My Time At Sanzaru Games

I joined Sanzaru Games towards the end of 2024. During that time I worked on two unannounced AAA VR titles as a Senior Level Designer.

The first title was an Open World Action RPG inspired by various mythologies from around the world. During the early part of this game's development, I was assigned two open world maps to design at a high level. The focus was to map out and pitch the main quests, showcase the likely flow through the open world, balance the density of side quests and other side activities.

After completing those two maps and getting them approved, I moved on to beginning to detail a third separate map, with a focus on beginning to blockout the level. My first steps to do this was to take the 2D map, scale it in Unreal Engine 5, and start to layout large chunks of geo representing the main points of interest. I also used a terrain tool to capture the shape of the island and plan out the various height changes and general topography. Throughout this early work, I'd double check my sightline throughout the level, sometimes blocking some from view, while making sure others were more visible. One element I was excited about with this map was that narratively there was a divide between the humans and the monsters on the island, so I sloped the entire island so that the humans were near the shore and the monsters were up in the mountains and in the treelines. This would give a sense to the Player to know where they were heading at all times. 

By the time I came back from paternity leave after working for roughly 3 months, the project was cancelled internally within Meta.

(I unfortunately have no video or images of this work...)

Full Gameplay footage of the Sanzaru Game Jam

For me, this was a short project, but pretty fun to work on. As I returned from paternity leave, Sanzaru was 1 week into their 2 week Game Jam. I joined with an engineer who was making an awesome gesture based elemental bending system. I took that system and created a mini game to showcase the incredible work he was doing.

What I did (all in Unreal Engine 5 & Blueprints):

• Created a flexible Arena system that could:
  • Auto Start, Continue, and Complete the mini game
  • Simple Scoring System
  • Spawn and respawn animated targets
  • Determine what abilities the Player should have enabled or unlocked
  • Play waves through a Level Sequence
• Created Hittable base target with children targets and flexible variables to create the variants
• Used art assets to quickly set dress the arenas

Work truly began on this second project right around February or March 2025. We were granted the license to one of the most popular IPs in the world that had a massive gaming fanbase, and we were incredibly excited to be able to build within that universe. With an ambitious narrative, large number of levels to make, significant number of gameplay systems to rebuild from scratch, and not much time, the studio sprung into action. And we crushed it.

My first assignment during the First Playable stage of this Open World Action game was to design the level/room that would showcase off the stealth mechanics of the game. We wanted to push the boundaries on size of the room and number of enemies within that space. I worked closely with the art team, going back and forth on how to make the space look better, but most importantly for me, play better. In addition to this, I was in close contact with the Stealth Combat Designer, and together we balanced the enemies in the location to improve their playablity in this space. By the end of the project, and a lot of iteration, it achieved a near shippable quality within 7 months.

With the First Playable completed, and the studio plowing through its own ambitious goals, I began to work with narrative, art, and directors on my second level. We now had a better idea of what narratively needed to happen in this space, so I planned out and pitched the overarching gameplay/room flow of the level. Narrative then wrote a script based upon that work, and I started building. Lots and lots of iterations later, between gameplay needs, director changes, and art goals, we were moving at break neck speed, building a high quality, narratively impactful sequence of gameplay.

However, before the work could be completed, the studio was shut down.

(Due to NDAs, I am unable to showcase the work I did on this project. I am trying to figure out how or what I can showcase.)

Throughout this time I also:

• Prototyped a number of simple gameplay objects early in development to unlock Level Designers to work faster
• Worked with an artist to establish metrics and simple meshes for Level Designers to have a more robust set of shapes to build levels with. Many of these were specific to the IP. I would later continue to add more shapes through the use of Blender.
• Worked with the interactables team to define object size metrics, confirm usability, suggest edits for Level Designer needs to work with these objects and systems, and also build simple blockout meshes with good standards so art teams would have a standard to start from.
• Maintained multiple documentation pages detailing various tools and workflows the Level Design team were using.
• Provided feedback on other Level Designers levels, as well as feedback on multiple gameplay systems.

Jonathan Gregoire - Game Design
JonathanAGregoire@gmail.com

January 2026

Sanzaru Games was shut down by Meta due to a strategy shift. The cancelled project(s) were incredibly impressive and would have raised the standards for AAA VR games.
 

September 2024

Began working with Sanzaru Games with Meta on two AAA VR titles as a Senior Level Designer.
 

August 2024

Ready At Dawn was closed. During my time I worked on 4 separate projects with multiple responsibilities from protyping, level designing, and bringing scenes to shippable quality.

October 2021

Helped ship Lone Echo 2 as a System Designer.

July 2020

Started at Ready At Dawn as a Senior Level Designer on an unnanounced project.

July 2020

Started at Ready at Dawn as a Senior Level Designer on an unnanounced project.

March 2020

Last days at Naughty Dog working on The Last of Us Part II.

September 2019

Shipped the Last of Us Part II press demo level "Patrol".

May 2018

Started working at Naughty Dog as a Contract Single Player Level Layout Designer on The Last of Us Part II. 

December 2017

I started doing contract work for a start-up company called MyPad3D that focuses on VR experiences for corporate products.

More interestingly, I have begun to prototype my own card game on the side and have been volunteering with Sunbreak Games on an unannounced product.

July 2017

With a heavy heart, E-Line Media has shut down the Seattle studio, laying off everyone including myself. I am currently looking for new opportunities.

November 2016

Began working at E-Line Media again as a Level Designer on an unannounced and untitled game.

October 2016

Updating my website to reflect the work I did on the Forest Song with Colabee Studios. Unfortunately due to funding issues, I am no longer with them, so I am currently looking for new opportunities.

December 2015

Lots of new stuff since I last updated. Added in a short comic I made called Old Debts. Also have put up information about my role(s) on Never Alone and Never Alone: FoxTales.

January 2015

Promoted to Lead Designer on Never Alone: FoxTales at E-Line Media.

Summer 2014

Graduated Digipen as a BAGD and with a Cum Laude. Started working at E-Line Media as a Level Designer.

March 2014

Uploaded a new Beta build of Chained. Also just put up the old builds of the game for anyone interested in our very quick process and progress.

January 2014

I recently wrote a paper that was published for the IGDA about the benefit of Paper Prototyping. You can read it at this following link: http://newsletter.igda.org/2013/11/30/student-beat-faceoff-the-influences-of-board-games-on-video-games/#!