BREACH Game Design Document

8/12/2019 BREACH Game Design Document

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UCLAN GAMES DESIGN 2014

BREACH

Game Design Document

Andy Pompeus

XB3001



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Contents:

2 Game Synopsis

2 Setting Introduction

3 Plot Introduction

3 Gameplay Features

5 Market Consideration

6 Look and Feel

7 Game Objective

7 Characters

Doctor Kyle Shaw

Evelyn

Captain Lee Ross

10 Control Scheme

10 Mechanics, a Detailed Look

Picking up ItemsDragging Bodies

Looting Bodies

Commanding Teammates

Ship Systems

13 Items

Health Packs

Ammunition

14 Weapons

Pistol

Assault RifleLight Machine Gun

Submachine Gun

Shotgun

15 Heads Up Display - HUD

16 Enemies

Marines

Gunners

Medics

Officers

Aliens

17 Level Walkthrough

Opening

First Combat

Engineering

Alien Boarders

20 Story Choices/Outcomes

22 Major Decisions



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At a Glance: Andy Pompeus

BREACH GDD

Game Title: BREACH

Platform: Xbox One, PS4, PC

Genre: Sci-fi Shooter/Action Adventure

Number of Players: 1

Target Age: 16+

Game SynopsisBREACH is a third person sci-fi shooter that makes extensive use of the manipulation of

environmental features to empower the player like never before in a desperate battle to defend

their battered warship from an overwhelming enemy assault.

An immersive shooter with a rich narrative that offers varied and exciting gameplay filled

with choices and scenarios that will test the player’s moral compass, resourcefulness and skill in anexciting and memorable experience.

Setting IntroductionBREACH takes place during a civil war amongst the fourteen planets that make up the

system. The Inner worlds, the base of most of the wealth, see themselves as the guiding light of

civilisation. As they begin to police the entire system, the collective Inner Worlds have been more

and more militant in their methods to the point of interfering with the politics and methods of the

other worlds, despite them all being part of the same planetary Alliance.

After a non-violent protest is turned into a bloodbath by trigger-happy Alliance soldiers on

an Inner World, tensions between the Inner Worlds and the Middle Band planets are at an all-timehigh. As the leaders of the Inner Worlds and the other planets begin feverish talks and conferences

in an attempt to maintain the peace, a covert military team from Theia, the most powerful of the

Inner Worlds, is discovered operating on a middle band world, despite this being way out of their

jurisdiction and in clear violation of the laws set out between the planets.

This proves to be the tipping point, and the middle band worlds officially declare their

secession from the Alliance. This is not taken kindly, and the Alliance declares a state of war unless

the other worlds comply with their rules.

The game is set during the year 2633 in a fictional solar system with fourteen planets. Six of

these make up the Inner Worlds (though one is not populated), which are the heart of the Alliance,

and the centre of wealth. These worlds are futuristic utopias, with advanced technology and vast

cities teeming with people.

The Middle Band planets make up the main bulk of the separatist forces. While not quite as

wealthy as the Inner Worlds, these planets are still futuristic and feature the same level of

technology and styling. As now former members of the Alliance, both sides have the same ships,

troop gear and weaponry, just with different insignias and ideology.

The civil war has been raging for nearly a year, and there have already been casualties on

both sides. Our protagonist, doctor Kyle Shaw, moved from an Alliance-controlled world to a Middle

Band planet just before things began to slide towards war, and has been recruited to serve as one of

the ship’s doctors aboard the Mercury , flagship of the Separatist fleet.





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titans as Halo. Instead, Kyle, and in turn the player, must take a more cunning approach and try to

separate enemies to bring them down, and at times simply realise when a combat situation is too

much and flee.

This approach to combat has found mainstream success in games like the Batman: Arkham

series, and thus won’t alienate potential fans.

Finding cover is essential to staying alive when bullets start flying, so I think using the

brilliantly intuitive cover system debuted in Splinter Cell: Conviction or something similar will be

perfect; by holding down left trigger/L2, Fisher immediately drops into cover behind whatever

surface he’s near, and breaks away from it as soon as the trigger is released. If there’s no cover

nearby, he performs a combat roll.

This, combined with the vulnerability while stopping to loot ammo, will make what approach

the player takes a real consideration, as they may find themselves caught between a sealed

bulkhead and an enemy fireteam with only a handful of rounds, but with a discarded rifle a few feet

out of cover. If they make a run for the weapon, they risk being hit and killed, but if they don’t have

anything to defend themselves with, the enemies will soon overwhelm and kill them.This is where Kyle’s secret weapon comes in: Evelyn.

-Controlling Ship Systems

Evelyn serves as a medium between the player and the Mercury , allowing Kyle to access any

system that could be useful. This works by use of a one-touch button system; when the player

hovers their target over anything that can be interacted with, the reticule changes to show this.

Pressing the action button will immediately perform what the game determines to be the most

relevant command, for instance if the player aims at a computer panel with an enemy next to it, a

single press will cause it to explode.

If the player instead holds down the action button, a small radial menu will appear with all

available actions, allowing the player to quickly flick the right stick in the direction of the action they

require. To continue the example with the computer panel, the player may not want to explode it,

and so instead selects the option to make it spring to life, distracting the enemy nearby so the player

can slip past undetected.

-Character Progression

As the game goes on, Kyle becomes outfitted with more gear. For example, as the game

begins, he has no weapon and is dressed in civilian clothes. Once the attack begins, he finds a

weapon and is given a body armour vest from the armoury. Later, as the fighting intensifies, he is

issued a belt of grenades and the weapons he can access from the armoury are increased.

Rather than a ‘level-up!’ system for these improvements, these will happen at specific points

in the story; Kyle will literally be handed an armoured vest rather than suddenly having access to one

because he had enough experience.

This design choice allows the game to keep the player progressing at a predetermined rate

without overtly feeling like they are being held back. It also helps keep the player immersed rather

than breaking the illusion of being part of the story by having the game remind them that their

character has just achieved an arbitrary milestone and is now magically more powerful.

