What makes a good dungeon

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

My most profound dungeon experience was (and still is) Ultima Underworld 1. The way this game tells its story not with cutscenes and obscenely long dialogues but by showing everything in the environment itself is unparalleled for me. Additionally the many, many ways to interact with encounters and things, the massive freedom in exploring, the secrets, the brillant map handling, where you can personalize your map with notes, the ingenious and unique puzzles (learning the language of the lizard men etc.)... And everything fits together, there is nothing out of place, the whole giant dungeon seems like a believable world and everything I see shows me how Cabirus' noble vision of a multicultural utopia became a hellhole of hate, distrust and desperation. I also very much like the way the game introduces new areas: It doesn't change its locations abruptly like UUW2 (I really abhor this game) but very organically and slowly, leading you step for step deeper and deeper into the dungeon. A masterpiece of design for me.

 

[felipepepe]

I now wonder which Morrowind dungeons (if any) you'd consider good.

And what about Skyrim (yeah, I know, most dungeons are linear slogs, but not all of them, especially if you consider dungeon complexes consisting of an indoor/outdoor hostile dungeon hub connecting multiple smaller locations, and even some of the smaller, more linear ones can offer some interesting gameplay variations).

I honestly don't remember Morrowind's dungeons that well... we have a 5-day holiday now in Japan, I was thinking of revisiting it. Any suggestion outside of the main quest ones?

Regarding Skyrim, I think the key to it is variation. There's not a single great gameplay mode in Skyrim, to be fun it has to be constantly switching modes and enviroments. I probably didn't even half of the game's dungeons, but I remember that Arkngthamz was really fun to explore. It's one of the rare TES dungeons where exploring feels really full, the dwarven machines give it an unique vibe and the puzzle was simple but fun.

Additional thought:
What about good computer non-RPG dungeons? It's not like cRPGs tend to do very good job giving player multiple verbs to use (and choose from) so they are not at actual advantage here, compared to other games.

Would, say, Azrael's Tear be a good dungeon?

It's an interesting question. In theory yes, but it depends too much on the execution and how's the adventure/RPG balance.

For example, take Zelda, which is usually considered a game with great dungeons. Very few RPGs have the "verbs" required to complete an Ocarina of Time dungeon, probably only immersive sims like Arx Fatalis, Ultima Underworld and Dark Messiah could do it. Would it be interesting to have like 30% of your dungeons be filled with Zelda-like puzzles? Yes. But if you do an entire Zelda dungeon in an RPG, I think you slip into making a shitty Zelda dungeon, not a great RPG dungeon.

It's not so easy to go "good thing + good thing = BETTER THING!". Just remember King's Quest 8, or Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure.... ugh.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Roguey]

Oblivion had good dungeons in its base campaign. Even VD said so.

As much as I like The Glow as an environment, I disagree with "constant pressure of radiation poisoning" (Rad-X takes care of this completely never felt rushed) or that the security robots are a "nightmare" (you can kill most of them while they're still deactivated by initiating combat).

Oh and as for the Ocean Hotel

making you feel helpless and powerless.

Uh, it's a bunch of silly jump "scares" that don't actually hurt you peppered with silly writing.

Oh my God, Ed covered in blood... coming to kill me... locked myself in the bathroom... he's gone crazy... he keeps shouting we'll be together forever and he'll never let me go... someone please hel...
(The writing trails off the end of the page.)

Maynard: It says, 'Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimethea: "He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of Aaaaarrrgh"'.
[pause]
Arthur: What?
Maynard: '"...The Castle of Aaaaarrrgh"'.
[pause]
Bedevere: Where is that?
Maynard: He must have died while carving it.
Lancelot: [incredulous] Oh, come on!
Maynard: Well that's what it says.
Arthur: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve 'Aaaaarrrgh'. He'd just say it!
Galahad: Perhaps he was dictating.

