Jeremy Sera - Design Lead & Game Designer

The Elder Scrolls Online (2010 – 2025)

Zone Overview

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
Corelanya Manor

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
Repeatables

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.

World Event: Siege Camps

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 Wall

Unreal Engine

Independent technical development focusing on UE 5 systems, Blueprint engineering, and AI architecture.

3rd Person Stealth

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.
Walkthrough - UE 5.2 - 3rd Person Stealther
1st Person Shooter

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.
Walkthrough - UE 5.4 - FPS Game
UEFN Project

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.
Walkthrough - UE Fortnite - Carmageddon

Professional Experience

Core Expertise

  • Narrative Design
  • Content Design
  • Encounter Design
  • Storytelling
  • Level Design
  • Pitching & Prototyping
  • Implementation & Scoping
  • Design Management
  • World & Quest Design
  • Systems Architecture
  • Agile Production
  • Mentor & Leadership

Programs & Tools

  • Jira / Miro / Confluence
  • Unreal Engine / Blueprints
  • Unity / C++
  • Tableau / Photoshop

Education

Towson University
BA Spanish & BA International Studies

ZeniMax Online Studios

May 2010 - July 2025

Project Content Director

July 2023 – July 2025
Managed over 40 employees on the Content, Fiction, Encounter, Monster, and Dungeon design teams for the Elder Scrolls Online in the creation of game updates.
  • 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
Led the content department for the Elder Scrolls Online in the creation of game updates.
  • 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
Designed quest and encounter game content for the initial release of The Elder Scrolls Online.
  • 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.