-Health and Armour



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Rather than the current trend in games, especially shooters, Kyle will have a finite amount of

health he can lose before dying, rather than regenerating health. As he approaches death, a red

indicator around the edge of the screen will flicker to show that he is in critical condition, but

otherwise the status of Kyle will be shown through his physical appearance.

When Kyle takes a bullet, it will visibly damage his armoured vest or cause visible gunshot

wounds on his body. A stray bullet to the arm will leave him very obviously injured, or for instance a

bullet to the leg will noticeably change his gait to show the wound.

This allows the use of health packs scattered throughout the game, found in Aid Stations,

that are the equivalent of the first aid kits found in real-life buildings attached to the wall. These can

be used at any time, but take a few seconds to use, making their use during combat a calculated risk.

Kyle can only carry one health pack with him at a time, but can heal at an aid station without using a

carried health pack.

This way getting hurt is a real danger, as health is not always readily available. The use of a

carried health pack is a one-time mistake fix, but not the safety net that regenerating health offers,

where you can just hide in cover until your health has recharged.When Kyle is wearing body armour, any bullet that hits him in an area covered by the vest

will do moderately reduced damage, rather than having a separate bar for armour or the

‘regenerating shields’ approach made popular by Halo. As most enemies will aim for the torso, this

adds an interesting element of chance to combat as a stray bullet can completely change things; Kyle

can be killed instantly by a headshot if an enemy has time to line up a shot. It also makes body

armour make a noticeable difference, without radically upsetting the vulnerability established by the

health and weapon systems.

-Inventory

A common feature of games is that characters can carry a vast array of items, despite havingno obvious way of storing these items. A good example is The Elder Scrolls series, in which the player

character can carry multiple sets of armour and weapons without so much as a bag or pouch, just

presumably very large pockets.

BREACH aims to make inventory space visually apparent right away. When the game begins,

Kyle has nothing. No weapons, no armour, no storage space. Once he is handed a pistol on his way

to the bridge, the holster he is given can contain the pistol itself and two spare pistol clips.

As the game progresses and he is given armour and other combat gear, the amount of items

he can carry increases as the number of pouches and pockets on his gear increases.

Equally when looting enemies after combat, there will be visual clues as to who to search by

simply noting which bodies have the most storage space. There is a much higher likelihood of finding

an unused magazine on the body of the marine wearing a bandolier and a drop-leg holster than on

the officer who was carrying a pistol and a radio.

Inventory follows common sense for maximum immersion, and to encourage the player to

play smart when it comes to prioritising which enemy to make a break for when they run out of

ammo in a fire-fight, and to manage their inventory carefully and tactically.

Market ConsiderationBREACH aims to tell an involving narrative whilst also delivering intense and interesting

gameplay. It should attract gamers who are interested in the shooter genre, such as fans of Halo or

the Battlefield series, while the deeper story and more reasoned approach to combat should also

pique interest in fans of series such as Mass Effect or Splinter Cell .



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BREACH is entering into an already crowded market, but the combination of rich storytelling,

strong shooter gameplay and varied combat through the manipulation of ship systems will enable it

to carve out a place for itself amongst the established kings of the genre.

Look and FeelThe universe of BREACH is one very much like our own, but as a progression into a believable

future. There are no amazing wonder-fuels, simply extrapolations of current predictions on how

technology will evolve. Nuclear fusion powers this universe, watched over by AI constructs

connected by a vast network of linked machines and devices.

While technology plays a huge part in this world, efficiency is still the primary focus of much

of the design aesthetic aboard the Mercury. It is a warship, and thus is based largely on function over

form. Naturally, futuristic gadgetry and sci-fi trappings will be present to inform the player that this

is indeed a futuristic sci-fi setting, but these will be very much grounded in recognisable technologyrather than fantastical future-machines.

The Mercury is a top-of-the-line warship, but it has seen combat and so will be grungy and

worn in places despite the clean aesthetic. Engineering is still a hotspot of working parts and dirty

work, even if the bridge is a room of huge screens and holographic displays. The player should feel

very much like this is a living, breathing ship with a beating heart of engine parts that is being

hammered and beaten by the enemy assault. The future may be smooth and white and brightly lit,

but only because a rugged cast metal heart hides underneath.

Marines:

With the Alliance Marines,

the ide is to make them look

futuristic but still very much

grounded in what makes a soldier

today recognisable as a soldier. The

technology available in BREACH is

advanced compared to what we

have in modern times, but still

minimalist compared to the kind of

nano-suits or power armour soldiers

wear in some sci-fi franchises.

Soldiers still wear combats with a

body armour jacket and pads, with

limited optics built into the

otherwise open helmets.

Alliance Marines don’t wear thick plates of armour that stop bullets, like a walking tank, they

wear an armoured vest that takes the force out of a bullet much like modern ceramic armour plates

do. This is a much more conservative future, one powered by nuclear fusion reactors, rather than a

mysterious new element. I want the world to feel like an extrapolation of the real world, given time

and technological developments that are still attainable.

1: Early concept 'Alliance Marine'



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The vest also has to be practical; weapons still use slings and ammunition still comes in

magazines that have to be kept somewhere. The more visible the storage is the better, seeing as

Kyle will visibly rifle through pockets and pouches to loot ammo.

Weapons:

An important point to note is that the weapons in BREACH all fire bullets, rather than energy

projectiles or similar sci-fi staples. The technology to produce such a weapon may exist in universe,

but the military is always focussed on what the most efficienct method is, and bullets are incredibly

good at their intended function for very little in terms of resources required which makes them

highly likely to still be a staple in the future.

Even though the marines can link up their weapons to their optics for improved targeting,

firearms still use simple optical sights. Built in redundancy is a key part of the design aesthetic

BREACH aims for. What happens to digital aiming if the battery dies on a long exercise? Or a cyber-

warfare attack renders computers useless? Even simple considerations like the weapon being used

by a civilian, or a soldier without a functioning eyepiece make reliance on such futuristic trappings

deeply flawed.Instead BREACH equips weapons with noticeable reliable features as well as futuristic ones

to ensure a believable world, as well as show demonstrably that an untrained civilian like Kyle can

still make good use of a weapon without any gear.

