New World

I worked as a Game Design intern in the summer of 2021, and then full time as a System Designer on the ‘Progression’ and ‘Seasons’ teams from July 2022 to now.

My Contributions

A large portion of my work has included designing and updating rewards for numerous pieces of content:

  • Created all the item data for the game’s first new weapon, the Void Gauntlet
  • Created rewards for the updated Main Questline in the 2022 Brimstone Sands update
  • Updated and added new rewards in Holiday Events such as Summer Medleyfaire, Nightveil Hallow, and Winter Convergence
  • Created and updated for Seasonal World Bosses such as Legacy of Crassus, Fury of the Spriggan, and Siege of Sulfur
  • Created rewards for Seasonal Trials such as The Hatchery and The Winter Rune Forge

I have also owned the Season Journey since New World began doing Seasonal content:

  • Designed objectives, challenges, and activities for each Season’s Season Journey
  • Balanced the XP awarded for these objectives and challenges
  • Created rewards for completion of the challenges


Screenshot of the Season 1 Journey


Throughout all this I’ve written and upkept lots of documentation, both Design Documents and more technical documentation.

  • Wrote and upkept the GDD for the Loadouts feature.
  • Wrote and upkept documentation for each of the Season Journeys, particular useful for QA to check against.
  • Wrote and upkept documentation for new and updated rewards for a variety of content, particularly useful for QA to check against.
  • Contributed to documentation on our numerous types of DataSheets, helping other designers know what different columns do.
  • Wrote GDDs for a variety of currently unimplemented features.

I have also made other contributions such as:

  • Programmed test cases for an internal Data Validation tool to validate data for Season Journey Objectives and Challenges
  • Designed additional functionality for our Loot Table and Loot Limiting tools for an engineer to implement. This functionality allowed designers to more easily create loot ‘pity tickers,’ as well as creating more flexibility in usage of these tools.
  • Utilized analytics tools such as Kibana to gather analytics data on live issues to help diagnose problems, and inform decisions on solutions.
  • Programmed a Perforce plugin to make viewing and using Perforce Bookmarks more convenient.

Finally, throughout all this I’ve also diagnosed and fixed numerous bugs. My wide array of technical skills has been particularly helpful here, allowing me to diagnose and fix bugs that I otherwise would’ve had to pass to someone else:

  • Diagnosed bugs related to coding errors to give engineers a head start when handing it off to them.
  • Diagnosed and fixed coding errors on my own.
  • Diagnosed and fixed bugs related to data I was unfamiliar with, getting more familiar with our systems in the process.

Methodology and Challenges

My work on New World has been an invaluable experince, being my first professional experience and first time working with such a large team.

Throughout my work I’ve encountered a plethora of challenges, such as learning entirely new processes, learning to work in a large scale team, and finding the right work/life balance for me. My team and particularly my mentor Joel Clift have been invaluable for tackling these challenges.