Falk Kairies - Cairo's Divide

Cairo's Divide - Battlefield 6

WORK IN PROGRESS

this page will be updated again soon

Introduction

In this project, I created a Battlefield 6 level set on the borders of Cairo's rich neighborhoods.

(this project was created for fun and personal growth, and is not associated with the game itself or the Battlefield Studios / DICE)

Project Details

Battlefield Portal Editor
Godot Engine
~44h hours so far (2025)
Level Design
Blockout

Level Details

Conquest Small
32 players
2 Quadbikes and 2 Tanks per Team
3 objectives

DESIGN

design - Goals

At the beginning of development, I outlined a few core goals for my level:

Create a map with distinct and recogniseable areas
The different areas should play and feel unique
Different playstyles and classes should be supported
Focus on the workflow and iterations of the map over the actual size (the map is designed for 32 players, not 64)
Experience inequality of real life (rich vs. poor) through environment and gameplay

Initial Approach

After deciding on the idea for the general theme of the map, I gathered references to support my vision.

Vision: The battle throughout Cairo has reached the borders of its rich neighborhoods. With the battlefield split into two distinct areas by a massive wall, NATO and Pax are fighting for control over key strategic areas with armored ground vehicles.

design - Layout

With the map being split into 2 parts by a wall, the goal was to make each area and objective play and feel unique. The objectives are layed out in a frontline layout between the two team spawns.

The two map halves created are designed to support different playstyles and loadouts. The open, rich neighborhood up top acts as a contrast to the more CQB-focussed, poor neighborhood below.

Time to Flags

To make sure the map is balanced, each team takes roughly the same amount of time to reach each objective.

The times measured here are by foot from the edge of the team HQ's in seconds.

a bit more info about this can be found at design - Team HQ's

Player experience / fantasy

Experience the inequality of real life in gameplay and environment.

The upper part of the map (rich neighborhood) is more open. Wide streets, open spaces, and long-range encounters are great for Snipers. Here, big statements in architecture, an overall clean look, lots of colors in the environment, and more freedom to choose your path allow for more calm, grounded combat. Supports can help their team with smokes or lay down fire with their LMG on enemies. Vehicles thrive here, allowing them to engage openly in combat with less fear of being ambushed in the open.

The lower part of the map (poor neighborhood) is focused on CQB combat. Tight corners, claustrophobic feeling, and constricting gameplay spaces allow for messy combat with tight alleyways and verticality, fostering chaos.

Assaults and Engineers thrive here; ambush vehicles with your RPG or use your ladder to climb roofs. Creative use of your abilities results in gameplay advantages and wild combat situations.

Combat distances

To better design the overall size and distinct areas of the map, I also planned for a variety of combat ranges I would want the player to encounter.

Short Range: 0 - 20/25 meters | Medium Range: 20 - 40/45 meters | Long Range: >40 meters

These distances allowed me to better plan for combat encounters.

Objective placement

The flags on Cairo's Divide are placed as a frontline between the objectives.

Because of this, the Team HQ's are also valid spawnpoints later on in the match, still useful to reach any objective quickly.

In contrary to a map like Caspian Border, this layout also incorporates the wall / separation within the map more into the actual level and gameplay as the objectives are placed alongside it.

design - Navigation and Orientation

Vehicle Paths and Street Layout

With each team having two quad bikes and two tanks, vehicles play a crucial role in attacking and defending the objectives.

To accurately display the streets of Cairo, I spent some time analysing the street layout through Google Maps and Street View.

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The flow of streets in rich and poor neighborhoods is quite different:

Rich Neighborhood:

Lots of space
Plants in between houses and roads
Often rounded streets and roundabouts, has flow

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Poor Neighborhood:

Generally roughly follow some form of grid
Many buildings cramped in-between roads
Tight Space, Hard Corners

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POI's

To improve orientation throughout the level, there are also certain POI's to help the player:

The Wall splitting the map into rich vs. poor
The Hotel in the Spawn of Team 1
The Crane in the construction site on objective C
The environment itself (rich vs. poor)

design - Objectives

Objective A - Rooftops

Keywords: tight, constricting, ambush, chaos, verticality
Infantry Combat only
Limited natural entrances through chokepoints

The objective itself is encapsulated by buildings allowing only infantry to enter.

The top floor has 2 main entries, but allows for Assaults to use their ladder to climb up in unpredictable spots.