 

[JarlFrank]

Lastly, interestingly lighting and sound design can really make a difference even to the simplest of dungeons. A good example of this for me was Nehrim (the Oblivion mod) where while the dungeons were mostly simplistic linear affairs, somehow the great atmosphere made them so enjoyable and interesting that I felt compelled to visit all of them, even though most of them were optional. Another non-RPG example for a good "dungeony" atmosphere is the (warning, popamole alert!) optional puzzle levels in Rise of Tomb Raider, which are arguably the only redeeming part of the game. I wish, in fact, for a highly atmospheric dungeon exploration game with modern graphics, maybe Monomyth will fit into that niche. Legend of Grimrock was also great, although in retrospect the level design didn't come near to the ingenuity of EoB I (haven't played the second installment yet).

Nehrim had some excellent dungeons. I still remember some of them even though I played the mod years ago. There was one dungeon that had no lighting in it at all, it was pitch black. Enemies were undead with glowing eyes so you'd see them as two spots in the darkness. You HAD to use a torch or a light spell, else you couldn't see anything. It was completely dark. Great dungeon.

Then there was that one dungeon that reminded me of Moria from the LotR movies. Narrow hallways with exceedingly tall walls. Atmospheric as fuck.

The sequel, Enderal, also has some excellent dungeons.

Since you mention Tomb Raider, the original TR games were essentially action dungeon crawlers. My favorite levels are from the 1st and the 4th game. Tomb of Semerkhet and the Alexandria levels in TR4 are peak Tomb Raider.

 

[Thac0]

Distilling it down, I feel like those are the Seven Pillars of Dungeoneering

- A reason for the place to be there and for you to explore it (Lore)

- Something that makes this place special and differs from the usual gameplay (Gimmick)

- A proper challenge (Combat)

- A long lasting reward that is unique enough to remind you of the place (Loot)

- An adequate size that makes the place not too drawn out but also not dissapointingly short (Pacing)

- Some way to alternate the path you take when you tackle the place on different playthroughs (Choice)

- Something that makes you feel your progress through the dungeon. Thinking of does not open from this site Dark Souls doors here. (Map Design)

Arbitrarily limited to seven because of T.E. Lawrence. I feel like puzzles would fall into the gimmick place. A good dungeon obviously doesnt need all of those, but all memorable dungeons check many of these boxes.

 

[V_K]

Legend of Grimrock II Wizardry 7 conclusively demonstrated that a dungeon can include surface levels

Oh, FFS.

While I absolutely love Wiz7, most of its overworld is taken up by either towns or nondescript forests that just get you from dungeon to dungeon. LoG2 had a tighter design to its overworld, with more puzzles and more seamless transitions between the underground and above-ground areas.

It's clearly designed following tabletop RPG design principles, but they don't work AT ALL in Oblivion - there's simply not enough interaction "verbs" here to do even 10% of what the dungeon designer wanted.

Um, that's not really true. Even though Oblivion axed levitation, you can still jump, waterwalk, waterbreath, sneak or use telekinesis.

Because Oblivion doesn't have dialog trees or persuasion skills

That's also not true. Even though you might want to have forgotten the persuasion minigame, that doesn't change the fact that it was there.
Nah, the problem with all the later TES isn't lack of verbs. They have verbs in spades, more so than most other RPGs that aren't immersive sims. The problem is Beth's conflicting objectives. On the one hand, they want to have all those simulated systems to play with; but on the other hand, they want to players to have a tightly controlled cinematic experience. As a result, their level design and quest scripting barely interacts with the simulation layer at all.

I honestly don't remember Morrowind's dungeons that well...

And that's their most apt characteristic - they're absolutely unmemorable. Which is probably the reason why they went for more scripting from Oblivion on. Now imagine them commissioning Arkane to design major dungeons for Skyrim... Oh what could have been.

