Andrew Weldon

Starhawk's second mission takes place in orbit over the rift mining world of Dust, as our protagonist Emmett Graves and his gear man Sidney Cutter scout the area for clues to the origin of the Outcast activity threatening Emmett's former home of White Sands.

Where Starhawk's opening mission, "Homecoming," focuses on introducing players to the game's Build & Battle mechanic, "The Freightway" serves as a dedicated flight tutorial. The beginning of the mission focuses on flight controls and familiarity, while the back half ramps in increasingly difficult flight combat to acclimate players to dogfighting and missile evasion.

I provided the original design for this mission, as well as the first layout and scripting passes. As my work load on other missions as well as the multiplayer levels increased, fellow designer Matthew Gallant stepped in to assist, and took the mission the rest of the way.

"Harvest Season" immediately follows the events of "The Freightway." After seeing heavy Outcast activity near Rifter shipping lanes, Emmett and Cutter receive a distress call from the nearby beacon station that serves as a navigation waypoint for the massive interstellar "tugs" that transport supplies between Rifter systems. The bold Outcast attack serves as the first reveal of Emmett's long-lost brother Logan, now the leader of the Outcast Warbands in the Outer Spur.

After a pair of tutorial levels, "Harvest Season" brings it all together to highlight Starhawk's signature multi-modal gameplay. The mission opens with a Hawk dogfight around the beacon station, then seamlessly jumps to ground combat as players land and hold the station's hangar bay against incoming waves of Outcast warriors in a Build & Battle defense.

Gameplay then transitions into a more traditional shooter progression, with Emmett entering the station airlock and proceeding to the main control room to re-activate the station's automated defense turrets. Emmett heads back out to the station's back platform, battling further waves of Outcast against the backdrop of the activated turrets shredding through additional Outcast Hawks. In another Build & Battle defense, Emmett drops an Extractor that re-activates the station's beacon, allowing the Union Tug Albatross to calibrate its jump drive and jump to this location.

The Albatross' arrival brings with it another wave of Outcast raiders in Hawks. Emmett takes to the sky again, this time with allies (if they survived this far) and fully operational station defenses assisting in a frantic dogfight around the tug.

I was responsible for this mission's design and progression, layout, and initial scripting and combat passes. Like with The Freightway, Matthew Gallant came on board and took this mission's scripting and combat encounters to final quality while I focused on Starhawk's multiplayer levels.

While it is only referred to as the "beacon station" in dialogue, the station in this mission is named "Eclipse Station" in reference to my first Natural Selection level, Eclipse.