That The Elder Scrolls Online (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S) would be such a great success for so long, the team did not expect, according to Matt Firor from Zenimax Studios.
The long-term success of ESO was a surprise: The MMORPG ESO is a great success and continues to do very well even after seven years. According to Matt Firor, the team did not expect the game to be successful for so long, even though they hoped for it and certainly worked towards it. Firor states:
I think we all knew that ESO would still exist seven years after its launch. But none of us thought that the MMORPG would still be so successful after 7 years.
We managed to launch ESO in 2014 and to continuously develop the game over time to make it more accessible for the players. This has resulted in our later years, especially the last year, being more successful than most of the years before. In many ways, ESO is still growing, which we certainly did not expect.
The trailer for ESO: Blackwood reveals more about the new story.
ESO will run for a long time
How long will ESO continue to run? The MMORPG launched in April 2014 on PC and in the summer of 2015 on PS4 and Xbox One. With seven years, ESO is no longer the youngest online role-playing game, but there are significantly older genre representatives that are still active.
However, MMORPGs are occasionally discontinued, and the fans lose their second home because of this. Therefore, the question of how long ESO will run is interesting for the community. Regarding this, producer Matt Firor from Zenimax Studios has commented:
That is a question we keep asking ourselves. And, I think, the answer is quite simple. The community will tell us when the game starts to head towards its end. But that is not the case yet. We are still growing in many ways.
ESO is a global game. We have people from almost every country in the world that log in at some point. It is huge and played by a very, very diverse group of people. It’s not just “hardcore MMO fans”. … People will continue to play it, and we will continue to create content for them as long as they are there.
So as long as ESO has fans and is played with enjoyment, the servers will continue to run. That should be reassuring for the community. It will also continue after the Blackwood expansion.
ESO is not really an MMO? Matt Firor mentioned another interesting thing, as he states that the team does not see ESO as an MMORPG at all. He explains that the development of the game began in 2007. At that time, the goal was to develop an MMO for the popular role-playing series The Elder Scrolls. However, over the years, the gaming market changed. When ESO was released in 2014, the developers no longer saw it as an MMO.
It simply had too little in common with the MMORPGs that were successful at that time. It was not World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, or Everquest. The gameplay differed too much from these titles. For example, there was no tab-targeting, quests were presented differently, and there was not too much grinding. Instead, ESO was meant to be an online game where players could experience adventures together.
Matt Firor explains:
We wanted to let many people online experience the fun elements of a fantasy game, but we did not want the baggage of older titles.
Do you play ESO and does Matt Firor’s statement about how long the MMORPG will last reassure you?
Would you like to dive into the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online? Blackwood is ideal for this, as the MMORPG finally gets a proper start – Here’s what the new tutorial looks like.
