Summary
Dungeon design has been an important design practice in games for a long time, offering players the chance to traverse an area filled with enemies, treasure, side quests and maybe a hefty reward for defeating a boss at the end. Taking influence from the same concept inDungeons and Dragons, dungeons in certain video games have become a mainstay, as these vaunted quests into danger are an easy way to test the player.
Expanding beyond the scope of traditional RPGs,open-world games havealso become a haven for great dungeon design. Whether it’s the meticulously detailed dungeons one might find in Bethesda and FromSoftware games, or the clever design principals of Nintendo, the open-world genre has cultivated a unique grip on the concept. They can be hidden within the world, or sometimes made so convincingly a part of the geography, it makes the whole game feel like a connected whole in some masterful ways.
For its next iteration ofThe Elder Scrolls, Bethesda started development immediately after finishingMorrowind, targeting next-generation home consoles and PCs, specifically the Xbox 360. In doing so, they created a massive open-world, one that is still impressive to this day, and features some absolutely outstanding dungeons peppered across its lands.
Taking place in the Tamriel province of Cyrodill,Oblivionhas some of thebest dungeons in the franchise. Spread across Cyrodill, players will find dungeons of varying degrees of complexity, with some of them featuring multiple levels and secondary routes. Inhabited by scores of goblins, bandits, necromancers and vampires, the dungeons ofOblivionare a joy to explore and feature Bethesda’s trademark handcrafted feel.
As they tend to do, Blizzard took their time withDiablo 4, launching it over a decade after the third entry. And withDiablo 4, while tapping into the technological leap that consoles and PCs have made over the years, Blizzard opted to makeDiablo 4an open-world experience. It was a bold decision, but one that paid off, asDiablo 4was able to establish itself as one of the franchise’s most engaging entries.
The dungeons inDiablo 4are built largely around Aspects, which can enhance the Codex of Power and imprint more powerful abilities on items. They are beautifully crafted, featuringa range of enemiesand different gameplay systems. Some of them are puzzle based, while others focus more on the side of combat and action. There are over 100 dungeons, and conquering them all to find the rarest Legendary Aspects is one ofDiablo 4’sgreatest accomplishments.
After criticism was leveled at theFinal Fantasy 13trilogy for its linear, restrictive design, Square opted to go for broke with the next mainline game and crafteda huge, sprawling worldfor their new adventure to take place in. The world of Eos is outrageously large, a world map that still feels daunting even today, and one filled with a collection of outstanding dungeons to explore and conquer.
Across its enormous landscape, Eos is home to many dungeons and caverns, all of them feeling like a monumental effort to complete. Featuring a great sense of innate scale and maze-like design, the dungeons inFinal Fantasy 15often offer terrific rewards, including some powerful weapons and items. They also have some fantastic boss fights at the end, as well, keeping theFinal Fantasytradition of optional superbosses alive and well.
Before Bethesda bought the rights toFallout, a third game was in development at Interplay and Black Isle Studios, where it went under the nameVan Buren. After the rights were sold to Bethesda, they incorporated elements ofVan BurenintoFallout: New Vegas, and crafted the franchise’s most interesting and compelling dungeons to date.
LikeFallout 3before it,New Vegas’dungeons are a collection of vaults, underground dwellings and subway stations that are packed into a tight, dense and large open-world. The vaults are a joy to explore, with frightening encounters with ghouls and super mutants, while some of the underground caves are crawling with absolutely terrifying amounts of Deathclaws.
It’s safe to say that multiple re-releases and ports later,The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimwas one of the greatest adventures of the 2010s and became a worldwide phenomenon in the process. And withinSkyrim’slarge, unfathomably dense world, one can find some of Bethesda’s most intriguing and compelling dungeons in their entire history.
As the land ofSkyrimis one of the largest game worlds in history, dungeons are one of its most frequent locations. These range from open-air bandit camps, where eliminating a group of ruffians will grant a reward, to full-blown, multi-level caves and caverns. The rooms are sometimes incredible in their scale, and thedifferent methods of combatallow for unique approaches to each one. Using stealth and a bow to pick off enemies in the darkness is just as thrilling as tackling them with a sword, as the longevity of this outstanding RPG is measured not just by its mechanics, but by the stupendous dungeon design.
By the timeSkyward Swordwas released in 2011, Nintendo was already playing around with theZeldaformula established inOcarina of Time. With the next iteration, launching alongside the Switch in 2017, Nintendo took the franchise in an even bolder direction by making itan open-world experience, a first for the series. And if there’s one thing that theZeldafranchise knows about, it’s dungeons.
WithThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo crafted an open-world vision of Hyrule that felt very familiar, but its scope was far bigger than any previous game. The dungeons were given the same treatment, as Breath of the Wild offered two different versions of the classic video game dungeon. Over 100 shrines offer unique challenges, enemy encounters and puzzles, mainly built around some sort of mechanic, while the large-scale Divine Beasts feature more traditionalZelda-style dungeons. They are of immensely high-quality, featuring Nintendo’s patented mastery of game design, puzzle structure and boss encounters.
After taking the world by storm withDemon’s Soulsin 2009, FromSoftware honed and perfected what is now known as the Soulslike genre. ThroughDark Souls,BloodborneandSekiro, FromSoft perfected an open-level design that felt almost like a 3D Metroidvania. But with 2022’sElden Ring, FromSoft decided to see what would happen if they transplanted their inventive level design and combat systems into an open-world setting, a gambit that paid off in spades.
Thanks to their magnificent attention to detail, FromSoft was a perfect fit for the open-world genre, as they used their remarkable talents to create dungeons that felt intimately and honestly connected to its world. The dungeons feel like they are organicallypart of The Lands Between, situated neatly in well-hidden alcoves or almost built directly into the geometry of the land in ways that are still impressive two years later.
