It only took about 10 days after the launch of World of Warcraft's Legion expansion for players to unlock one of its deeper secrets. Kosumoth the Hungering, the world-eating Old God tucked away on an unused island, was the surprising "treasure" at the end of an otherwise unassuming quest to find a hidden mount, and he was a reveal the WoW development team worked very hard to keep a secret.
The idea to create Kosumoth came from Blizzard senior game designer Jeremy Feasel, who WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas gives full credit for the surprise boss. Calling Feasel "one of the masterminds behind the secrets and fun things," Hazzikostas explained to IGN at BlizzCon that incorporating Kosumoth was a way to solve the problem of how to come up with creative ways for players to acquire mounts.
"We had a wide array of mounts that our artists had made and we were trying to figure out how they should all be obtained. Some of them had come from raid bosses, some of them PvPs, some of them are reputation or whatever else. With this one, there was no clear in-game lore hook for something that was basically like an old god jellyfish squid thing. It's like, what do we do with this?" said Hazzikostas. "He just wanted to take the time to make this crazy elaborate scavenger hunt."
It took Feasel about a month on and off to create the scavenger hunt and implementation of Kosumoth, in addition to his other responsibilities. Few people on the development team even knew what Feasel was working on in an effort to keep the reveal a secret, and the general consensus from players who did watch the reveal play out was generally positive, much to the delight of the Blizzard team.
"We kept it under wraps a lot internally as well. We were very careful about how well documented it was to avoid leaks that could spoil the surprise. Yeah, it was very very cool. We were shocked by how quickly players discovered it, actually," said Hazzikotas. "It was incredibly fun just watching that process unfold. I think in this day and age of data mining and people pouring through game files, it's very hard to keep secrets. Everything is on a PTR or in beta. We've had to really go out of our way to try to have there be this sense of maybe you don't know everything in the world. Maybe you should pay close attention to what seems like clues."
The WoW team is aware that this type of gameplay is not for everyone, and also that burying too many secrets will turn Legion into what Hazzikostas called a "crazy Easter egg scavenger hunt." Especially coming off a second secret boss in the Gnomeregan dungeon, the focus isn't to keep burying these types of secrets, but instead find new ways to provide added depth to the game.
"Some people are like, 'I'll just let someone else figure it out and then I'll go get it.' But for the people who were piecing those clues together, hunting for this secret thing, the thrill of being the first to find something is unique. So it's something we want to do more of. Obviously we don't want to do too much of it," he said. "Mystery is a great thing. It's a reminder that the world is a little bit larger than you might feel."
There are even more hidden secrets waiting to be unlocked in Legion's expansion, though of course Hazzikostas wouldn't give details because "a lot of them haven't been figured out yet." But he credits the work environment at Blizzard for fostering these sorts of "passion projects" from the development team.
"This sort of thing is something that's awesome that we're able to do at Blizzard; basically just a passion project for a single designer or a single developer or a couple of people," Hazzikostas said. "All the fun little quirky things that give the world depth and richness, so many of those are just from the hearts and minds of individual designers and their helpers on the team."
For more on World of Warcraft, check out the latest details on Legion Patch 7.2, find out why Patch 7.3 is heading to Argus and hear Hazzikostas explain the delay on WoW legacy servers.
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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