Grab a stunning outfit blessed by Dibella herself during the Love Calls from Tamriel Golden Pursuits campaign.

The Love Calls from Tamriel Golden Pursuits campaign is live and will continue to run until February 19 at 10AM EST. Throughout this campaign period, complete labors (of love) to earn pages for the stunning Dibella’s Exaltation outfit style!

Below, you can see how many Golden Pursuits activities you must complete before unlocking each specific reward page:

• Complete one activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Boots
• Complete two activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Belt
• Complete four activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Bracers
• Complete six activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Guards
• Complete eight activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Arm Cops
• Complete 10 activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Helmet
• Complete 12 activities—Dibella’s Exaltation Jack

Dibella’s Exaltation Outfit Style

There are 15 different activities available to tackle, and no restrictions on which ones you can take on to meet each milestone!

Flaunt a gorgeous outfit touched by a Divine during the Love Calls from Tamriel Golden Pursuits campaign! If you’d like to learn more, be sure to head over to your Group & Activity Finder, where you can track progress, claim rewards, and view all currently available campaign activities. For more info on Golden Pursuits, check out this guide.

Are you excited to unlock this new style as you spread love throughout Tamriel during February’s first Golden Pursuits campaign? Let us know via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook—have fun!

Love and war come to Tamriel this February, bringing a host of exciting events, rewards, and more—check out our roadmap here!

We got the new year off to a rollicking start during the month of January, and this February keeps the pace with new events, Golden Pursuits campaigns (yes, multiple ones!), and more. You can check out what is coming to ESO in February below.

Note that some dates and details may change between the time of this blog’s publication and when these highlights officially kick off.


Ongoing Pan-Tamriel Celebration (1/23-2/4)

There are still a few days remaining in the ongoing Pan-Tamriel Celebration in-game event, which means you still have time to claim some great bonus rewards as you adventure and explore Tamriel. For all the activities, rewards, and details, visit this official blog. Similarly, the New Year, New Adventure Golden Pursuits campaign is also ongoing and ends February 4—complete those activities now!



February Daily Login Rewards (2/1-28)

There’s 28 days of goodies you can claim throughout the month of February, simply by logging in. Highlights include sweetroll bundles (on day 7), some lovely tree furnishings (on days 14 and 21), and some ever-useful Instant All Research Scrolls (Day 27)—don’t forget you have to log in to the game each day to progress and claim each reward!



Golden Pursuits—Love Calls from Tamriel (2/5-19)

In the spirit of Tamriel’s Heart’s Day, you can earn a striking new Dibella-themed armor style as part of a romantic new Golden Pursuits campaign. Don’t worry, activities for the campaign will remain as varied as always with both group AND solo challenges. Keep an eye out on the website and in game for more information on the day.

Unlock pages for a lovely new style!

Crazy King Battlegrounds Weekend (2/6-11)

Compete in Crazy King Battlegrounds PvP matches over this special weekend to earn bonus Alliance Points—go capture those (ever shifting) points!



Gilded Glory Mini-Event (2/13-18)

Enjoy a 100% boost to gold gains from a host of in-game activities, including slaying monsters, completing quests, and more during this limited-time mini-event. Daily quest NPCs beware—the cost of doing business has just gone up!



Whitestrake’s Mayhem In-Game Event (2/20-3/4)

Cry havoc, and let slip the guar of war—the Whitestrake’s Mayhem PvP event returns! Battle your fellow players in ESO’s PvP game modes for bonus rewards and glory. Watch for the official announcement blog with all the details on the official website a few days before the mayhem begins.

Battle within the Imperial City during Whitestrake’s Mayhem

Golden Pursuits—Mayhem on the Battlefield (2/20-3/6)

If you’re a fighter not a lover, you’ll enjoy this new Golden Pursuits campaign that puts the focus squarely on battling your fellow players (and coincidentally running through Whitestrake’s Mayhem!). A new Customized Action is up for grabs, so once again look out for more information on the web and in game soon.



This is just some of the fun we have planned for ESO in the upcoming month. As ever, keep an eye on the official website and our social channels (X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook) for all the latest information, updates, and news, including new Fallen Banner/Update 45 previews, livestreams, and more—have fun this February!

