Mass Effect - 3rd Person Shooter

Elizabeth O'Hara
Oct 20, 2023
2 min read

Updated: Jun 16, 2024

Mass Effect is a 3D school project I created in Unreal Engine 5.1. The project is inspired by the Mass Effect series, which is a personal favorite of mine. I wanted to challenge myself with this project and I aimed to create a third-person shooter from scratch, focusing on the shooting mechanics, visual effects, sounds, and pickups.

Level and Story Overview: Set during the third game, Shepard receives a mission to locate a shipment of medi-gel while on the citadel. This would take place after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel. The level begins with Shepard arriving at a warehouse after following a series of clues. They'll fight their way into the warehouse and search for the shipment. After defeating the mercenary leader, Shepard can find the missing medi-gel behind a locked door. Collecting the cases of medi-gel will end the level and trigger the ending cinematic.

Script Overview:

The player can holster/un-holster their weapon, shoot, crouch, sprint, and collect pick-ups to affect their health, shield, and ammo count. The player can also several UI elements; ammo count, stamina, shields, health, a crosshair, and an instructional tutorial tab that can be toggled on and off. The player takes damage through Event AnyDamage in conjunction with two custom blueprint components. To heal or gain shields, the player can pick up the health pick-up and shield pick-up, which use the same custom blueprint components. As the player is hit by enemy fire, their shields will deplete first and then their health.

Player takes damage:

Health and Shield Components:

Pick-Ups: Each pick-up has a bouncing effect and code to effect their corresponding variable.

Shooting Mechanics: As the player shoots the gun, it fires in a 3-round burst, spawning the bullet and producing a muzzle flash. The bullet spawns from the muzzle of the gun and moves toward the center of the screen where the crosshair UI is seen. The player can aim gun and it can be reloaded as long as the player has ammo.

Enemies:

The enemies (red) are scripted to patrol until they detect the player, after which they turn to face the player and begin to shoot. They have several key features; a health bar located above them, two hit zones (sphere collision around the head and capsule collision on the body), and a UI to display the damage they've taken by the player.

Enemies will take different damage amounts depending on which collision was hit. The sphere collision does 100 points of damage and kills the enemy. The capsule collision does 25 points of damage and needs to be hit four times to kill the enemy.

The boss (yellow) has the same features as the base enemy. The main difference is the boss takes less damage from the player to simulate a tougher enemy. The sphere collision causes 50 points of damage and the capsule collision causes 15 points of damage. The boss will also spawn a Key upon their death. The player will collect the key and use it to unlock the door to the medi-gel and finish the mission.