Game ObjectiveWhen the game opens, the crew of the Mercury is fighting primarily to save their ship.

Outnumbered and outgunned, the only option is to try and hold the line for long enough to find

some way out of the bleak situation.

However, once the aliens come into play two sequences in, the objective reaches a grander

scale. As the game progresses, we learn that the aliens are en route to human space to wipe out our

race and take the system as their own.

The civil war humanity is fighting becomes a secondary concern in the light of the extinction

of our species, and so the Mercury crew and the enemy marines must form an uneasy alliance to

stop the alien aggressors and defend mankind from total annihilation.

Characters

Kyle Shaw (24 years old)

The game’s protagonist, and player character.

Kyle was a doctor from Artemis, an Inner World, where he was born and raised as the only

child of the wealthy Shaw family. He is highly intelligent and despite having had zero combat training

or experience prior to being stationed aboard the Mercury, a capable combatant.



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His academic aptitude saw him

graduating secondary school a year early, only

because Kyle deliberately held himself back in

order to fit in a little better. Enrolling in an

accelerated program, Kyle graduated from

medical school at the age of 21, and became apracticing doctor not long after his 22

nd birthday.

His fiancée Grace was killed by Alliance

troops after being detained during a peaceful

protest against the loss of civil liberties, which

became a massacre after an insurgent group used

the scene as a cover to open fire on Alliance

personnel.

When Grace was taken by the Alliance,

word got out that the protesters were being

harshly interrogated to find any link betweenthem and the terrorist cell. Kyle funded and

joined a team who attempted a daring operation

to break the protesters out, but Grace was killed

in the attempt.

Kyle shot and killed the senior officer who

fired the shot in his grief and rage, making himself

a fugitive and driving him to flee his home and

join the uprising.

Kyle begins the game unwilling to kill again; he has taken the Hippocratic Oath like all

doctors. However, he realises it may be necessary early in the game in the interest of survival. Kyle isgenerally a moral character, driven by conscience and the will try to do the best by everyone.

Although the player will have multiple opportunities to decide the fate of other crew members,

whatever the player chooses Kyle as a character will be seriously affected by his choices.

Evelyn (1 year, 2 months old)

The AI construct aboard the Mercury .

Evelyn is a relatively young construct, at only one year old. She identifies as a female around

20, with red hair that she constantly alters the length of. She is fickle for an AI, partly due to her age,

but also simply because her surroundings have caused her to develop that way, in the same way that

a child’s parents largely determine their mentality as they grow up.

Evelyn chose her name within two hours of activation, and defined her persona in four. This

is incredibly fast for an AI, suggesting that her fickleness stems largely from being very comfortable

with her core programming and routines.

She developed a close relationship with Kyle when he came aboard the ship, since he had

never met such a young AI and found her fascinating. While she often teases other crew members,

Kyle is the only one she ever truly listens to in small matters, and she often uses her idle process

simply to watch and talk to him. They are close friends, and this is reflected in her protection of the

player and the chatter between the two characters throughout the game.

2, Kyle equipped with body armour and a pistol



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Despite being so mercurial, Evelyn is

still designed for the purpose of running the

ship, and is thus highly intelligent. She will

perform whatever task is necessary and will do

whatever she can to keep the ship and its crew

safe, even at her own expense if necessary.

Evelyn is terrified of what will happen

to her when she reaches the point where she

needs to expand past the data capacity of the

Mercury ’s computers. All true AI take up more

and more digital space as they learn and grow,

expanding their programming as they record

new experiences. Once an AI outgrows the

machine that houses them, they can no longer

learn or develop, which can drive the construct

insane, or to extreme depression to the point ofself-termination.

She, in the simplest terms, doesn’t want

to die.

Evelyn will act as the player’s guide and

weapon for most of the game, utilising ship systems on their command to keep them one step ahead

of the enemy. She is also the player’s first friend, and the game is intended to build affection for her

as it progresses, so that the narrative climax has the appropriate emotional weight on the player as

it does on Kyle.

Captain Lee Ross (33 years old)

Kyle’s companion for most of the game.

Lee is the CAG, or Captain of the Air Group, aboard the Mercury . He’s a pilot first and

foremost, but a highly capable combat officer out of the cockpit. As the player takes control of Kyle,

who has no combat experience, Lee serves as both Kyle and the player’s introduction to combat to

help fit in a tutorial element to the earliest stages of the game in an unobtrusive way that doesn’t

break immersion.

Lee is also Kyle’s closest friend after Evelyn , and will often participate in exchanges between

the two as the story progresses, helping with exposition and adding further texture to the

characters.

As Lee is a pilot, he is equipped with a submachine gun and a pistol, unlike most marines

who carry assault rifles. He can run out of SMG ammo, but he has unlimited ammo for his sidearm in

the interest of keeping him useful at all times as more than a potential distraction or even a meat-

shield in combat.

Also unlike marines, Lee cannot be permanently killed in combat. Upon taking lethal

damage, he will attempt to crawl to cover, where he will administer a health pack to himself once

the combat is resolved. He does not need to be given health packs, but he does require fresh

magazines for his primary weapon, as with other marines.



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Control Scheme

Mechanics, a Detailed Look:

Player MechanicsPicking up items:

Scavenging ammunition is a key mechanic in BREACH, and so it was important to feature it

as prominent mechanic. All interaction with items and weapons is handled with the X button, but

the context can define its use in multiple ways.

Standard Pickups

If Kyle is stood still, or moving without sprinting, pressing the X button will cause him to bend down

to pick up a discarded weapon or magazine. This is an unhurried interaction that is most useful out

of combat, where urgency isn’t necessarily required.

Rush Pickups

During combat, making a break from cover to go for a weapon is a high-risk high reward play that

can make the difference between being pinned down with an empty rifle and being able to

effectively fight back.

