Following up from the Greymoor expansion released earlier this year, which presented a new campaign and storyline to playthrough, the team at Zenimax are now ready to unleash the Stonethorn DLC Dungeon Pack for The Elder Scrolls Online.

Which introduces a couple of brand-new locations, stories, and PvE challenges for players in the form of the Castle Thorn and Stone Garden dungeons. We sit down with The Elder Scrolls Online’s Lead Encounter Designer to talk about the evolution of dungeon design.

“I have one designer who is all about taking story elements to inform boss fights,” Mike Finnigan, Lead Encounter Designer on The Elder Scrolls Online tells me. We’re discussing what goes into designing boss encounters, those long protracted and involved combat scenarios found across the game’s many dungeons. “They’ll ask why is this boss here? What is their motivation?” he continues, noting that some team members go full method – channelling their inner Al Pacino or Daniel Day Lewis.

“Another designer might take inspiration from other games they’re playing and ask themselves how they might incorporate some of that into The Elder Scrolls Online,” Mike adds. “It's different by designer, and whatever designer we have on a boss fight dictates the approach. Really, I just let them run with whatever method works best for them, but at every stage in the process we're always bringing it back to theme.”

Our Full The Elder Scrolls Online Stonethorn Interview