The upcoming 3v3 mode will be a team effort, with contributions coming from across the entire studio. Just as in team games, team efforts in game development need a captain as it's critical to have someone equipped to make key decisions and to keep progress moving forward steadily. It also really helps to have someone I can go to when I have questions about the mode!
Senior Systems Designer Chris Fugate, formerly a Systems Designer on StarCraft II, is leading the efforts of the 3v3 strike team. At the outset of this initiative, Chris told the team, "We're gonna be moving fast, we're gonna try to be smart about what's necessary to hit, and what's practical to achieve. The focus is on finding the fun."
Sounds like a plan!
What are we planning to ship?
Before we begin, we want to make something clear right off the bat: 3v3 will be in an early, iterative state when we get it into players’ hands later this year. There may even be a few bugs!
One more time in bold text:
3v3 will be in an early, unfinished state when we release it later this year.
- It will change a lot before we reach 1.0, likely improved in many ways from our first draft
- The mode will benefit from gamewide improvements to art, audio, that will be coming over the course of Stormgate’s development
The team is working hard to deliver 3v3 in a form that is fun to play and that players can sink their teeth into for playtesting. The point of getting it into players’ hands sooner is not to have it “finished” this year, but to get player feedback so that we can begin the iteration and polishing phases even earlier, and get the mode to a high quality bar even faster.
When is it coming?
Our goal is to invite players to give us feedback on 3v3 at the end of October, just in time for Halloween. Game development is unpredictable and that date may slip, but that’s our target. Our first content patch, unrelated to 3v3, will be coming in late September.
Our starting point: the 3v3 prototype
We’re not starting from scratch with 3v3: the original 3v3 prototype was tested internally on a custom SC2 map several years ago, while SnowPlay was being built. It was featured in Game Informer (RIP) #347–their former editor-in-chief Matt Miller actually joined us for a 3v3 playtest in May of 2022 for one of the first pieces of magazine coverage our studio ever earned.
The prototype emphasized pulling combat out of the player’s base and focusing on shared objectives. This design aimed to reduce the pressure on individual players, making the game more enjoyable and less stressful, especially for newcomers. Combat centered around Creep camps, capture points, and expansions, with the destruction of the enemy team’s shared structure acting as the central victory condition. These elements encouraged teamwork and prevented early eliminations, ensuring that players could enjoy the game from start to finish.
Addressing complexity and UI challenges
One of our key takeaways from the prototype is the need to simplify the experience without losing depth. The prototype was praised by experienced RTS players who tested it behind closed doors. They shared that it felt low-stress, interesting, and social, but the mode conversely felt overwhelming to those less familiar with RTS games–one even said it felt like “an RTS with even more systems on top.” We’ll share some ways we are aiming to address this in our next update.
Setting the stage for a new team game
Our design philosophy for the 3v3 mode revolves around creating memorable moments and dynamic team play. We’re aiming for shorter game lengths to keep the experience exciting and to prevent games from dragging on unnecessarily or, as Chris puts it, situations where teams who can win decisively instead choose to “play with their food.” The inclusion of a comeback mechanic is also crucial, as it ensures that both teams feel they have a fighting chance until the very end.
Our immediate focus is on delivering a balanced and engaging experience. We’re aiming to release a single map to allow for intensive iteration and quality improvements, ensuring that the game mode we put into players’ hands for the first time can be refined as quickly as possible.
Critical first steps
Chris delegated tasks across the studio, separating them into two buckets: playtest critical and long-term support critical. Playtest critical tasks get the team into the game, providing feedback, and finding action items that will lead to further gameplay iteration and UX improvements. Long-term support critical tasks don’t keep the team from playtesting, but are required for a successful launch of the new mode. This would include things like creating a 3v3 faction selection screen, post-game screens, matchmaking, team chat, and so on.
This is an initial “greybox” version of our 3v3 map for testing purposes. We intentionally keep the map in a low-detail state as long as possible so that it’s easy to react to playtest feedback.
Greg, one of our level designers, immediately went to work on creating a playtest map, bringing the original prototype map into the Stormgate editor, with some changes reflecting the team’s current vision for the mode. This process stirred a lot of internal discussion, with members of the team going back-and-forth on how to approach high ground, cliffs, and ramps. Chris shared his gut instinct, that “if there’s any occupiable high ground, we don’t start it near the middle of the map, as that’s too campy. High ground for the starting bases makes a lot of sense, though, as long as the walls aren’t too restrictive.”
Our team members have put a lot of thought into how open our maps should feel. StarCraft: Brood War maps strike a sweet spot that is likely most suitable for this mode, as its maps feature a more mixed/strategic style with some “choke-iness” versus StarCraft II, which is generally full of chokepoints, and WarCraft III, which has much more open maps. We think it makes sense for the 3v3 map to be more open with six players competing for territory versus just two.
What’s next
Our next priorities include setting up the initial playtest, finalizing the map, and implementing the key gameplay mechanics such as resource sharing and our victory conditions. These foundational elements will allow us to begin playtesting and iterating quickly, incorporating feedback to refine the mode further.
In taking the prototype and bringing it into Stormgate, we’re committed to making the 3v3 mode a fun, social, and accessible experience that appeals to both seasoned RTS players and newcomers alike. Wish us luck, and stay tuned–we’ll have more to share on how the mode is coming together!