Kyle can grab weapons from the ground without breaking stride in such instances by use of Rush

Pickups, which can be performed while sprinting. By pressing the X button just as Kyle moves over

the weapon or item, he will scoop it up on the fly allowing for fluid movement from cover to item to

cover.

However, if the player mistimes the press of X, Kyle can stumble as he reaches down, which slows

his movement, leaving him exposed for precious extra time. If the player dramatically mistimes the

interaction, it is possible that Kyle will not even successfully pick up the item, making the risky play

ultimately count for nothing.



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The timing is visually communicated by an outline that appears around the item as Kyle approaches,

which signals the player to press X as he moves over it.

Dragging Bodies:

When friendly marines are critically injured, they are sometimes downed rather than outright killed.

In this instance they can be healed by the player or other friendly marines, and brought back to a

fighting state.

Often this won’t conveniently happen while the marine is safely in cover, and so the player may have

to intervene if they want to keep their teammates alive.

The player can drag wounded teammates by approaching their body and pressing the X button. This

will cause Kyle to reach out and grab the marine with one hand, while keeping the other free to aim

and fire the equipped weapon. While dragging, the player can no longer aim down the sights for

improved accuracy, and naturally moves at a reduced speed until they release the marine by

pressing X a second time.

As well as rescuing injured teammates, the player can drag dead bodies in the same manner. Thisallows them to drag the body into cover, where it can be looted safely during combat without

exposing them to enemy fire.

Looting Bodies:

Looting is also handled by the X button. By standing near a dead body, the player can hold X

to begin searching through pouches for items. Kyle will visibly go through pouches, and will transfer

any items found into his own as he searches. The animation will automatically cancel once all

pouches have been searched, or when Kyle has filled his inventory space. The player may also

choose to cancel the animation early by simply releasing X.

Commanding Teammates:

The player will spend a lot of the game with friendly marines at their side, assuming of

course that they aren’t killed as soon as they join the team. By issuing commands to them, the player

can coordinate their small squad into working as an effective team and keep everyone alive from

combat to combat.

The two simple commands that the player can utilise are Move/Attack and Hold/Defend. By

aiming at an enemy, and pressing the D-Pad Up, (Move/Attack) your marines will focus fire on that

enemy where possible.

If the command is given while no enemy is in the targeting reticule, the nearest marine will

be commanded to move to the location aimed at. This allows the player to order an advance on the

enemy, without risk of running forward with no back up.

The D-Pad Down, Hold/Defend command can be used to order friendly marines to hold

position, no matter where the player goes. This can be used to keep marines engaged with an

enemy, so that the player can flank them or set up a play.

The command can also be used when a friendly marine is downed. By aiming at the fallen

teammate and pressing D-Pad Down, the nearest friendly marine will attempt to drag them to cover

and protect them, either healing them if they are currently carrying a med-pack, or defending them

from harm until the combat is resolved so somebody who has one can do the job.

Having a squad of healthy marines gives the player the best chance at surviving combat as

the difficulty curve begins to steepen as the game progresses.



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Ship Systems-Lights:

A basic, but useful system. The player can turn lights on or off, or blow out light bulbs to

distract enemies. By pitching a corridor into darkness, the player can make a run to a discarded

weapon, or simply memorise where an enemy is stood, kill the lights, and open fire for a devastating

surprise attack.

BREACH aims to reward creative and tactical uses of systems, but at the same time leave the

player at equal risk if they misjudge a situation. Lights are a great example of this; Kyle can’t see in

the dark, so if the player decides to turn off all of the lights in a room they’ll be just as blind as their

enemies. It’s up to them to turn the situation to their advantage.

-Blast Doors:

Whether the way is blocked, or the player needs to put something between them and the

enemy, controlling doors is a useful advantage over enemies. It can mean the difference between

reaching a critical health pack and being caught by enemy fire, or even used as a distraction if a

group of enemies are stood by a door; if it opens they’re going to make sure nobody is coming

through, and that could give the player a half-second to make their next move.

It’s also possible to crush an enemy trying to come through a doorway w ith a well-timed

interaction, or by using the automatic sensors as a makeshift trap that makes the door violently

close when anything moves through it.

-Airlocks:

This one’s pretty self -explanatory. What better way to clear a room than by blastingeveryone into space with an explosive decompression? Alternatively, the player could seal off a

section of corridor, then vent the oxygen from the area to suffocate anyone trapped inside.

This particular mechanic may seem a touch overpowered. It’s important to note that the

very heart of the ship won’t have airlocks, only those sections that are on the very outer decks will

have access to space. For this reason airlocks will be a rarity, and only found at certain points in the

game when Kyle is in such a section of the ship.

-Fire Suppression System:

The ship is equipped with a whole host of fire-extinguishers built into the walls and ceilings

to deal with a fire quickly, before it can spread. Blasting enemies with a cloud of CO2 is a quick andeasy way to disorient them, or use the thick white fog to make a hasty retreat while they can’t see.

Equally, the player might find that they’re outnumbered or outgunned, and instead trigger a

cloud to obscure themselves, allowing them to flee without the enemy seeing which direction they

took, allowing a clean getaway. Again, creativity is key to make the best of the systems at the

player’s disposal, and BREACH aims to encourage this at every turn.

-Electro Plasma System (EPS) Conduits:



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The ship

transports energy

through a network of

pipes filled with high

energy plasma. If these

pipes were to rupture,

or the player were to

decide to open one,

they’d spew a stream

of raw energy that

would melt any organic

matter caught in it,

making it a very

effective way to clear a

corridor. However,

stray rounds can also damage the pipes and cause a rupture, so the player must always be mindfulof their surroundings to avoid getting caught out themselves.

-Industrial Equipment:

The engineering deck is filled with various machinery and industrial equipment that can be

used to dispatch enemies in a variety of creative ways. Examples include cranes for lifting heavy

machine parts, various grappling arms, vast cooling jets that can be used to cool engine parts that

are being rotated out during a hard burn, or even simple things like the doors to maintenance

hatches, that can be opened and used as cover.