Earn a collection of goodies while questing throughout Tamriel via the New Year, New Adventure Golden Pursuits campaign.
The New Year, New Adventure Golden Pursuits campaign begins today, Tuesday, January 21 at 10AM EST, and runs until February 4 at 10AM EST! During this campaign period, you can obtain a variety of awesome in-game rewards including copious Transmutation Geodes, a statue of an iconic figure, and a new 10-Year Anniversary costume.

Let’s take a peek at the milestone rewards and learn how many New Year, New Adventures campaign activities must be completed before you can collect your rewards:

• Complete two activities—25,000 Gold
• Complete four activities—100 Transmutation Geodes
• Complete six activities—Statue, High Elf Hero
• Complete eight activities—75,000 Gold
• Complete 12 activities—10-Year Anniversary Elven Hero costume

A heaping helping of Gold & Statue, High Elf Hero furnishing

10-Year Anniversary Elven Hero Costume

With 18 different activities available, you’re free to tackle whatever Golden Pursuits challenges you desire!
Claim an array of sweet rewards as you set forth on a brand-new journey this January during the New Year, New Adventures Golden Pursuits campaign! To learn more about this month’s campaign, be sure to check out your Group & Activity Finder. From there, you can track your progress, claim rewards, and view all available campaign activities. For more on Golden Pursuits, check out this guide.

Are you excited to gain new rewards as you adventure across Tamriel? Let us know on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook—have fun!

Obtain new and returning rewards taken from ESO’s long history during a special in-game event!

A Party Across Tamriel The Pan-Tamriel Celebration kicks off Thursday, January 23 at 10AM EST, and runs until Tuesday, February 4 at 10AM EST. Part of The Elder Scrolls Online 10-Year Anniversary Celebration, this in-game event allows you to acquire a massive variety of bonus rewards as you adventure throughout Tamriel.

You don’t need to own any one specific Chapter or DLC to participate in this event, but to receive the full experience it is recommended you have access to the Necrom, High Isle, Blackwood, Greymoor, Elsweyr, Summerset and Morrowind Chapters as well as their corresponding DLCs. You can get access via ESO Plus™ membership or purchase them for crowns from the in-game Crown Store.

During the Pan-Tamriel Celebration, you can earn a Glorious Reward Box once per day each time you complete one of the following:

• Defeat and loot any delve boss
• Defeat and loot any public dungeon boss
• Defeat and loot any final dungeon boss
• Defeat and loot any final trial boss
• Defeat and loot any world boss
• Defeat and loot any final arena boss
• Defeat Tho'at Replicanum in the Infinite Archive
• Completing any incursion event

Glorious Reward Boxes may contain the following items:

• Random basic crafting materials
• Random rare crafting materials
• Random motif, style item, or furnishing recipe from anywhere throughout ESO
• Treasure Map from anywhere throughout ESO
• Transmute Geode containing one to 10 Transmute Crystals
• Style page for the NEW Lion Guard Captain style

You can also collect the more common Regular Reward Boxes by repeating the aforementioned activities. Regular Reward Boxes may contain the following items:

• Random basic crafting materials
• Random rare crafting materials
• A chance for a random motif, style item, or furnishing recipe from anywhere throughout ESO
• A chance for a Treasure Map from anywhere throughout ESO
• A chance for a Transmute Geode containing 1 to 10 Transmute Crystals
• A chance for a random reward from previous years’ Celebrations based on your location
• Necrom
• Apocrypha Expedition outfit style page
• High Isle
• Oaken Order outfit style page
• Blackwood
• Y'ffre's Fallen-Wood outfit style page
• Greymoor
• Saarthal Scholar outfit style page
• Sovngarde Stalwart outfit style page
• Elsweyr
• Claw-Dance Acolyte outfit style page
• Ja'zennji Siir outfit style page
• Summerset
• Evergloam Champion outfit style page
• Snowhawk Mage outfit style page
• Gloam Gryphon Fledgling pet
• Morrowind
• Doctrine Ordinator outfit style page
• Slag Town Diver skin
• Thetys Ramarys's Bait Kit memento
• Microtized Verminous Fabricant pet

But that’s not all! In addition to these Reward Boxes, you can enjoy a higher chance to secure valuable loot including antiquity leads, furnishings, and more earned in chests dug up using Treasure Maps. Also, fishing drops will be curated so that whenever you reel in a trophy fish, you will be guaranteed a previously uncollected drop.

