Waking Giants was an interesting scenario to work on, as its purpose was to highlight the Wraithknight - the Eldar race’s giant mech unit (akin to an Evangelion EVA unit but armed with with a giant sword). Comparable to the Imperial Forces’ Imperial Knight and the Orks’ Morkanaut, the massive unit had some really cool abilities and animations that made it a joy to field in the game. Thus, the scenario’s physical map was made to have expansive spaces to give room for the Wraithknight to do its signature melee, jump, and slash moves. Another awesome feature for the map was we decided to put a titan sized demon trapped inside the ice…

There were a few phases to this map, with a bunch of varied attack and defend objectives. First of all, at this point in the story, the player’s faction is considered traitors within the Eldar ranks, with the main faction blocking the player’s escape through the suppression of a Colossus Gate. With limited resources, the player is tasked to destroy the disruptors suppressing the game, and possibly free imprisoned Eldar sympathetic to your cause along the way. Upon the destruction of a generator, a ruined Wraithknight is discovered. After the destruction of a second generator, a salvageable Wraithknight is will appear at that spot and the player is then tasked to repair generators to power it up while defending against increasing waves of difficulty of enemy Eldar. Once power has been restored and the Wraithknight bursts free, the player is instructed to use its special shield to deflect the last beam to destroy the last disruptor. This was a particularly cool aspect, as I worked with gameplay programmers to spec out and design a method to deflect the emitted “beam” off the special shield to generate a feedback loop. Once the last disruptor is down, all gloves are off as the main forces mount a desperate attack to destroy the Colossus Gate to prevent the player’s rebel forces from going through.