For the Darksiders 3: Keepers of the Void DLC, I designed the final boss together with the minibosses. Aside from filler attacks, it used abilities from each of the prior 4 minibosses of the DLC in ways that played with each other (e.g. a foot stomp shockwave you have to jump over, and a lightning strike that can strike you out of the air). Additionally, it had some new unique moves to provide more “wow” factor and surprise players beyond the re-mixing of moves they’d seen before.
I designed the boss for 3 phases:
- Phase 1: Introduction of filler moves and single re-use of elemental moves coming from prior minibosses
- Phase 2: Creates 2 elemental swords, introducing new unique abilities of this boss
- Phase 3: Combines re-used moves in new ways, alongside new unique abilities, for final stretch of new challenges built on mechanics players already learned in the first 2 phases
This boss was very well-received externally and internally, and led to boss design being one of the focal points in my career.