The release and development of Metro: Awakening marks a turning point for me and for Force Field. Where Force Field focused on smaller, work-for-hire titles and co-development, Vertigo Studios Amsterdam now became a place where we could tackle large known IPs with a much larger development team.

This increase in team size meant that I could focus on specializing myself in more detail – In this case, I focused on the second-to-second, minute-to-minute gameplay from the very early starts of pre-production to the last few bugfixes post-release. 

I was responsible for a lot of it, ranging from core gameplay systems such as the hands to more detailed interactions, like the bare-bones melee combat, the weapons, the world interactions (doors, levers, valves, etc.). I also spent a large chunk of the development time working on the human AI and the spiders.

It was a new experience to work with existing IP to this level of detail. Metro may be a natural fit for Virtual Reality, thanks to their focus on realism and immersion, but there were still plenty of creative challenges in finding the right way to translate the original work(s) to a different medium in a way that respected it and the fans that love it.

I did this together with some talented programmers, artists and a couple of designers. I managed three interns over the course of the project, with one of them continuing on as a junior for a little bit longer afterwards. 

I became a principal gameplay designer at the start of 2024 as a recognition of the specialization I chose to follow and the skill shown during the early years of development.