-Computer Panels:Computers can be used to distract enemies by randomly activating, can be made to explode

by overloading the console, or have information downloaded from personal terminals that Evelyn

doesn’t have remote access to. This varies from additional information about the world and crew, or

collectibles and easter eggs.

As the game progresses, cyber-warfare attacks on the ship begin to limit Evelyn’s

effectiveness unless the player is active in restoring her control of the Mercury . By re-hacking into

hacked terminals, the player can counter the enemy marines and aliens’ attempts to take over the

ship and remove Kyle’s home advantage.

When Evelyn comes under digital attack, any attempts to use ship systems will have a

chance to fail determined by how pressured she is by the attacks. The percentage chance of this

happening will slowly rise unless the player hacks terminals frequently, reducing the failure rate with

each successful hack.

Items-Health Packs:

Health packs take the form of BioFoam, canisters that look like aerosols but instead pump

out an adhesive bandage in a foamy state. They heal Kyle for 40% of his total health each, but are a

rare commodity outside of the medbay. Each canister takes up one slot in Kyle’s vest, making the

3: EPS Conduits running along the ceiling of a corridor



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player have to think hard about how they want to distribute health and ammunition in their

inventory.

Each marine can carry one health pack which they will prioritise for their own use, but will

heal the player if they are on critically low health (less than 20%) and are able to do so without

risking their own safety.

Marines replace these health packs by finding them the same as the player, sharing the

same finite supply as Kyle. This will force the player to make serious considerations about the value

of having friendly marines around, as they will potentially have to sacrifice some of their own safety

to keep their team-mates fighting fit.

-Ammunition:

Enemy marines will carry spare magazines for whatever weapon they are carrying, that can

be looted from their bodies. Magazines can also be removed from dropped weapons, although these

will only contain as many rounds as have not been fired before the enemy was killed.

Looted magazines that are not full will still take up one inventory slot, the same as a fresh one.

Armoury lockers will also contain weapons and ammunition, but these are placed sparingly aroundthe ship and so cannot be relied upon to keep the player armed and equipped.

WeaponsPistol

The weapon Kyle is first given, the pistol is a reliable

sidearm that deals fair damage with good accuracy.

Unlike the other weapons, Kyle can always have a pistol

and one other weapon thanks to its unique holster, which

also houses two pistol clips separate to Kyle’s main

inventory space.

Damage: 30

Accuracy: 70

Rate of Fire: NA (semi-automatic, fires as fast as the player

pulls the trigger)

Capacity: 16 rounds per magazine

Assault Rifle

The workhorse weapon used by

most marines, the assault rifle

combines good continuous damage

with range and moderate accuracy.

It gets through ammunition fast, but

there’s plenty to scavenge.

Damage: 20

Accuracy: 50

Rate of Fire: 12 rounds per second

(empties magazine after ~4 seconds of fire)


Light Machine Gun



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Not intended for use aboard a ship is the best tag for the LMG. Hugely powerful, fast firing, but not

known for accuracy, these weapons are deadly but bulky.

Damage: 15

Accuracy: 35

Rate of Fire: 15 rounds per second (empties magazine after ~8 seconds of fire)


Submachine Gun

The weapon of choice for the pilots when engaged in infantry engagements, the SMG is powerful

and compact but can burn through ammunition alarmingly fast.

Damage: 15

Accuracy: 70



ShotgunThe ultimate tool for clearing corridors, the shotgun packs huge power at the cost of accuracy and

effective range.

Damage: 20(x8 pellets)

Accuracy: 20


Capacity: 12 rounds

Heads up Display – HUDIn the interest of immersion, BREACH features a deliberately sparse HUD. There are no

health or armour bars, and ammunition is not displayed as brazenly as say Call of Duty .

All ammunition is stored in a finite number of magazines, rather than a pool of individual

bullets that can are simply reloaded into the weapon regardless of how many times the weapon has

been reloaded already. This is displayed by a small indicator in the top right corner of the screen that

shows an icon for each magazine currently carried. Each magazine icon will be filled based on how

many rounds are currently in it; for instance a magazine with twenty rounds out of thirty will be two

thirds full, and an empty magazine will simply be represented as an outline.

Upon reaching less than 20% health, a warning indicator will appear around the edges of the

screen to notify the player that they are on critically low health. This indicator will fade slightly whenout of combat, but still be noticeable to ensure that the player is aware that they need to heal up

without being an annoying and distracting visual effect.

When targeting objects that can be accessed via Evelyn, the targeting reticule will change to

show that an action can be performed. Holding the action button will bring up a radial menu that

will allow the player to choose what action they want to have Evelyn perform on the object in an

unobtrusive manner, and allow for quick selections on the fly in intense combat situations.



16

Enemies

Marines

The enemy marines make up the bulk of the enemy count for the first few sequences of the

game. They will work as a squad in combat, and while they may be commonly encountered they are

still very much a threat to the player.

All marines carry a sidearm, along

with a primary weapon.

Health: 100

Gunners

Gunners are slightly tougher than regular

marines, with bulkier armour and carrying

an LMG. They also occasionally carry

grenades, making them a serious threat in

confined areas.

Health: 140

Medics

When enemy marines are downed or

seriously wounded, they can be revived by

enemy medics in the same way as the

player can revive their own teammates.

Medics carry an SMG and a sidearm, but

their true potential threat comes from their

ability to assist and heal other enemies,which can suddenly turn a fire-fight you

were winning into one that you find

yourself needing to flee from.

Health: 100

Officers

Squads of marines will sometimes be led by officers. These enemies carry only a pistol, but as long as

they are present the enemies around them will be more accurate and more deadly. By targeting and

officer and killing them, this boost can be transformed into a debuff, making the enemies less

coordinated and less accurate as their morale is crushed.