 

[Rincewind]

Nehrim had some excellent dungeons. I still remember some of them even though I played the mod years ago. There was one dungeon that had no lighting in it at all, it was pitch black. Enemies were undead with glowing eyes so you'd see them as two spots in the darkness. You HAD to use a torch or a light spell, else you couldn't see anything. It was completely dark. Great dungeon.

Then there was that one dungeon that reminded me of Moria from the LotR movies. Narrow hallways with exceedingly tall walls. Atmospheric as fuck.

Yep, that pitch black one was one of my favourites too! Especially because I visited it early in the game so it was quite a tough fight to defeat all those spectral entities in the dark. The dwarven mines (?) were another major higlight, indeed. I loved the atmosphere and the part with that giant golem guy with the hundreds of zombie minions.

The sequel, Enderal, also has some excellent dungeons.

Yep, heard good things about it, I expect the same quality from the guys.

Since you mention Tomb Raider, the original TR games were essentially action dungeon crawlers. My favorite levels are from the 1st and the 4th game. Tomb of Semerkhet and the Alexandria levels in TR4 are peak Tomb Raider.

Sadly, the early 3D graphics put me off when I looked at it the last time (I have no problems with Gothic I-II, for example, but this was a bit too basic). I think I should get past that and revisit them sometime again, I love the archeological settings, we should have more games like that.

 

[DraQ]

I honestly don't remember Morrowind's dungeons that well... we have a 5-day holiday now in Japan, I was thinking of revisiting it. Any suggestion outside of the main quest ones?

In general interesting places are quest related (or more apropriately, quests and breadcrumbs are designed to lead to interesting places).

Apart from MQ dungeons you have places like Marvani ancestral tomb, Anudnabia, Indoranyon, Hlormaren, Tribunal expansion mostly consists of a large interconnected dungeon crawl (OTOH there are very few interesting dungeons in Bloodmoon, most are just small and copypasted - interestingly Dragoborn expansion to Skyrim managed to both stick to the original and do interestign things with them).

Regarding Skyrim, I think the key to it is variation. There's not a single great gameplay mode in Skyrim, to be fun it has to be constantly switching modes and enviroments. I probably didn't even half of the game's dungeons, but I remember that Arkngthamz was really fun to explore. It's one of the rare TES dungeons where exploring feels really full, the dwarven machines give it an unique vibe and the puzzle was simple but fun.

Skyrim does variation and flavour quite well despite the layouts being often linear. It also does a lot of z-axis where the dungeon may cross over itself multiple times in some sort of central space with opportunities to exchange ranged attacks. Finally it has some locations that are clusters of conventional dungeons connected by (usually) outdoor hub - those tend to reward sneaking around, finding unconventional paths and good vantage points.

For gameplay modes vanilla is moderately hopeless, but that's easy to mod.

For example, take Zelda, which is usually considered a game with great dungeons. Very few RPGs have the "verbs" required to complete an Ocarina of Time dungeon, probably only immersive sims like Arx Fatalis, Ultima Underworld and Dark Messiah could do it. Would it be interesting to have like 30% of your dungeons be filled with Zelda-like puzzles? Yes. But if you do an entire Zelda dungeon in an RPG, I think you slip into making a shitty Zelda dungeon, not a great RPG dungeon.

I haven't really played Zelda because I haven't owned a single console in my life.

Anything other than Zelda? There are plenty of FPS games and hybrids, some interesting adventure hybrids (AzT I mentioned), metroidvanias, etc. that often have well designed dungeon-like locations.

 

[V_K]

Myst would make a great dungeon.

 

[Ranarama]

I honestly don't remember Morrowind's dungeons that well... we have a 5-day holiday now in Japan, I was thinking of revisiting it. Any suggestion outside of the main quest ones?

Mudan Grotto is the most interesting underwater one. That's SW of Ebonheart (underwater).

Galom Daeus and Ald Sotha, but they have quests so you might've seen them (though not main quests).

