Dev Journal #6: Setting the Stage for Battle

[p]When designing a real-time strategy game, most people think first about the units: the soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and other powerful pieces that players use to dominate the battlefield. But as the art director on Ashes of the Singularity II, I know that the real star of the screen is the environment itself. The terrain is what players spend the majority of their time looking at. It’s not just a backdrop - it’s the stage where every battle is fought, every strategy unfolds, and every story emerges.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]From the beginning of development, we knew that the terrain in Ashes of the Singularity II couldn’t just be a functional improvement over the first game from ten years ago; it had to be visually striking with much higher texture density, responsive to the units and their weapon fire, and overall narratively supportive. Our environments need to balance two competing goals: they must look beautiful and immersive, but they also need to clearly communicate gameplay information. That means troops must remain visible against the backdrop, paths and choke points must be readable at a glance, and key features like cliffs, valleys, and roads must stand out even when viewing from a distance. At the same time, when the player zooms in close, we want the world to feel alive with dust kicked up by tanks and explosions scorching the terrain.[/p][p][/p][h3]The Terrain as a Stage[/h3][p]Internally, we recognize that the battlefield is literally referred to as the “theater of war”. If the environment is the set, the armies are the actors, and the player is the director, we want to ensure every battle is epic every time they play Ashes of the Singularity II. Just like a stage in theater, the environment doesn’t dictate the exact story, but it provides the structure that makes storytelling possible. A wide-open plain suggests a clash of massive armies charging across open ground. A canyon with narrow choke points hints at ambushes and desperate defenses. A cliff overlooking a valley gives the feeling of commanding high ground.[/p][p]To achieve this, our environments are built with multiple levels of terrain: canyons, ridges, cliffs, and plateaus. These aren’t just visual flourishes; they’re functional spaces that shape gameplay. Troops can climb or descend between levels, and natural barriers create unique strategic opportunities. Because these maps are procedurally generated, no two battlefields are the same. Each new map is a fresh stage, waiting for the player to write their own story of conquest.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]The Challenge of Procedural Beauty[/h3][p]Procedural generation gives us infinite variety, but it also creates an artistic challenge: how do we make sure these endless maps are still cohesive and beautiful? Ashes of the Singularity II will have hand-crafted levels which can be polished to perfection by an artist, but procedural maps are unpredictable! A cliff might appear next to a forest or a river might cut through a desert plain. Our job is to make sure that no matter what the algorithm creates, the terrain feels intentional and visually appealing.[/p][p]To solve this, we built tooling to help ensure that different terrain types blend naturally with each other. Roads weave subtly through the environment helping units move efficiently and also giving the player’s eye natural lines to follow across the map. These subtle touches help hold the environment together as a believable world, even when the layout is random.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Reading the World at Every Scale[/h3][p]In an RTS, the camera is always moving, and Ashes of the Singularity II is no exception. This means the environment has to read well at every scale from tight close-ups of individual units to wide, atmospheric views of entire armies smashing together. Up close, we want players to notice the details in terrain textures and the scorch marks left by battle. Zoomed out, those details shouldn’t clutter the view or obscure units. Instead, larger areas of color and contrasting elements take over, making sure armies remain visible and terrain features are easy to interpret.[/p][p]This is where art direction becomes vital. We lean heavily on color and shape language to separate troops from the environmental stage while still feeling like they belong there. Neutral tones in the terrain allow units to pop against them, and buildings are designed with bold materials and silhouettes that remain recognizable at a distance. We think of it almost like lighting a stage: the set needs to look good, but the actors must always remain visible.[/p][p][/p][h3]A Living Environment[/h3][p]Static environmental beauty just isn’t going to cut it in today’s dynamic gaming environment, so we’ve been working hard to make sure the environment in our game reacts dynamically to the chaos of battle. When troops cruise along the terrain, it responds! Vehicles kick up dust, leave tracks, and crush vegetation. When weapons fire, the ground scorches, trees splinter, and craters are carved into the earth. Is the land covered in Turinium or restored to its natural state? These types of reactions make the world feel more alive and reinforce the player’s sense that their armies are shaping an interactive battlefield. By the end of a match, the environment tells a story of the fight whether it’s converting the landscape into Turinium or reclaiming it back from Turinium infection (There’s also a different kind of story told from the burned-out husks of forests, roads trampled by countless soldiers, and explosion craters freckling the terrain).[/p][p][/p][h3]The Environment as the Storyteller[/h3][p]Ultimately, our philosophy is that the terrain isn’t just a neutral backdrop - it’s a collaborator in storytelling. It provides context for every decision the player makes, shapes the flow of battles, and records the consequences of war. When a player looks back at an Ashes of the Singularity II battlefield after a long campaign, they should see not just a map, but a story written in dust, fire, and stone.[/p][p]In Ashes of the Singularity II, the armies may be the actors, but the environment is the stage that gives their performance meaning. It grounds the fantasy of world domination in a believable, reactive space, and ensures that every battle feels epic, cohesive, and unforgettable.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]