same other than where objectives were located. It was clear this layout would not work for Sandstorm.

To resolve the issue, I changed the spawn borders to allow both teams to enter the other team's side of the town. Additionally, I moved the spawns to be more diagonal on the map. This opened up a lot more space for gameplay, and player's expectations of the map were met. On top of that, the Conquest game mode became possible and spawn camping was still not a problem.

New Spawn Borders

Progression -

Below you can see some screenshots of the progression of Sandstorm. From early development all the way to final release.

Performance -

Sandstorm has proven to be one of if not the most innovative map in the POLYGON lineup. Players love the dynamic weather and flyovers, and the pure chaos is a huge hit.

Trailer -

Play Sandstorm -

Download POLYGON and play Sandstorm for free!