Additionally, during the Pan-Tamriel Celebration, you’ll have the opportunity to secure the following exclusive replica style pages from last year’s Anniversary Jubilee in-game event:

• Trueflame Sword Replica—Rare drop from fishing
• The drop chance increases if you have the Dominion, Covenant, or Pact Fisherman achievement.
• The chance increases further if you have all base-game Master Angler achievements.
• Staff of Worms Replica—Rare drop from Dark Anchors
• The drop chance increases if you have the Dominion, Covenant, or Pact Anchor Shatterer achievement.
• The chance increases further if you have the Anchors Away achievement.
• Sunna'rah Replica and Barbas Helmet Replica—Rare drop from Vvardenfell world bosses
• The drop chance increases if you have the Defender of Morrowind achievement.
• The chance increases further if you have the Savior of Morrowind achievement.
• Ul'Vor Staff Replica—Rare drop from Abyssal Geysers
• The drop chance increases if you have the Abyssal Devastator achievement.
• The chance increases further if you have the Savior of Summerset achievement.

Throughout the Pan-Tamriel Celebration, you can earn three Event Tickets for completing the first of the following activities once per day:

• Looting any delve boss
• Looting any public dungeon boss
• Looting any final dungeon boss
• Looting any final trial boss
• Looting any world boss
• Looting any final arena boss
• Defeating Tho'at Replicanum in the Infinite Archive
• Completing any incursion event (Anchors, Geysers, Dragons, etc.)

If you participate in each day of the Celebration, you can secure a tremendous total of 36 Event Tickets by the event’s conclusion. Be sure to remember that you can carry only 12 Tickets at one time, so be sure to spend them before collecting more!

Let’s peek at what the Impresario has in stock:

• All three Stonewisp of Truth and Law pet fragments
• Axiomatic Runestones
• Glyph of Law
• Powdered Wisp Remains
• First fragment for the Logical Rune Extraction customized action
• Exalted Icon of Logic
• Bound style pages for the NEW Lion Guard Captain outfit style
• Impresario Group Repair Kits
• Companion Guild Commendations

The Pan-Tamriel Celebration will be your first chance to purchase the Exalted Icon of Logic, the first morphing fragment needed for the first morphing collectible of 2025, the Logical Rune Extraction customized action.

In addition to the Impresario’s offers, her assistant, Philius Dormier, is refreshing their shop with the following morphing fragments in exchange for Event Tickets:

• Unstable Morpholith Fragments
• Deadlands Flint
• Rune-Etched Striker
• Smoldering Bloodgrass Tinder
• Soulfire Dragon Illusion Fragments
• Hallowed Hourglass Basin
• Illuminated Dragon Scroll
• Kvatchian Incense
• Doomchar Plateau Fragments
• Scorching Pillar
• Searing Column
• Molten Key
• Profane Pedestal
• Unholy Tablet
• Sacred Hourglass of Alksh Fragments
• Engraved Glassblowing Tools
• Hallowed White-Gold Ingot
• Mysterious Time-Lost Sands

What’s more, Dormier has dug up an impressive collection of rewards from previous years’ Celebrations and is ready to trade them in for your hard-earned Event Tickets.

Be sure to know what items you want to purchase beforehand as the shop’s available stock differs depending on the region you encounter Philius Dormier:

• Necrom
• Apocrypha Expedition outfit style page
• Gonfalon Bay
• Oaken Order outfit style page
• Leyawiin
• Y'ffre's Fallen-Wood outfit style page
• Voriplasm pet components
• Solitude
• Saarthal Scholar outfit style page
• Sovngarde Stalwart outfit style page
• Rimmen
• Claw-Dance Acolyte outfit style page
• Ja'zennji Siir outfit style page
• Alinor
• Evergloam Champion outfit style page
• Snowhawk Mage outfit style page
• Wooden Grave-Stake fragments
• Gloam Gryphon Fledgling pet
• Vivec City
• Doctrine Ordinator outfit style page
• Slag Town Diver skin
• Thetys Ramarys's Bait Kit memento
• Microtized Verminous Fabricant pet

Last but not least, Nenulaure the Indrik Vendor is stocking her shop’s inventory with the following items available to purchase in exchange for Event Tickets:

• Nascent Indrik Feathers
• Dawnwood Indrik Berries
• Spectral Indrik Berries
• Springtide Indrik Pet
• Haunting Indrik Pet

Join us in celebrating a decade of adventures across Tamriel and beyond while collecting rewards both old and new during the Pan-Tamriel Celebration! Are you ready to earn some awesome loot while revisiting iconic locations from throughout ESO’s history? Let us know via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, or Facebook!