Health: 120

Buff to nearby enemies: +20% accuracy, +10% damage

Debuff once killed: -20% accuracy, squad cohesion severely impaired

Aliens

By far a bigger threat than marines, aliens are far more hardy and resistant to damage than the

human enemies. They are protected by kinetic barriers projected over their bodies that greatly

reduce projectile damage, but can be bypassed by severe blunt trauma or an object moving slowly

enough to not be recognised as a projectile. This makes them most easily dispatched by using ship

systems like crushing them in blast doors rather than trying to beat them in a gunfight.

4: An Alliance Marine



17

Aliens are less coordinated than marines, acting more as individual threats than a cohesive

squad. They are also more aggressive, more prone to breaking cover and using their innate tankiness

to advance under fire, forcing the player to either react quickly or retreat.

Equipped with powerful projectile weapons that feed from the aliens’ powered exosuits,

they can lay down a powerful stream of fire, but in short bursts punctuated by long cooldown times,

making the player have to think carefully about when they time their moves and how they go about

returning fire. With a faster movement speed than humans and such strong bursts of damage, aliens

are a deadly combination of strength and mobility that will require cunning to defeat.

Health:150

Shielding: 100

Level Walkthrough

Opening

The game opens with the Mercury on its way to returning to the main body of the Separatist fleetafter a successful assault on an Alliance vessel carrying a high value target. The ship has taken a

beating, but is still spaceworthy.

However, the crew quickly find out that they’ve been tracked, and come under attack from a

small group of Alliance vessels. The Mercury is in no shape to fight against multiple ships, and is

vastly outgunned. The commanding officer, Admiral Lucas Green, orders a retreat into a nearby

nebula, hoping to lose the pursuers within and make repairs. With systems failing all over the ship

and Alliance landing parties breaching the hull on multiple decks, the Mercury enters the nebula

with a small Alliance Warship in hot pursuit. As they enter the nebula, the two vessels collide,

getting stuck together.

Kyle is in the medbay when an enemy marine team breach the door and burst in. It’s only

thanks to Evelyn that he survives; he’s unarmed and untrained. Under her guidance, she kills the

lights and directs him through a vent to escape.

Figure 5, the Mercury 's Medbay



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First CombatFrom here on out, Evelyn works with Kyle to keep him safe, as the two have grown close in the time

he’s been aboard.

As the voice in the player’s ear, she directs Kyle towards an armoury locker where he finds

an armoured vest but still no weapons, all the while avoiding and sneaking past enemy soldiers.

Kyle runs into a friendly marine team led by Lee Ross fighting their way to the bridge to

protect the command crew. He is handed a pistol and holster from a dead marine and told to stay

down, but the player is free to participate in the combat with both the newly acquired pistol and by

using Evelyn’s control over ship systems.

(This serves as an introduction to combat mechanics via Lee and Evelyn’s suggestions and

tooltips)

After a brief fire-fight to secure the bridge, the bridge staff inform the team that internalcommunications are down, so there’s no way of coordinating the rest of the crew. As a non-

commissioned crewman, Kyle offers to go to engineering and try and find out if anyone is alive to get

communications back up, while the marines keep trying to repel the boarders. Evelyn begins

compiling a damage report, while a team of four marines and the player are sent to engineering.

(Roughly 20 minutes of gameplay at this point)

EngineeringThe player then fights their way down to the engineering deck, to find it under siege. With the help

of the engineers and the marine team, they manage to repel the attackers so that the crew can

Figure 6, A corridor aboard the Mercury



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begin repairs. Engineering is rich with machinery and moving parts, making Evelyn’s assistance a

huge (and very visual) boon in this environment.

Kyle is told that the only thing keeping the communications systems from being fixed is to

realign a capacitor, but the battle in engineering has destroyed the conduit that provided access to

it.

At Evelyn’s suggestion, Kyle and two of his team of marines head to the next deck to reach

the capacitor from above, and manually realign it, while the rest stay to defend the engineers

making repairs.

While the group fight their way to the capacitor, a massive impact rocks the ship. Evelyn has

no answers as to what caused it, as the nebula has completely deadened external sensors.

Kyle and a marine realign the capacitor as another impact batters the ship. Communications

come back online, and they head back to engineering. On the way, a ship-wide announcement is

made that another vessel has found the Mercury and opened fire. Two impacts have breached the

hull, and Kyle and the marine team are only a few corridors away. Evelyn informs the admiral thatthey’ll engage any potential boarders and they proceed to the breach site.

While en route to the breach, the enemy soldiers they engage all seem to be fleeing.

What they find is definitely not anything the Alliance is equipped with; it’s not even human

looking. Evelyn uses the internal sensors to analyse the enormous pod that has lodged itself in the

hull, and determines that it’s not, as originally thought, an unexploded missile. It’s hollow, and

seems to be some kind of drop pod.

Before anyone can react, it opens, and several alien creatures, encased in some kind of

advanced armoured suit, emerge and open fire on the team. Conventional weapons seem ineffectiveagainst them, and so the marines direct the player to retreat.

Alien BoardersThe next section of gameplay focuses on avoiding any fire-fights with the aliens, taking the player on

a more circuitous route back to the lift to engineering.

More impacts rock the ship, and Evelyn confirms that more pods are breaching the hull all

over the ship.

Once again, the player and their marines find engineering a battleground on their arrival,this time under attack from aliens on one side, and enemy soldiers fighting alongside the Mercury’s

marines to repel them.

Entering from the gantry overlooking the engineering deck, the player has a good vantage

point to engage the enemy from, and a marine suggests using the machinery to kill the highly

resilient aliens. The player is free to join the fire-fight on the ground, provide covering fire from

above or use ship systems again, and also direct the marines however they see fit. (The aliens can be

brought down with gunfire, but they are extremely tough.)

Once the combat is resolved, the crew gather around one of the dead aliens, studying it.

Evelyn requests that it be placed in a stasis pod so she can analyse it, and so Kyle and a marine drag



20

the body into one. Evelyn warns them that it will take several minutes to gather useful information,

and that more aliens are incoming.

