Zero Dark Thirty is a Sony film that chronicles one of the greatest and most secretive manhunts in history: the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. In our partnership with Zero Dark Thirty and Sony we’re bringing you two Medal of Honor Warfighter multiplayer maps based on the areas in Pakistan where Bin Laden was hunted.

You’ve probably already heard about Chitral and Darra in the Single Player missions as you were looking for the Cleric in Chitral and chasing targets through the back alleys of Darra. Now we’re opening up these areas and providing more opportunity to explore them in a multiplayer setting. When deciding on these locales we really wanted to find areas that were both visually interesting, and fit within the fiction of the Medal of Honor Warfighter Universe.

The Darra Gun Market map contains a scenic river crossing with high intensity combat over the ravine, the gunsmith pit which is right along the docks, and the abandoned estate that provides an overwatch for the entire middle section of the map. Players of each class will find areas that support their play style — there are great sniper positions, as well as several sneaky routes located around each of the objectives.

Chitral Compound is based loosely on the area you scoured for the Cleric in single player. It features a small town center checkpoint with roof to roof combat, a large dried up river valley which provides many great sniping opportunities, and the strongly fortified compound which contains several locations perfect for bipod play in Homerun Mode.

When creating these levels, the first thing we did was look for reference images for the locations. This helped us decide on compelling objectives for the Combat Mission game mode, which is very story driven. Once we tackled that, the next step was sitting down with the artists and flushing out our vision for the actual play space by creating a broad layout for them to base the terrain on.

When you play these maps, you’ll see that our artists did an amazing job of capturing the detail of this region. As a designer it feels great to be able to create something that captures the mood of an area and transport the player to a different region of the world he’d never get to experience otherwise.

From there, we lay out each of the additional game modes, specifically Homerun Mode, which has to conform to specific standards we set at the beginning of the project to achieve the right gameplay. For all of the game modes it’s important that the time before hitting combat isn’t too quick, and when the player is in combat, it’s presented in a way that’s easy to read and understand (meaning enemies are in areas you’d expect them to be.) These are all responsibilities of the level designer.

After all of the game modes and basic level blocking have been put in place, each level underwent a series of iterations with extended play testing to nail down the right look and feel for the combat spaces. Even with the earliest of playtests it was easy to see if the levels were hitting on the ideas we set out for them in the initial design.

Our two main goals in making these maps were to create environments that would let us push for longer range combat, and more verticality than some of our shipped maps. We listened to what a lot of the fans were saying, and we’ve delivered a wider range of gameplay opportunities for long-range classes. In both of these maps you’ll find many areas specifically designed for snipers to cover their teammates going in to plant a bomb, as well as multi-tiered buildings for players who like to access high ground while on defense.

We hope you’re as excited as we are to play these maps when they go live! The map pack is free for Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition holders, and $9.99 otherwise.

I’ll be available this afternoon from 1:00pm to 3:00pm Pacific Time on our Facebook page to answer any questions you have, please stop by!