Exploring Combat Design
Updated: Aug 26
FROM REJECTION TO REFLECTION
Naughty Dog is one of my dream studios that I have wanted to work for a while now, it was one of the reasons why I've wanted to enter the industry as I've played their iconic classic titles ranging from Jak II to Uncharted to The Last of Us. My journey to the games industry began from that moment I turned on my PS2 and was gravitated to the world of game design and storytelling.
I was blessed with an interview back in 2021, post graduation, but unfortunately the skills didn't match the opportunity at the time. From that point now until now every time they dropped their "Associate Technical Designer" job posting, I look it now from a confident stand point of being able to handle all the challenges that come from the job posting it self. I would shoot my shot, with updated work and relevant experience I can find.............Only for the end to result to end in rejection.
One would start to think "Am I good enough?", "what am I doing wrong?", "what is it am I missing?", "is my application being look at?", etc. I'd ask my self these questions even when I have the most polish portfolio after the umpteenth iteration just to see another person take the position on LinkedIn. Now, once I was able to get through the grief of not getting the position, I would take a look at folks who worked at Naughty Dog and even people who LANDED the position within the time I applied and answer the simple question of "what do they have that I don't (outside of being local in CA) and how do I gain that experience to push forward".
Welp doing that and thinking back closely to role of the technical design position, I realized how versatile the design role really is, most of my skill evolve around the areas of "AI behaviors, interactable objects, gameplay scenarios, etc." and I covered most of the minimum requirements until I got to these parts of the BONUS requirements:
Most of my experience does evolve around AI design and game systems BUT third person combat design is an area I never really dug into BUT I knew that was an area that needed to be improved the most if I want to improve my odds for this position. The areas highlight clearly show that I need a good understanding on melee action, animations and combat AI compared to my other personal projects. Stepping outside of my comfort zone to get into combat design to gain this experience became a priority to me especially with me now understand what Naughty Dog is looking for besides storytelling and game mechanics. If I want to showcase my ability with these areas of design I gotta work on something that can reflect that to a degree.
8/8/2026 - Setting The Scope, Goal and Unreal 5
Given that Naughty Dog's next project will be a third person action game, I figured that would be the best genre to tackle. I saw that the main protagonist, Jordan, was heading towards what looks like a major boss battle or heavy enemy encounter. I decided from that preview alone in the trailer that this moment will capture what I want my combat demo scene to reflect.
I chose Unreal Engine 5 to develop this combat prototype for three specific reasons: it has behavior trees, C++ scripting and best VFX visuals from Fab that I've purchased. Thankfully after viewing many portfolios and resources on combat design including this LinkedIn Post from Phong Trinh, reiterating his journey into combat design overtime. I had gain enough confidence to tackle this challenge.
TIMELINE
Saturday's only* for 6 weeks. Starting from 8/8 until 9/12.
*May include extra days due to events
SCOPE
This is my first project covering melee combat so I will be solely focused on building the foundation and learning the tech that goes into melee action games.
GOAL
1 player, 1 enemy AI only (for now).
Once the plan was established it was time to get into the engine to begin prototyping, I found lovely sword animation pack from Grruzam that helped me get started. The sloppy GIF below shows day one of where I had the basic player blueprint controller setup and ready to go.
8/15/2026 - Basic Character Animations and C++ Combat Component
Continuing on from last week, today I focused on character animations and worked heavily in the animation blueprint controller to setup the remaining character movement and combat animations. With this cool sword I found on Fab, I was able to began visually scripting logic for the character such as equipping and stowing the sword:
Very basic start but the movement and sword already felt so good but more work needs to be done in terms of blending animations with attacks. The next thing I worked on was to begin working on the core combat system that will drive the melee combat in this demo.
Now the preference this, I did learn GAS (Gameplay Ability System) through a well taught course and small project HOWEVER (this probably an unpopular opinion), I didn't really enjoy the framework too much as it 's great for setting up modular systems and stuff but I felt overwhelmed at times when it came do scripting systems which executed perfectly at a much smaller scale compared to GAS.
For the combat system, I wanted to exercise creating a good example of using both C++ and blueprints in areas necessary. I decided that I will write a modular combat component in C++ and utilize the blueprints to design abilities for the player as well assigning animation montages, damage numbers, hitboxes, etc. Doing this helped me keep development further as I with resources online regarding combat systems helped me put something together in C++.
With the basics of the component script setup I was able to achieve this result to cap off the day:
Coming up next weekend is to implement a damageable hitbox function that can tweakable in blueprints, animation blending for attacks and UI controller visual for both buttons and d-pad. The stretch goal will be to finally well.........hit stuff hehe.