To keep the pod safe while the scans complete, Kyle and the marines, and a handful of

engineers that can be spared, set up a barricade outside the ground floor entrance to engineering,

and seal the bulkhead behind them.

The marines are running very low on ammunition now. Evelyn tells the team that the aliens

are only a corridor away at this point, but that there is an armoury locker between them and the

team. It is up to the player to make a call; take a marine and run to it, grab as much ammo as they

can carry then run back, or simply hunker down and prepare for the fight.

If the player does decide to make an ammo run, a 30 second timer appears on the HUD

counting down until the aliens pass the armoury. They have to reach, raid, and return from the

armoury locker in that time, or they will be caught by the aliens without backup.

Choosing this option, and grabbing enough magazines for the team (it is possible to grab the

ammunition and get back in time, but the return trip will be running while under fire) results in the fight being won with minimal casualties, regardless of the player’s impact in the combat. Even if they

simply stay in cover it is likely that they will still survive. However, if the player dawdles they risk

losing more men than if they hadn’t taken the risk, or even being caught out an killed themselves.

If the player decides not to risk making a run for the ammunition, the marines share their

remaining magazines and prepare for the fire-fight. Dialogue from the marines makes it clear that

they aren’t confident about their survival odds, after the previous encounters with the aliens.

Choosing this option puts a lot more responsibility on the player, as the combat will be won

only if they can effectively utilise the little ammo they have left, and make full use of the environment

via Evelyn. (The fight takes place outside engineering, meaning there are lots of pipes and conduitsthat can be opened or overloaded.)

Marines will likely be killed here, unless the player makes short work of the enemies. (At least

one will die always on this option, with a predetermined death where they run out of ammo, switch

to a sidearm and are shot)

Once the combat is resolved, Evelyn finishes her scans. She reveals that the aliens’ armoured

suits have shield emitters built into them that severely reduce incoming damage from projectile

weapons, but can be beaten by either slower moving objects such as a knife, or by enormous blunt

trauma (as evidenced by using the engineering machinery to crush and kill them during the fire-fight

in engineering).

Story Choices/OutcomesAnother, more detailed example of decision-making comes around a third of the way

through the game. Having defended a major attack on Engineering, Kyle and Lee are sent to help

defend one of the weapons arrays at the stern of the ship, after scans reveal the alien vessel hidden

nearby in the nebula. It is vastly larger and more heavily armed than the Mercury , but has yet to

open fire.

Enemy marines are still seemingly unaware of the vessel, Evelyn suggests this is possibly due

to them not having repaired their own ship’s systems yet.



21

The aliens are slowly sweeping systematically along the length of the ship, and are soon to

reach the main weapons systems. Without these the Mercury will be defenceless against the alien

vessel.

During the fire-fight, Evelyn informs Kyle that she has detected a group of aliens on their

way to her AI core, a much more targeted attack than those previously encountered.

The player must make a choice; either stay and help defend the weapons systems or stop a

potential attack on Evelyn’s core.

The impacts of these choices will be felt later in the game.

Once the attack on the weapons array(or AI core) has been resolved, the player is tasked

with halting an advance by enemy marines, who are capitalising on the Mercury crew being

distracted by the alien assault, and are heading for engineering.

Fighting their way through the Mess Hall and Crew Lounge, Kyle and Lee arrive too late to

stop the enemies from breaking through the defences and gaining access to the Mercury’s reactor.

The player defeats the squad, and it is revealed that they were attempting to overload thereactor and cause a catastrophic overload that would destroy the ship.

With this revealed, Admiral Green orders that the Mercury crew to attempt the same thing

on the Alliance vessel, with Evelyn now able to separate the ships with restored power to

propulsion.

The player joins a large team of marines and, via transport shuttles, breaches the enemy

ship. Fighting through to the reactor, Evelyn interfaces with the ships systems and sets the reactor to

overload. As the team fights their way back to the shuttle, Evelyn is suddenly hit by a cyber-warfare

attack, and the entire ship loses power.Fighting in the dark, and temporarily without Evelyn’s assistance, the team fight their way

back to their shuttles.

If the player decided to stay with the weapons array in the earlier choice, Evelyn reveals that

the attack on her core, while unsuccessful, must have left her open to digital attack by the aliens.

She explains that an unrecognised AI construct is attempting to overcome her and take control of

the ship, and is absorbing every single byte of information stored on the Mercury network. It’s trying

to learn about the crew, the ship, and humanity in general.

As the player and their marines arrive at the shuttles, Evelyn warns that she’s losing the

fight, and the Mercury opens fire. The volley destroys the waiting shuttles and half of the deck,

killing most of the Mercury marines.

Lee and Kyle bundle into an escape pod, and thanks to emergency power, manage to launch

themselves back into the Mercury ’s shuttle bay thanks to some expert piloting by Lee, crashing

spectacularly into the hangar.

If the player decided to personally defend Evelyn’s core, instead the same explanation is

given about the alien AI’s efforts, but the Mercury maintains control of its weapons. The team fight

their way into their shuttles and take off to return to the shuttle bay, but en route Evelyn is hit by

another cyber attack, this time clearly in pain. Through the shuttle window, the player can see

something on the alien ship begin to light up, then a searing lance of energy fires straight through

the Alliance ship, sawing it cleanly and easily in half. The beam also catches several shuttles,

destroying most immediately and blowing out the engines of the one Kyle and Lee are aboard.



22

Again, thanks to some expert piloting by Lee, the shuttle is brought crashing into the

Mercury hangar as safely as a crash landing can be.

From here on out, the player will begin to experience random failures when attempting to

use Evelyn to interact with ship systems, as detailed in the mechanics section.

Major DecisionsThe player will have to make several key decisions during the plot of the game. These are

intended to make the player seriously think about their actions, and the ramifications of them for

the characters involved.

One such example is as follows:

Near the end of the game, the player is made to make what should be a difficult choice; save

Lee or save Evelyn.

At this point in the game Lee has been critically injured, and the player is carrying him to the

Medbay to try to stabilise and save him.