 

[JarlFrank]

Sadly, the early 3D graphics put me off when I looked at it the last time (I have no problems with Gothic I-II, for example, but this was a bit too basic). I think I should get past that and revisit them sometime again, I love the archeological settings, we should have more games like that.

Visually TR1 is the most dated one. It doesn't even have a skybox (sky is pitch black) and Lara's haircut ends at the hair tie because they didn't manage to add the braid to the model. Fucking rough.

TR4 looks pretty good though.

Spoiler

Tomb Raider Anniversary is a pretty faithful remake of the first game, there are some modern consoletard additions to it but overall they kept the level design and puzzles intact.

My favorite is TR4 because it has some of the best dungeons and puzzles in the series.

 

[kangaxx]

I agree, TR Last Revelation was underrated. It had some really unsettling tombs (read: dungeons) from memory, mainly due to the spike traps!

 

[DraQ]

Um, that's not really true. Even though Oblivion axed levitation, you can still jump, waterwalk, waterbreath, sneak or use telekinesis.

I don't remember a single place in Oblivion where waterwalking was useful other than making shortcuts through Rumare. TK was easily replaced with bow or starting flare spell.

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

I removed it from the article, but the whole point was kinda showing all the things a dungeon can have and Oblivion's dungeon DOESN'T.

Yeah, but I'm not going to buy/steal Oblivion and its DLC (horsearmor, lol) just to marvel at a shitty/bad/passable dungeon.

Felt very mean and bitter (it was)

This is the Codex. Not being mean and bitter is treated like mental illness (by the actual nutcases, but I digress).

This is the map:

The map might have mislead me into thinking it might be interesting.

For example, the entrance has a gate asking for a password. Cool, an obstacle! But the password is in a bag in front of it. And I mean LITERALLY IN FRONT:

Why? Because Oblivion doesn't have dialog trees or persuasion skills, there's no alternate paths and they don't trust the player enough to hide the diary. Tabletop RPGs would allow hundreds of solutions, from blasting the door down to disguising yourself, Fallout would have the classic combat/dialog/stealth solutions, an immersive sim would at the very least give optional paths for you to crawl through....

That actually got me to think and I think I have come up with something interesting regarding multiple entry points/paths in cRPGs, why they often end up looking like a waste of development effort (sadly they do) and some ways to prevent that.

Everything else is just walking across very obvious paths, killing the same level scaled enemies and reading poorly written notes on the ground about the lore of a mega dungeon DLC that didn't even bother to fucking name its NPCs.

I now wonder which Morrowind dungeons (if any) you'd consider good.

And what about Skyrim (yeah, I know, most dungeons are linear slogs, but not all of them, especially if you consider dungeon complexes consisting of an indoor/outdoor hostile dungeon hub connecting multiple smaller locations, and even some of the smaller, more linear ones can offer some interesting gameplay variations).

And since Oblivion's combat is so shitty, fighting for so long gets really boring, really fast.

That's very true.

In short, someone at Bethesda adapted their lame home-made D&D dungeon into Oblivion, called it "the deepest & most challenging dungeon" and sold it to suckers. And those suckers still haunt reddit, telling people that it's a good dungeon.

The sad thing is that if you compare it to all the other dungeons in this game...

Additional thought:
What about good computer non-RPG dungeons? It's not like cRPGs tend to do very good job giving player multiple verbs to use (and choose from) so they are not at actual advantage here, compared to other games.

Would, say, Azrael's Tear be a good dungeon?

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

 

[V_K]

I don't remember a single place in Oblivion where waterwalking was useful

And what do you mean by useful?
Because, for example Deus Ex had tons of clutter, garbage flavour items and even garbage flavour weapons (has anyone honestly used pepper spray or PS20 in any remotely normal circumstances?), yet every of those was potentially useful - what other game allowed you to blind a guard with an extinguisher, then beat them into submission with a baton while escaping imprisonment by shadowy conspiracy?

Sorry, couldn't resist.
Anyways, I don't know what you're arguing against here. My point was exactly that Oblivion has a lot more verbs than its level design and quest scripting make use of.

