Design Philosophy and Goals:

My main goal with Apogee was to focus on building a solid One-Flag experience, the map's core design is around that asymmetric mode.  Another design element I kept in mind while designing the map was to keep the vehicle sandbox and player sandbox constantly interacting.  The map makes it so that players have to interact with the vehicles and vice versa. This allows for very chaotic gameplay which stays fast-paced and allows vehicles to feel impactful.  This was very important to me as most Infinite BTB maps do not have this and it's started to become stale in my opinion because of it.  I wanted both sides of the map to be viable "push" locations, with most of the combat being decided by which side your team is pushing.  Are you pushing the right side of the base? Well, you'll have more cover but more than likely a longer travel time, while the left side is more open to vehicles and sightlines allowing for a different experience on that side.

Interactable Elements:

Yes! Interactable Elements! Most One-Flag/One-Bomb maps in Halo's history have them, whether it be a door or a map element that kills players the maps with them are typically more memorable and better because of them.  With that being said I added a door that opens to the base that players can directly interact and open.  This door has a glowing green light on the button the player must interact with that makes it stand out during gameplay.

Line of Sight Control:

Lines of sight on Apogee are generally more open with cover-to-cover gameplay being a focal point of the experience.  Most of the map has vegetation or rolling hills players can also play around for a more close-quarters combat BTB experience.

Art Direction:

Here I was focused on making the map feel alien but also familiar.  Most places on Earth can be quite stale in facility environments so I wanted the world around the map to feel a lot more expansive and cool, which is where the familiar yet different approach came from with the surrounding environment.  I took a lot of inspiration from Aliens vs Predator 2010 (game) and some films within the genre of sci-fi horror to get a feel that is both unique yet very sci-fi.  Darkness played a huge role in this too as it sets the mood under the giant moon on the map that illuminates the map.  I got inspired for the moon not only as a cool memorable art piece for the map but also from old movies as a kid I watched where the moon was a huge super-moon, just looked so cool so I continued with that.

Lighting:

Lighting was mainly dark and moody with the Super-Moon being the main defining lighting for the exterior spaces.  This helped pull the theme of alien planet Human Lava Factory into where players would expect it to be.