Welcome back to our behind-the-scenes dev series! This time round we’re sitting down with Senior Environment Artist Tomo to talk about how the world of ZERO Sievert 2 is coming together.

What Does a Senior Environment Artist Actually Do?

Tomo's job is pretty simple on the surface: “make everything pretty”. But there’s a lot more to it than that. He takes functional grey-box layouts from the level designers and turns them into believable, lived-in locations that actually make sense in the Zone and the greater world of ZERO Sievert.

The tricky part is balancing beauty with gameplay. Everything has to respect the level design. No shooting through walls (unless intended), proper blockers, correct enemy spawn locations and clear paths for players. It’s a constant back-and-forth to make sure art and design work together perfectly.

Checking Out the Tiles

Here we look at one of the smaller Forest tiles that will form part of the bandit camps. Tomo adds details to make it feel lived-in and interesting to both explore and fight through. There are also lootable containers scattered around so players always have something worth fighting over and hauling back to base.

Because ZERO Sievert 2 uses a procedural tile-based system (just like ZERO Sievert 1), the team builds smaller hand-crafted pieces that the game then stitches together algorithmically. This gives players a fresh map every raid while letting the artists focus on high-quality work.

Familiar Faces & New Looks

Tomo also gave us a look at a few other environments he's been working on:

Igor’s House – The home of a beloved character from ZERO Sievert 1. Tomo is having fun reinterpreting it in the new art style while keeping that classic feel (water tower, logs and all). It still feels instantly recognizable, but refreshed.

The Boar Patch – That muddy, rock-filled area players know well. The shape and silhouette make it very readable from a distance so you instantly know where (and what) you’re walking into.

Working with the Isometric Camera

One of the more interesting challenges is designing around our fixed isometric view. You might notice some of the trees looking a bit “wonky” and that’s intentional. The trees and other tall structures are angled and slightly flattened to give players the best visibility and readability. No major view obstructions, clean pathways and better performance for both players and AI.

Watch the Uncut Update Now

If you're more a watcher than a reader, then you can watch the latest deep dive on the official Underdog YouTube channel, linked below:

View game pageThat’s all for this one! There’s plenty more environment work still to show, so we’ll definitely be back with more soon.

If you’re enjoying the series, make sure to subscribe on our YouTube channel and wishlist ZERO Sievert 2 on Steam so you don’t miss future updates.