Tools Used:

Unreal Engine 4

Blueprints

Jira

Confluence

Slack

Perforce

Overview:

My time on Conan Exiles was my first experience working inside a live-service production environment at scale.

As a Game Design Intern, I contributed directly to gameplay refinement, event design, AI tuning, and systems balancing. What began as an internship quickly evolved into meaningful production ownership, where my work affected real builds and real players.

I wasn’t just observing development, I was contributing to it.

I assisted in refining gameplay mechanics, improving player flow, and enhancing systems that supported long-term engagement within Unreal Engine 4.

My Role & Ownerships

Ritual Event Design

AI Navigation & Systems Support

Gameplay Tuning & Balancing

Design Documentation

Data Management (AI / Weapons / Items)

Designing a Ritual Event System

One of my primary contributions was designing and prototyping a unique ritual event and navigation system to enhance player experience.

The goal of the ritual system was to:

• Create tension-driven gameplay moments
• Encourage environmental awareness
• Integrate cleanly with AI behaviors
• Maintain immersion within the Conan universe

The event required thoughtful pacing, AI coordination, and spatial awareness to ensure the ritual felt intentional rather than chaotic.

This experience strengthened my understanding of how world space, enemy behavior, and player psychology intersect in systemic design.

AI & Gameplay Refinement

Live-service games demand constant tuning.

I assisted with modifying and balancing AI, weapon, and item data through structured Excel pipelines.

This included:

• Adjusting AI values for difficulty consistency
• Refining combat feel
• Tweaking item data to maintain progression balance
• Supporting systemic adjustments across builds

Small number changes can drastically impact player perception. Learning to analyze those effects taught me how to design with both data and player experience in mind.

Breakdown: Gameplay Flow Support

Ownerships:

Ritual Event Implementation

Navigation Logic

AI Data Adjustments

Balance Passes

Documentation

The ritual event required tight integration between AI spawning, navigation, and environmental layout.

The design goals were to ensure:

• Clear player readability
• Controlled escalation
• Consistent AI pressure
• Avoidance of frustrating bottlenecks

This meant constantly testing edge cases, ensuring spawn logic behaved predictably, and validating that players always had tactical options available.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration

I worked closely with:



Design

Engineering

QA

Production

I authored detailed pitch and design documentation for upcoming features, ensuring concepts were aligned with project goals and production scope.

Additionally, I coordinated team tasks using Slack, Confluence, and Jira to improve visibility and workflow tracking across departments.

What This Project Strengthened

• Working inside a live production environment

• Designing systemic events within an established IP

• Balancing AI and combat systems through data iteration

• Communicating design intent through documentation

• Collaborating across multi-discipline teams