In this GDC 2018 talk, Respawn Entertainment's Christopher Dionne explains a rapid-prototyping technique he calls "action blocks," and how that technique helped Respawn quickly build levels in Titanfall 2's single-player mode.

Dionne describes the significant challenges faced by the design team, discussing how early development was based on comfortable techniques that led to familiar results, threatening to skew the game to an expected and uninspired place.

Eventually they found a rapid-prototyping technique they call "action blocks", which became central to their design process, and Dionne explains how the team used action blocks to conceive levels explore gameplay. 

It's an insightful talk that's worth watching, so developers shouldn't miss the opportunity to do so now that it's freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!

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