When Shadows of the Hist launches in August, it’s bringing with it two brand new massive 4-player dungeons into Elder Scrolls Online. Today we’ve got an exclusive developer journal from the Dungeon Team at Zenimax detailing one of those new locales: The Ruins of Mazzatun.
What is the story behind the Ruins?
The Su-Zahleel, a peaceful tribe of Argonians has been abducted by the mad Tree-Minder Na-Kesh and her brood of Argonians the Xit-Xaht. The Su-Zahleel are forced into slave labor, their task: to rebuild the once great and puzzling mad Hist enclave Mazzatun. Heem-Jas, a young fisherman of the Su-Zahleel, was the only member that was not abducted by Na-Kesh. He has tracked down his tribe but he alone cannot save them. The player must assist Heem-Jas in rescuing his tribe. Players will traverse the twisted and ruined exterior and interiors of Mazzatun. They will fight through mad Argonians, deadly creatures, and ultimately kill Tree-Minder Na-Kesh. Once Na-Kesh is dead, they cleanse the Hist with the help of the Tribal Elders.
As a teaser, we’d like to highlight some of the bosses you’ll find within the walls of Mazzatun. They’re unlike anything we’ve created for Tamriel before, and we’re quite proud of each one.
)
The Mighty Chudan
Early in development we identified the Haj Mota as something we wanted to make a boss out of. Most of the time, we try not to venture too far from a monster’s normal behaviors if it has them when we are doing a boss version. We usually just augment them. The Haj Mota had a charge underground mechanic so, we took a look at how we could use that to make the fight engaging for four players. Adding in the shielding Argonians was born of that. Special attention was paid to the intro as well so that players, if they are paying attention, can see this mechanic before they are in the thick of the fight.
Xal-Nur the Slaver
One of the things we really try to foster with the boss encounters is player movement. We do this in various ways and in this fight, Swamp Spice was born. You basically have a player in the group pick up the swamp spice and try and get it to the cleansing geyser as that player is progressively snared. That person can eventually shake it off to give another person a try. The inherent danger of a brand spanking new mechanic is communication and this was no different. Throughout the development and testing process, it was something we were very cognizant of and out boss designer came up with the idea of using some hallways to preview this mechanic. We think it worked well so that as players get here, it won’t be the first time they see this in action.
)
The final boss of Mazzatun, Tree Minder Na-Kesh, also introduces some unique mechanics… but we’ll let you figure those out for yourself on the live server when Shadows of the Hist launches on August 1st for PC, and later in the month for XB1 and PS4.
Thanks for reading!
