How to integrate story into dungeons (with good AND bad examples!)

Greetings, adventurers! I was going through some timewalking dungeons from various expansions during this year’s Turbulent Timeways event and got really inspired by a few expansions. Some dungeons in this game are just there to have a dungeon, have a giggle, punch some guys, get some loot. Some dungeons are kinda relevant for one boss or so. Other dungeons have a full-ass TV episode play out in them. The material may vary in quality but the integration is well-done.

Since I was also inspired by how the devs are talking about the story integration of the 11.2 dungeon, today I wanted to discuss which dungeons and raids in the game have really well-done story integration so you know why you’re there, what happens, and who you wanna punch. Let’s dig in!

But Ily, what do you even mean?

I’m glad you asked, dear reader. Dungeons in this game sometimes just exist to be a dungeon: go in, punch stuff, loot bodies, walk out. There are many dungeons in the game that involve NPC’s for literally no reason other than DUNGEON TIME! There are other dungeons that involve some of the most important NPC’s in the franchise. Then there are dungeons that try to have really good serious story moments and…don’t succeed. We’ll start by highlighting some dungeons that are just kinda there.

Examples of dungeons that are just there for no particular reason

Cinderbrew Meadery

This dungeon exists to make bee and beer puns and I love it for that. Is there any actual plot reason to be here? Nope! Fun little Goblin tease for 11.1 though. This is an example of a dungeon that is 100% just here with no meaningful hook-and that’s totally fine! Cinderbrew doesn’t try to be anything else.

The Everbloom

Now here’s a weird one-the are for The Everbloom doesn’t even exist on the Gorgrond world map, making you wonder where tf it takes place, and nothing of consequence happens in the dungeon. It tries really hard to make you think the situation is dire with the dramatic music and Yalnu attacking Stormwind at the end, but then you remember you’re in an AU expansion and your investment is already in a weird spot. The initial concept of “go investigate what happened to the Kirin Tor expedition” is good, but it doesn’t actually have a story hook. No questline saying “uh where did they go?” makes the dungeon just pop up out of nowhere. Great concept, great vibes, but yeah, no real plot.

Theater of Pain

This dungeon literally exists as us participating in a fighting tournament with the Necrolords. The theme is great, but that’s it. No story integration. Much like Cinderbrew, Theater knows what it’s about, and it isn’t about the plot. That’s ok! I love dungeons that aren’t about anything and are just cool.

Mogu’shan Palace

One of my favorite dungeons ever, this also has no plot hook. Many MoP dungeons lack noteworthy NPC’s, with exceptions such as Shado-Pan Monastery and Temple of the Jade Serpent, and this is a clear example of no hook. These random Mogu clans are scary and cool, but we haven’t seen or interacted with them on the rest of the continent, just “Mogu” with no clan attachment. We don’t have any major quests leading us here, just an NPC inside giving us dungeon quests. Then there’s random Sethrak, and we have an amazing boss fight with Xin the Weaponmaster (M+ when?) but…idk who this guy is. He’s king in the Palace but this Mogu seat isn’t really doing much? The Golden Lotus are at your doorstep man!

Algeth’ar Academy

Perhaps the best example on this list, this dungeon literally could’ve been an email story-wise. “Help me clean up my school now that the Isles are reopening!” is a totally fine hook for a side story, random quest to fill time, etc., and works just as well as a fill-time dungeon. But yeah, zero story integration here. My point is extra proven by how many world quests are in the Academy area of Thaldraszus-you literally do parts of the dungeon as world quests. It definitely didn’t need to be a dungeon, but it is, and it’s both fun and funny, so no criticism from me, but I will use it as a great example of “this dungeon just exists!”

Bad Examples:

Now we’ll move on to some dungeons that do exist for a reason and are trying to integrate the story, but they do a bad job at it. This is more offensive to me than just being a dungeon for the sake of being a dungeon. I need a bit more than just “go to this dungeon the guy is there,” I much prefer having some actual hooks and stakes.

Magister’s Terrace

MGT is a weird one. Partially, this issue happens because the entire “merely a setback” plot didn’t really land or have much to it other than a scene after The Eye in Shattrath. It’s exciting to fight Kael’thas again, but him dying is the only thing that happens here. There’s no real hook-KJ is already entering the Sunwell, Kael’thas is pretty much expendable by this point. It’s got an iconic character but there isn’t much happening: we aren’t foiling KJ, we aren’t foiling any side goals from Kael’thas, he’s just here. Later, we’ll get into dungeons that have good hooks because we actually have an objective to achieve or need to stop the bad guy ASAP. But here, he’s already pretty much cooked.