 

[Mastermind]

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

I played A Link to the Past after the GBC zeldas and it was a huge disappointment, all the dungeons were a joke compared to oracle/awakening.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

I played A Link to the Past after the GBC zeldas and it was a huge disappointment, all the dungeons were a joke compared to oracle/awakening.

That is surprising to me. I did really like Link's Awakening, but I wouldn't go so far to say that it had *better* dungeons than A Link to the Past. They were more or less on par, but I typically give the edge to ALttP. Awakening did have some great dungeon design, though, that's for sure. I like almost all Zelda dungeons, so there's that too.

 

[Mastermind]

I haven't really played Zelda because I haven't owned a single console in my life.

gameboy roms/emulators are a google search away

 

[Mastermind]

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

I played A Link to the Past after the GBC zeldas and it was a huge disappointment, all the dungeons were a joke compared to oracle/awakening.

That is surprising to me. I did really like Link's Awakening, but I wouldn't go so far to say that it had *better* dungeons than A Link to the Past. They were more or less on par, but I typically give the edge to ALttP. Awakening did have some great dungeon design, though, that's for sure. I like almost all Zelda dungeons, so there's that too.

All i remember was being extremely disappointed at how simple link to the past dungeons were compared to the gameboy dungeons.

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

I played A Link to the Past after the GBC zeldas and it was a huge disappointment, all the dungeons were a joke compared to oracle/awakening.

That is surprising to me. I did really like Link's Awakening, but I wouldn't go so far to say that it had *better* dungeons than A Link to the Past. They were more or less on par, but I typically give the edge to ALttP. Awakening did have some great dungeon design, though, that's for sure. I like almost all Zelda dungeons, so there's that too.

All i remember was being extremely disappointed at how simple link to the past dungeons were compared to the gameboy dungeons.

What about Skull Woods? Ganon's Tower? Ice Palace?

Like I said, I really enjoyed Link's Awakening, but A Link to the Past is a fantastic game all around

 

[Mastermind]

Have to agree, the best dungeons I have played through are probably all from A Link to the Past. There are some great ones in cRPGs, but Legend of Zelda pretty much takes the cake when it comes to dungeon design.

I played A Link to the Past after the GBC zeldas and it was a huge disappointment, all the dungeons were a joke compared to oracle/awakening.

That is surprising to me. I did really like Link's Awakening, but I wouldn't go so far to say that it had *better* dungeons than A Link to the Past. They were more or less on par, but I typically give the edge to ALttP. Awakening did have some great dungeon design, though, that's for sure. I like almost all Zelda dungeons, so there's that too.

All i remember was being extremely disappointed at how simple link to the past dungeons were compared to the gameboy dungeons.

What about Skull Woods? Ganon's Tower? Ice Palace?

Like I said, I really enjoyed Link's Awakening, but A Link to the Past is a fantastic game all around

Honestly it's been 10-15 years since I played alttp, I don't remember any of the dungeons, only the disappointment still lingers.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

One that can't be completely broken by the player asking "Why the fuck would anyone build this?".

 

[luj1]

Morrowind dungeons are pretty cool because they are hand-crafted and utilize verticality a lot. Simply drinking a levitation potion can lead you to inaccessible areas, hidden items and various details. Some I remember,

• the one Ken Rolston made for the Imperial Cult involving an entrance behind a waterfall in a tomb
• the one where there is a god (?) hidden on a ledge
• Urshilaku Burial is ridden with verticality, secrets and traps
• the one beneath Gnisis, I believe it's a Kwama mine which extends into a sealed-off Dwemeri ruin
• Arkngthand is an early dungeon, but it's stacked with optional stuff and you can come back with a key to delve deeper
• the one with a Norse ship burial
• Tel Fyr can be considered a dungeon containing the Corpusarium, the wizard tower, and pocket dimension Magas Volar