The bottom floor has 4 entries for quicker access to the objective but the slight disadvantage of being on the bottom floor. Cover through the pillars and sandbags is present to create interesting combat situations against enemies in the top floor, across the negative space in the middle, or along the hallways.

Objective B - Checkpoint

Keywords: funnel, chokepoint, constricting
Infantry and Vehicle Combat
For vehicles only entry through chokepoints

The objective itself is a checkpoint leading from the poor into the rich neighborhood.

It has 2 main entries for vehicles through both ends of the chokepoint.

Through holes in the wall, infantry soldiers are also able to push into the objective from more angles.

Players can also climb the wall, allowing them to have the high ground in this objective. This comes with the disadvantage of being highly exposed, however.

Objective C - Construction Site

Keywords: vehicle friendly, open, bigger architecture statements
Infantry and Vehicle Combat
Entry from all directions
Exit only through ramps

The objective itself is a construction site that is lowered into the ground.

Soldiers and vehicles can enter from everywhere by just jumping/driving down the small, steep slope. Exiting is only possible through the ramps or building block in the middle, however.

Allowing attacks from all sides for infantry and vehicles, the players inside the objective need to set up their defense accordingly.

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Team HQ's

design - Team HQ's

Team 1 Spawn

Located behind a hotel in the top half of the map, Team 1 has the same time to the objectives A and B as Team 2.

Only objective C is slightly further away by foot, but through clearer and more open roads more easily accessible by vehicle compared to Team 2.

The spawn itself has two main exits for vehicles and many small paths that can be taken by infantry.

Team 2 Spawn

Located within the streets of the poor neighborhood, Team 2's spawn also has two main exits for vehicles while infantry can take routes in between the buildings.

Although objective C is slightly closer to this spawn, it is more time consuming to reach by vehicle.

ITERATIONS

iterations - Process

At the start of development, I originally started gathering ideas for different settings I found interesting, these were the main 3 that stuck with me:

1. Offshore Oil Rig

The map here would consist of 2 big oil rigs in the sea with a big oil tanker swimming besides them.

The gameplay would here be focussed around air and sea combat, allowing the players to fly helicopers and drive boats.

The objectives here would be spread throughout the oil rigs and the boat.

Each Team HQ would be in an aircraft carrier.

2. Windfarm

Set in a windfarm in a mountainside, this map would use wind turbines as POIs and gameplay elements.

Although land vehicles would be present, the focus would be on air vehicles that would have the extra challenge of navigating through the spinning wind turbines while fighting each other and ground forces.

3. Rich vs. Poor

The idea that I chose in the end, was an interesting setting as a big separation in the middle of the space would allow for interesting and varying gameplay on each side of the wall.

The difference between rich and poor areas is noticeable throughout the environment and gameplay.

I still think that all of these ideas have potential and I would love to see them in a Battlefield game at some point.

There were a few things that I considered when thinking of and choosing ideas:

Singleplayer / Story mode potential. As Battlefield maps, that launch with the game, are often also featured in the singleplayer campaign, I wanted to choose a location that could also be used in a story mission there.
As the game was not released yet and it was not yet known what Battlefield Portal was capable of, I ended up choosing a location based on Cairo as it was already represented in game and I figured that those assets would most likely be available for use.
Relevance of the location to modern conflicts. Rich vs. Poor and the inequality through capitalism stuck with me as it is a topic driving lots of modern conflicts.

After finding the idea I wanted to create, I started by blocking out layout ideas in the Unreal Engine as BF6 had not released yet.

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When Battlefield 6 launched, I was then able to get a better reference for scale, now being able to measure stuff in Godot.

Metrics like street width, overall map size, or combat distances were important to figure out before starting to go into more detailed blockouting.

Planning work

To estimate efforts properly, I started creating a to-do list of all things I needed to do or figure out in order to create a blockout version that I could test.

» How do I make a real life location fit the game?

» What should the player experience / fantasy be in the level?

» What combat ranges or scenarios do I want?

» What gamemodes should this be designed for?

» What distances / times do I want between flags and spawns?

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iterations - Questions I wanted to answer throughout development

Iterations & Feedback

Thanks a lot to all the people that provided feedback so far.

PROJECTS

Cairo's Divide - Battlefield 6

WORK IN PROGRESS

this page will be updated again soon

© 2026 by Falk Kairies