A Day in the Life of a Narrative Designer

Hello there. I’m Phil, you may remember me from such Dev posts as Narrative Arcs and Telling Soldier Stories. 

Today, I’m going to give you a glimpse into what a typical day looks like for a Narrative Designer here on Company of Heroes 3.

We work with multiple partners in Europe and our workdays only overlap for an hour or two, so my day often starts relatively early. Today, it’s an 8am meeting with our cultural experts to review the latest narrative content. Everything we do is reviewed to ensure we’re considering the cultural differences of players across the globe and not accidentally playing into cliches and stereotypes. We’ve been doing this for a while so there are only some minor tweaks and a couple of great suggestions. 

Then it’s time to squeeze in a review of a new Narrative Arc that’s ready to go into the game. This is an important one, and there are some notes but nothing that stops it being submitted so that other people can take a look. I give it the thumbs up and then grab something to eat. 

At 10am, we have our Campaign Stand Up. Everyone working on the campaign, including the narrative team, gets together to discuss what’s being worked on, any issues, and look at each other’s cats. It’s usually pretty quick, but it’s good to see everyone. 

Next up is a meeting with one of the designers to discuss the final mission - [REDACTED]. This is a mix of technical guidance on how to connect the mission to events on the campaign map and a creative discussion about what those events could be. Nothing too complicated although the start of the meeting was delayed by the designer’s cat. 

After a quick break it’s time for another meeting – the Weekly Narrative Sync. This is an open block of time for the narrative team to discuss pretty much anything. Today, one of the other designers is pitching some ideas for new Narrative Arcs. It comes down to two – 'Ice Cream' or 'Special Forces.' Ice Cream narrowly wins out for now, and that designer goes off to flesh out that idea ready for the next review tomorrow. 

That meeting inevitably overruns, but we managed to limit ourselves to just an extra five minutes. This week is Relic Speakers Week so while I eat my lunch (baked potato and beans), I watch a presentation on narrative content at GDC from one of the Age of Empires narrative designers. That leads to a lot of notes on things for me to follow up on and a couple of games to try. 

After lunch, it’s time for my last official meeting of the day. The Weekly Design Direction meeting is a place where the design leads discuss anything and everything relating to the game’s design. We review features, brainstorm ideas, and look at each other’s cats. I only have one thing to discuss – some updates on progress on our subcommander narrative – but there’s a lot going on and the hour flies by. 

With my meetings done, it’s time for some writing. I throw on some music (the soundtrack from The Batman) and get typing. Or more accurately, I stare out the window trying to think of the perfect line to capture the point Eleanor Valenti is trying to make. 

I’m currently working on dialogue for our Partisan subcommander, Valenti. Her first recording session is coming up next week, so I need to make sure we have enough dialogue written to fill our time. Luckily that’s not a problem – there’s plenty of dialogue in the game already. 

This writing usually spawns cool new design or narrative ideas for elsewhere in the game. At this point, we still have a little bit of room to weave some more narrative magic into the game so if an idea isn’t too complicated, we can usually slip it in. Otherwise, it gets filed away for future reference. 

Near the end of the day, I hop on a call to finalize plans for a recording session we have tomorrow. We’re working with someone in the UK so it’s another early start – 3am in fact. So, after prepping my notes for the session, I shut down my home office and commute to my lounge to watch some Moon Knight before setting my alarm and getting an early night. 

Really, there’s no such thing as a typical day in game development, but I hope this has given you a bit of insight into what life’s like for a Narrative Designer on Company of Heroes. If there are any other areas of game development you’d like us to dig into, let us know.