ZeniMax CEO Matt Firor revealed in a letter to the community what will change in The Elder Scrolls Online starting in 2025. Spoiler: A lot!
What does Matt Firor announce? In the annual year-end letter to the community, the studio head of ZeniMax Online Studios explained – as has been the custom for years – what 2024 holds for the developers and what players of the MMORPG can expect for the upcoming year.
While they are satisfied with the content released in 2024, Matt Firor stated, they want to break away from the structure established with Morrowind in 2017, which consisted of DLCs, free updates, and a major chapter for the future. In other words: Gold Road was the last paid chapter that ESO will receive in the foreseeable future.
The last launch trailer for a chapter of ESO:
The Age of Seasons Begins
What comes instead of chapters and DLCs? According to Matt Firor, the previous update corset, which required DLCs and the chapter to be finished by a certain time of year, was responsible for the lack of experimentation in recent years. Therefore, they want to adopt a more flexible model of seasonal content in the future.
- Starting in 2025, there will be three- or six-month seasons that will deliver a mix of thematically appropriate story content, events, dungeons, shop additions, and more.
- In addition to smaller content bits, larger innovations are also planned, some of which the developers have been working on for over a year.
- For instance, there will still be area-based content in 2025, which will be presented in April. In the medium term, however, the plan is to let the new story content take place in existing areas, completing current but still open narrative threads and bringing familiar characters back into the spotlight.
- As part of the seasons, the community’s desire to take more risks and experiment will be fulfilled. They want to be less predictable and try new types of content.
The developers’ goal is to provide a broader range of content throughout the year and to be able to release content, updates, fixes, and systems more efficiently and in better condition.
According to Matt Firor, among the ideas the developers are currently working on is a Cyrodiil campaign “in which all classes will have PvP-specific (and performance-friendly) skills that will replace the standard skills of the players.” Additionally, they are considering raising the difficulty of battles in the open world.
Furthermore, they want to continue improving the experience for new players or returning players so that they do not feel overwhelmed by the vast scope of ESO. This includes a fresh launcher as well as improvements to the tutorial, visual enhancements for the base game areas, and optimizations of the UI, map, and compass.
What do you think of this new plan for Elder Scrolls Online? Let us know in the comments! By the way, did you hear that players affected by the database issues will receive compensation? Elder Scrolls Online compensates players – but not everyone benefits from it
