Sea of Remnants
As Senior Game Designer
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Sea of Remnants is a free-to-play ocean adventure RPG developed by Joker Studio, NetEase. Players take on the role of a puppet-like sailor who has lost their memories and must explore a vast and mysterious ocean in search of answers. Along the journey, players recruit companions, assemble a fleet, and influence the pirate city of Orbtopia through their decisions.
The game features open-sea exploration, character-driven storylines, and city-building elements. Player choices affect the world and its inhabitants, with branching outcomes and evolving relationships that can change the state of the city over time.
Open World Ecosystem & AI Design
Architected the comprehensive open-world NPC ecosystem and crowd behavior systems; successfully leveraged the "Meta AI" design framework (derived from the Assassin’s Creed franchise) to orchestrate a high-density player hub featuring 500+ multi-functional NPCs with distinct behavioral profiles, alongside a sprawling oceanic world populated by over 2,000 systemic NPCs.
Performance Optimization
Spearheaded cross-platform performance optimization as the Feature PO; architected a multi-tiered scalability strategy tailored for PC, PS5, and Mobile. Collaborated with the engineering team to implement advanced systems including View Frustum Culling, World Partitioning (Chunk Loading), Asset Streaming Prioritization, and Dynamic LODs. Successfully achieved high-density AI simulations with 150 active NPCs on PC, 120 on PS5, and 80 on Mobile on-screen simultaneously. Passed final pre-launch performance audits with optimization benchmarks rivaling industry-leading titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and Where Winds Meet.
Animation & Locomotion System Overhaul
Prior to my involvement, NPC animations were plagued by significant rigidity, a lack of transitional states, and jarring issues such as foot skating and unnatural root motion during turns, all while being hindered by a chaotic asset management system. As the Feature Owner for NPC visual quality, I leveraged my prior expertise with Unreal Engine and Ubisoft’s Anvil engine to collaborate with the Technical Art and Engineering teams in porting and implementing Motion Matching, Advanced Locomotion Systems (ALS), Blendspaces, and Pose Matching into our proprietary engine. This initiative not only resolved critical gameplay feel issues but also allowed me to drive the standardization of animation libraries and naming conventions, establishing a streamlined and highly efficient asset management pipeline for the project’s long-term scalability.
Combat Design
As the Combat Feature Owner, I spearheaded the elevation of NPC presentation across the entire combat lifecycle, specifically optimizing pursuit mechanics, engagement/disengagement transitions, and hit reactions. By architecting a comprehensive reactive behavior matrix inspired by the Assassin’s Creed 'ReactionTree' framework, I empowered NPCs with more nuanced and intuitive responses during both idle and combat phases, significantly enhancing player immersion and behavioral believability.