Evelyn is losing her fight with the alien construct badly, but a team of engineers and tech

specialists are frantically working in the AI core to keep her functioning and prevent her from

causing havoc with her now compromised control of the Mercury’s systems.

A call goes out to anyone still alive and listening that the marines defending the AI core are

being overwhelmed, and need backup. The player must decide whether to go and help defend

Evelyn but leave Lee to bleed out and die, or give him life-saving medical attention while the core isoverrun and Evelyn lost.

Whichever choice the player makes, the result is intended to be haunting.

Both Lee and Evelyn will argue that Kyle should save the other; Evelyn insists that she isn’t

human, she was only ever and only ever could be a programmed construct. She tells Kyle that Lee is

more important, and that she won’t be able to fight the alien AI much longer anyway, even if the

core can be defended.

Lee argues that he’s a soldier, and that he’s done his duty. That’s enough for him, and that

Kyle should leave him and try to save Evelyn, reasoning that she is as real enough of a person to Kyleas he is, and far more tactically useful than one wounded pilot.

Either way, Kyle is losing a friend. With Lee and Evelyn being the main voices in the player’s

ear all game, the player should be attached to both also, making the decision a genuinely difficult

one.

If the player chooses to go to the core, and leave Lee, Kyle will share a heartfelt goodbye

with him and apologise that he can’t save them both. Leaving him with a medpack and a pistol, the

player sets off for the AI core, battling alone for the first time in the game. Lee is still in touch via

commlink, insisting that Kyle is doing the right thing, and reassuring him that saving Evelyn was

always going to be more important.



23

As the player nears the core, Lee’s responses become fainter and more forced, and as the

player arrives, he ceases responding.

If the player chooses to stay with Lee, they will hear updates on the battle in the core over

commlink while Kyle sees to his friend. The marines are driven back, and forced to retreat. Unable to

prevent Evelyn being overwhelmed by the alien AI, the decision is made to terminate her program,

thus severing any connection between the Mercury network and the alien construct.

As Evelyn struggles with the construct, she tells Kyle that she will always be grateful for his

friendship and that it would be better this way; the ship would stay under friendly control and Kyle

wouldn’t have to lose his friend. The two share their last goodbyes, and then Evelyn is terminated.

Either decision weighs heavily on Kyle for the last parts of the game, and he is clearly hurt by

the loss of either of his friends.

The climax of the game can thusly end one of two ways, depending on who is still alive by this point.

Evelyn saved:

By the end of the game, the ship is pretty much beyond saving. Systems all over the Mercury

are failing and Green orders all hands abandon ship. The plan is to deliberately lower containment

on the main generator, overload whatever systems are left on the ship and set it on a collision

course with the alien vessel, which is gearing up for a slip-space jump to the rest of humanity, as

discovered by Evelyn during her struggles with the hostile construct. This will be overseen by Evelyn,

who is tied to the Mercury’s computers due to her enormous program size, and so cannot abandon

ship. She is also now all but defeated by the alien construct, which has infiltrated almost all systems.

With a short window to start a hard burn on the engines to fire the Mercury into the alien

vessel and Evelyn on the brink of total failure, crew are making their way to escape pods and life

rafts. However Specialist Julian Landry, the AI handler, says there may be a way to copy Evelyn’s

program and effectively save her, yet still leave the ship with a functioning Evelyn to keep it in one

piece while it flies into the alien vessel.

With the reactor on overload, power output is at an astronomical high. All power that isn’t

needed for propulsion and a limited spread of weapons, and that’s a lot of unused power, can be

instead used to power an immensely high intensity data-burst, streaming Evelyn’s base code into the

datasphere where it can be picked up and retrieved. While Evelyn as she grew and formed a

personality would be gone, a new copy of her would be able to begin again and learn and develop.

She could still, in some small way, be saved.

The only problem with this plan is that the only place where such a process can be

undertaken is engineering, which is at the other end of a now very alien-filled ship.

Kyle, Julian and a handful of volunteer marines set off to try and get there in the little time

remaining, fighting through fierce resistance, while the rest of the crew evacuate ready for the

effective self-destruct that’s about to happen.

The distance means that there was never really a chance to get there in time. Evelyn is an

intelligent AI, so she knows this. As the end of the window approaches, she seals the team into a



corridor with blast doors, leaving only a life raft entry open. Kyle refuses to back down, insisting that

he can save her. He doesn’t care if he doesn’t make it.

Evelyn informs them that if they don’t abandon ship in the next thirty seconds, they won’t

make minimum safe distance from the explosion of the Mercury and nobody will survive.

Lee and Julian basically drag Kyle into the life raft, and eject.

Evelyn says her goodbyes to the distraught Kyle, and they watch as the two ships collide, and

explode in a spectacular white fireball.

Lee saved:

As with the other outcome, the plan is still to use the Mercury as a giant fusion bomb to stop

the alien vessel from making a slipspace jump to the rest of humanity. However, without Evelyn,

somebody needs to start the overload process manually, by sabotaging the reactor in engineering.

With most marines stuck at the other end of the ship and unable to make headway under

fierce opposition, Kyle offers to make his way there with the help of Specialist Landry and whatever

marines he can muster along the way.

Lee is in no shape to fight, and so Kyle orders a squad of marines to take him to anevacuation point safely, and get off of the ship.

Kyle is not a soldier, and has no rank. He has no military right to issue orders, but after the

events of the game his skill is now unquestioned, and he has become a leader to the men that have

seen what the player has accomplished.

Fighting through stiff opposition, Kyle and his team battle their way to engineering and set

the reactor to overload. However their attempt to get to escape pods is cut off by more attacking

aliens, and the team are pinned down while the reactor approaches critical mass.

In a last ditch attempt to get the others to safety, Kyle makes a daring break and draws fire

away from his team, buying them time to get to an escape pod, but trapping himself in the process.

The player performs a valiant last stand as the reactor goes critical, and with Lee on the commlink

commending Kyle for his actions in saving so many, the Mercury explodes and destroys the alien

vessel with it.

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BREACH Game Design Document

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