Throne of the Tides

This is a tough one. The dungeon has a really exciting hook directly from Vashj’ir where you enter the plane of water and go into the dungeon-good start. Lady Naz’jar is a familiar character from the zone and we thwart her plans then help Neptulon. Unfortunately, he gets kidnapped by Ozumat at the end of the instance, which was theoretically a very exciting plot hook for the scrapped Abyssal Maw content.

Too bad! This plot hook gets resolved 6 years later in a quiet fashion! Throne of the Tides is an example of “we had something” and then we didn’t follow up. These are my least favorite category. Brackenhide Hollow from DF is another example: Decatriarch Wratheye gets away at the end of the instance and then…nothing.

Firelands

4.2 is a very strange little patch. Much like the typical patch content of Classic, TBC, and WOTLK, the goal of the patch is not to have a super compelling campaign with multiple chapters. These patches pretty much serve to open the raid instance where you beat up Illidan or Arthas. Firelands is similar: we fight Rag in the Hyjal level-up, a pretty solid zone, but then this patch is just them coming back for round 2. The semi-interesting story stuff is just the fates of various characters, such as Fandral and Alysra, but there isn’t any actual plot happening here other than us fighting them. It feels a bit sad to watch these gigantic characters just monologue at you with limited appearances in the quests that unlock the Molten Front, but this is kind of a symptom of pre-Mists patch questing. Instead of substantial quests with story, we just get dailies. But yeah, there’s nothing worse than getting to Heroic Ragnaros, seeing Cenarius pop up and yoink him out so he perma-dies, then realizing that isn’t on normal mode. There’s a similar problem in Highaul with AU Cho’Gall, who only shows up in the mythic phase. Other players were left wondering what happened to that guy.

Good Examples:

Dungeons and raids that do their story integration really well. I’m either learning stuff while I’m in the dungeon, watching a historic event play out in real time, or stopping the bad guy who will blow us up if we don’t fight him ASAP. Then there’s the less intense categories: continuation of side story (not main story), tease for future story that actually gets followed through on, or standalone solid story.

Revamped RFC

I can’t say enough good things about the MoP remake of Ragefire Chasm. Previously the first dungeon for Horde adventurers with not much going on, the Mists version very clearly shows you that there are Dark Shaman and big-ass hulk mode Orcs in Orgrimmar. It poses the question: enemy faction or who do they belong to? One of my few qualms with Mists is that they told us in beta that Garrosh was the final boss. I understand why they did that-people were concerned the plot had no relevance-but I am imagining the timeline where I experienced all of the teases without knowing Garrosh was the end boss. For example, we all passed out when we found out Dimensius is the final boss of TWW, but there have been plenty of indicators that it could be him since 10.2.7. Regardless, revamped RFC set the stage for Siege very well.

Siege of Orgrimmar

Speaking of Siege of Orgrimmar, here it is. A lot of shit happens in Siege of Orgrimmar. It has a very solid lead-in through the entire post-level-up MoP campaign, including 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and scenarios, so we know why we’re there. This is a great category of raid/instance that I call “watch a big battle play out in real time.” We’ll see this category again later.

Siege is a smash from a lore perspective for so many reasons. Starting off in the Vale, with the fates of our Golden Lotus friends, Norushen, and the secret seventh Sha being revealed, we address the fallout of the Vale’s destruction immediately. After our friends show up, we decide it’s now or never on Orgrimmar. One of the reasons Siege is so successful is the sheer number of characters we’ve previously encountered who are now boss fights: Fallen Protectors, Norushen, Sha of Pride, Galakras (Warlord Zaela), Nazgrim, Malkorok, Paragons, and Garrosh are all characters we have investment in from as far back as TBC. That’s 8 of 14 bosses-gigantic ratio.

You also get to see the battle play out with you present: our leaders have all converged on Orgrimmar to beat the fuck out of Garrosh with us, we see actual progression in the fighting, and get some reveals about the depths of Garrosh’s work. It ends with my 2nd favorite expansion finale cinematic where Garrosh is taken to jail. All the while, we get our first glimpses of Blackfuse Company’s work that will carry us into Warlords of Draenor, such as iron stars and machinery. Lastly, this raid also integrates perfectly with the ongoing Wrathion questline, ending with the reveal that Wrathion wanted Varian to dismantle the Horde at the end of the raid and create a unifaction. This expansion was noteworthy for having campaign quests that demanded the final boss’s head: usually these quests would be drop items, random, or nonexistent. In MoP, we have the quest from Lor’themar and Jaina to kill Lei Shen, as well as all the Wrathion quests to kill the first tier bosses, and finally his quest to kill Garrosh. Stellar work all around.

