The MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online struggled with some long waiting times last weekend. But where did these come from and why is it currently as popular on Google Trends as it was in 2021? We will tell you.
What happened with ESO? This weekend, three things came together for ESO:
- From July 20 to July 27, the base game of ESO was free at Epic Games. In general, the MMORPG can now be played permanently there.
- Currently, ESO+ is available for free for 7 days. This bonus ends on August 3.
- Until August 8, the “Zenithar’s Zeal” event is ongoing, where you can earn rewards for the first daily quest per day. This led many users to log in accordingly.
These three actions together caused sudden waiting times over the weekend. Players reported waiting times of 30, 80, and in some cases up to 120 minutes for login. Especially the EU servers were affected.
Both the release at Epic Games and the waiting times ultimately led to ESO generating a very high level of search queries. It reached its highest value on Google Trends since December 2021.
However, the placement in our ranking would not have changed: The 10 largest MMORPGs in Germany in 2023, according to Google.
Epic Games brings a bigger boost than the new expansion
Is Epic really the cause of the increase? Apparently yes. Because the search volume for the terms “Elder Scrolls Online Epic Games” and “ESO free” was very high. It is also noticeable that the player numbers on Steam did not experience a significant increase but are even declining.
When the new expansion Necrom launched, around 30,000 players were at peak, but recently it was more like 22,000 to 24,000 (via SteamDB).
In general, Necrom has caused little attention. Despite the new class Arcanist, there was no significant increase in search volume and no major spikes in the press.
This looked a bit different in the past days, where the interest reached its highest value in almost two years.
How will things continue for ESO? On August 21, the MMORPG will release the new Update 39 for PC and on September 5 for PlayStation and Xbox. This focuses on some “Quality of Life” changes, including adjustments in PvP, new daily quests, and a general update of the quest structure.
At the end of the year, a special patch is expected to be released. This will bring a major innovation for dungeons and break the old update pattern. However, there are still not many details available. We have summarized everything here: The MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online will get an endless dungeon in 2023 – what we know.
What do you think of ESO’s current surge? Is it deserved and should more people generally take a look at the MMORPG? Or are you rather surprised where this interest is coming from?
