Elder Scrolls Online shares the making of the mighty gryphon

Fun fact: Elder Scrolls Online’s gryphon is only found one place in the game, and that’s on its brand-new island of Summerset. Players who encounter one of these rare creatures should probably observe them at a safe distance, because Buckbeaks these are not.

ZeniMax said that it wanted to give its version of the gryphon a place of honor, as its artists weren’t happy with how the creatures are usually portrayed in fantasy.

“Instead of approaching gryphons as a literal combination of two creatures, I started from scratch, envisioning a winged, four-legged predator, evolved for flight, and with traits you’d also happen to find in big cats and birds of prey,” said Concept Artist Lucas Slominski. This even meant using inspiration from featured dinosaurs — how cool is that?

The devs said that because the gryphon also has flight, it needed twice as many animations than most air- or land-bound creatures.