Spires of Ascension

Upon entering this dungeon, Kyrestia informs you she’s getting beaten up by Devos. This dungeon accomplishes a lot for the Forsworn, as Devos monologues to Kyrestia while you fight your way to her. This is the genre of dungeon that I call “exposition dump while we get to the boss.” We learn of the opinions that genuinely swayed Kyrian to the Forsworn, we learn that Devos spoke to Zovaal, and that Kyrestia might actually need to make some changes. In an expansion of mess, this dungeon did well.

Halls of Reflection

HoR is an incredible experience. When you walk in with Jaina or Sylvanas, you converse with a spirit in Frostmourne before Arthas’ lieutenants beat you up. It culminates with one of the most shocking frames in WoW: Jaina/Sylv at 20% health dueling Arthas, realizing she can’t win, and fleeing. Not only do you learn some important stuff about the requirement of always having a Lich King, you get to literally talk to Uther. Very cool stuff. The climactic escape from Arthas is a great way of telling the story that he is too strong for you and you’ll need a raid.

Waycrest Manor

A fully self-contained zone story ending in a dungeon set around that story, complete with the next step of that story at the end of the dungeon. I can’t say enough good things about Waycrest Manor. Drustvar is one of my favorite zones in the game, as I’ve said before, and Waycrest delivers on the zone’s plot. Where the other dungeons in BFA are just “go punch the bad guy,” Waycrest includes a twist. We get to see the true extent of Lady Waycrest’s depravity, but also learn that she was influenced by Gorak Tul, who pops out of Thros to be the final boss of the instance. Incredible visual storytelling, themeing, and continuation of the story here.

Dazar’alor

Where Siege of Orgrimmar had fully different versions for Alliance and Horde to experience the battle, Dazar’alor tries a bolder approach: changing factions. Since this battle is Horde vs. Alliance (not Horde and Alliance vs. Garrosh), we switch factions for 3 bosses of the raid. So we still get the experience of watching a lore battle play out in real time, but this time, the perspective is different.

Priory of the Sacred Flame

Lastly, in a recent example, everyone’s favorite trinket dungeon. Priory is started by a side story for Sojourner of Hallowfall that is important enough to become a dungeon in its own right. We meet Baron Braunpyke, grieving his brother, near the Priory. He eventually falls to their teachings, becoming a zealot intending on forging Light undead with Murrpray. This is a very cool side story to dungeon pipeline, as I do agree that it’s actually important enough to warrant a 5-man. The implication that more people have figured out how to make Lightfused undead is not a good one-we thought Calia was it-and they definitely have to be stopped.

The Legion expansion as a whole basically

This is an extremely broad category that feels warranted. To date, I haven’t seen an expansion do it better than Legion base game. There’s one major exception, which is that Tomb of Sargeras falls back to old habits a bit, but it’s still got good parts. I’ll break this down to smaller parts.

7.0: except for the return to Violet Hold (lol), every Legion dungeon has both a story hook and a quest to go clear it. This signified a major change in design philosophy to me and is one of the reasons why I liked Legion so much: we were now putting stuff in with purpose (the same is true of quests, but that’s another post). There are obviously 4 dungeons for obtaining Pillars of Creation, all with plot hooks, and timers on them: if you don’t go into those dungeons right then and there, you either let Skovald get the Aegis, let the Naga flood Azsuna, lose Malfurion to the Nightmare, or let Dargrul blow up Highmountain. None of those are good! The non-Pillar dungeons also have hooks: Black Rook is a continuation of Maiev and Jarod’s side plot, Vault addresses the loose thread of Cordana, Maw of Souls addresses Helya part 1, and every Suramar dungeon happens as part of the 7.0 Suramar campaign.

“But Ily, why are these different from other dungeons?” There’s a clear objective in all of these dungeons-we aren’t just queuing with no reason. The Arcway is to open up the tunnels to the palace and secure a conduit, Court of Stars is our first shot at assassinating her, and the Nighthold is legendary. We not only see the battle play out in real time, with the entire cast from the Suramar campaign, but we also accomplish plot in the raid!

Tomb/Cathedral: less compelling hooks, but still hooks. This is the patch where KJ loses patience and decides he’s going to blow up Dalaran, setting a timer for our counterattack on him. The 7.2 campaign unfortunately doesn’t have any actual plot, but at least the dungeon and raid have echoes of Aegwynn and require us to socket the Pillars. This is still story integration, and a step up from Classic-Cata.

Argus: I am obsessed with Antorus and I’ll never shut up about it. Seat of the Triumvirate is also good, but Antorus is actually so inventive. When you zone in, you can see your timer has started: what’s that red smoke around Azeroth? Why does it get bigger the further I go in the instance? Oh is that Eonar? Is that Varimathras? AGGRAMAR? SARGERAS WAS THE CLOUD?

Visual storytelling, dialogue, cinematics, and quests unite to create an experience unlike any we’ve had in WoW so far. I look forward to being this on the edge of my seat again in 11.2.