The Elder Scrolls Online (2010 – 2025)
Major Impact on the Elder Scrolls
Over the course of 10+ years, oversaw the end-to-end lifecycle of 40+ major World Zone, Story, and Dungeon expansions in the Elder Scrolls Online. Managed multiple teams (Content, Narrative, Encounter, Dungeons, Monsters) and led a diverse department of 40+ designers, maintaining a rigorous production schedule that supported a decade of continuous growth and reached millions of players.
▶ Official Trailer - ESO - Battle for the Writhing Wall
Example Zone: Solstice
Worked on initial zone pitch, Zone Design Document (Zone Story, Objectives, Public Dungeons, & Delves), Zone Map and Layout. Reviewed and provided feedback regularly at every phase from pitch to Live release.
▶ Official Trailer - ESO - Return of the Worm Cult
Example Objective: Corelanya
Worked on initial objective pitch. Implemented quest in-engine. Created paper Level Design map and coordinated with Level Design. Regularly iterated, reviewed, play tested, and provided feedback at each phase through Live release.
▶ Walkthrough - ESO - Corelanya Manor
Example Repeatables: Solstice
Worked on initial Repeatable Content Plan and pitches. Implemented multiple repeatable units of content in-engine. Regularly iterated, reviewed, play tested, and provided feedback at each phase through Live release.
Example World Event: Siege Camps
Worked on initial pitch with Zone Lead. Created initial encounter prototype and draft. Created paper map and worked with Level Design on initial draft. Regularly reviewed and provided feedback to content, fiction, encounters, & world building at each phase through Live release.
▶ Official Trailer - ESO - Battle for the Writhing WallProject 221 AI Prototyper
Project 221 AI Prototyper – Overview
Starting with the idea of testing a game loop and using AI to create mission ideas, this tool generates stories and plots story locations on a map, and allows the designer to test the results in a gameplay prototype.
- ▹Generation – Using prompts, quickly generate missions, locations, text, and audio and review the results in a simple gameplay prototype.
- ▹Iteration – Rapidly iterate on generated game, mission, location, and NPC prompts to help refine the experience. Add new locations, refine the mission flow, and edit the text and regenerate the audio.
- ▹Export – Export the missions, mission flow maps, and their affiliated text and audio for review, iteration, or implementation.
Examples
Here are a few examples of generated non-linear missions. Using prompts, locations, and connections to help test the theme, evaluate the core gameplay loop, and iterate on mission ideas.
Example: 1930's Detective Noir
As chief detective you send agents to locations around a city map following clues, fighting gangsters and solving cases.
▶ Example Video: 1930's Detective Noir Mission
Example: 1700's Pirate Voyage
As captain you and your crew battle pirates and travel to locations around the sea in search of booty.
▶ Example Video: 1700's Pirate Voyage MissionUnity
Project 221 – Unity – Overview
As a captain in the Special Investigations unit, complete missions and reveal clues by sending your agents or travelling personally to locations and investigating. Fight gangsters and follow the trail of clues to succeed.
Added Unity Features
- ▹Web Prototype Import – Imports data from a web prototype and builds a custom Unity game for testing, iteration, and implementation.
- ▹Mission System – Created a mission system. Mission progression, NPC dialogue, interactable text, game map, world maps, random combat, and mission completion are all tied to mission data.
- ▹NPCs – Added custom NPC models that feature animation and dialogue with text, audio and lip sync. Created an NPC behavior system including idle, pathing, sim-mode, custom animations, factions, and combat. Created a character model import pipeline that includes a lip sync setup UI.
- ▹Weapons – Added 3 new weapons and created a weapon import pipeline that includes an aim and grip calibration setup UI.
Unreal Engine
Independent technical development focusing on UE 5 systems, Blueprint engineering, and AI architecture.
3rd Person Stealth (UE 5.2)
Objective: Steal the jewel and escape without setting off any alarms or getting caught by the guards.
- Features a stealthy 3rd person player that disables alarms and takes down pathing guards from behind.
- Guards will charge the player on sight or when players accidentally trigger rotating sensor alarms or laser doors.
1st Person Shooter (UE 5.4)
Objective: Defeat the drones within the time limit without dying.
- Features a 1st Person player with a rifle. Players walk, aim, shoot, & take damage while destroying automated drones within a time limit.
- Drones follow paths, charge on sight and explode dealing damage to the player.
UEFN: Carmageddon
Objective: Team deathmatch mayhem with vehicles and vehicle addons.
- Features: Streamed landscape (3 towns, gas stations, and airports) with multiple types of vehicles & vehicle addons.
- Includes toggleable optional modes: hireable guards, enemy bots, enemy aliens, storm, sky spawn, bomb defuse mode, & capture the flag.
Professional Experience
ZeniMax Online Studios
May 2010 - July 2025Project Content Director
July 2023 – July 2025- Pitched, implemented, iterated, tested and shipped 9 new content packages to the Live game servers without missing a deadline. Impact: Releasing regular updates for different player types and play styles improved player loyalty and helped grow an audience of 25 million players.
- Worked with studio Leadership, Production, Marketing, Community, Art, and Engineering to plan and schedule 4 releases each year and coordinate Marketing and Community efforts to sync with the quarterly release cadence. Impact: Consistently releasing updates on schedule and in scope saved the company millions of dollars in potential lost development and marketing costs.
- Hired, mentored and trained leads for Content, Fiction, Monsters, Dungeons, and Encounter and worked with them to coordinate each team’s efforts and keep them on schedule and in scope for 4 releases of content each year. Impact: Improved morale and increased employee retention by focusing on mentoring and professional growth.
- Reviewed and iterated Story, Quest, Encounter, Dungeon, and World gameplay and features at each phase of development including lead reviews, team play tests, focus tests, and public play tests. Impact: Regular reviews ensured the content hit the quality bar and kept the team on schedule and in scope.
- Streamlined processes, established workflows and best practices, and created documentation standards for story, world, and dungeon development. (initial pitches, zone design documents, content design documents and encounter design documents.) Impact: Creating and upholding standards for documentation reduced pitch times, and facilitated coordinating with other departments on scoping and asset requests.
Lead Content Designer
July 2015 – July 2023- Pitched, implemented, iterated, tested, and shipped 30 new content packages to the Live game servers on schedule and in scope without missing a deadline. Impact: Releasing consistent updates improved player retention by giving players a reason to return to the game quarterly.
- Hired, mentored and trained Content designers, Encounter designers, Fiction designers, Dungeon designers, and Monster designers. Impact: Increased implementation speeds and reduced bugs by focusing on teaching best practices, standardizing implementation methods and creating a new hire training program.
Zone Lead
January 2013 – July 2015- Led a content team that created and iterated on 10 of the zones during the initial release of The Elder Scrolls Online and later led the dungeon team in creating dungeons for the first 7 content packages. Impact: Improved player retention by ensuring there was enough content for players at release and that the content hit the quality bar as well as creating additional challenging dungeons for veteran players to drive retention.
Content Designer
May 2010 – January 2013- Pitched, created and scripted complex open world story lines involving multiple quests with multiple objectives for 7 of the release zones, plotted player flow, and created paper level designs to guide, support, and reward the player's choices.