The Pan-Tamriel Celebration in-game event begins next Thursday, January 23 at 10AM EST, and continues until Tuesday, February 4 at 10AM EST.

Dive into 2025’s new adventures by helping test Fallen Banners and Update 45 on the PC/Mac Public Test Server!

The Public Test Server (PTS) has now been updated to include both the upcoming Fallen Banners dungeon pack and the Update 45 base-game patch, giving you access to two new dungeons, refreshed starter zones, the features for the Cyrodiil Champions Test campaign, and a host of quality-of-life improvements, including improvements to Craft (green) Champion points! 

To access the PTS, go to the Settings menu within the PC/Mac ESO launcher by toggling the “Show Public Test Environment” option. You can then download and access the game client, which also grants you immediate access to the Fallen Banners dungeons to test. As a result, you shouldn't need to purchase it on the test server's Crown Store. Don’t forget to leave feedback and report any bugs you come across by typing “/feedback” or “/bug” in chat. If you want to learn about the features coming in Update 45 or anything else to do with the patch, be sure to check out the preview blog and PTS Patch Notes on the ESO forums.

Which of Update 45’s new features do you expect to shake up your year the most? Let us know via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

Learn more about the upcoming Update 45 base-game patch and the new Fallen Banners dungeon DLC.

The Update 45 base-game patch and Fallen Banners dungeon DLC arrives March 10 on PC/Mac and March 25 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles. While the U45 base-game patch is free for all ESO players, an ESO Plus™ membership is required to access and play the Fallen Banners dungeon DLC.

Kicking off the year’s adventures and challenges, Fallen Banners introduces two new four-player dungeons for you and your team to explore.



Exiled Redoubt

As the continent-spanning Alliance War continues to ravage Tamriel, the Imperial Battlemage Lucilla needs your help investigating the mysterious disappearances of its soldiers. Join Lucilla in infiltrating the stronghold of the once-proud House Albus and discover a plot that threatens to condemn the people of Cyrodiil to endless war.

Fight for peace in Exiled Redoubt



Lep Seclusa

The Moth Priest sanctuary of Lep Seclusa is besieged, and the Elder Scroll it protects is threatened. You and your allies must defend the Moth Priests and their precious relic from the sinister Orpheon the Tactician and his army of deserters.

Defend the sanctuary of Lep Seclusa

Both dungeons feature their own unique storylines, characters, challenges (including unique boss battles), and secrets. Complete these dungeons and you’ll also discover unique rewards, including item sets, collectibles, and Achievements available only in these encounters.

As mentioned above, if you wish to tackle these two new Alliance War-themed dungeons, you’ll need an active ESO Plus membership. The dungeon DLC will NOT be available for purchase for crowns at launch.


Arriving in tandem with the dungeon DLC is the Update 45 base-game patch. This free update includes a host of changes and improvements that all ESO players can enjoy.


Cyrodiil Champions Test Campaign

Update 45 introduces the early stages of the new Cyrodiil Champions test PvP campaign. When playing a Cyrodiil Champions test campaign, you and your fellow players are locked to specific class builds, including abilities, attributes, and items. This test allows us to monitor how the server reacts to simplified abilities, with the goal being to collect data and help us plan for the future of Cyrodiil and abilities.

During this test, seven set Cyrodiil Champion classes are available, and access to some features are blocked, including Crown Store provisions, items not included in the class templates, and more. During a Cyrodiil Champions campaign, all competitors are at equal power levels—it all comes down to skill!

Note that with Update 45, we are only just beginning to test the Cyrodiil Champions campaigns. Expect a full rollout with greater options and a more polished experience in the future.


Starter Zone Refresh

The starter zones of Betnikh, Stros M’kai, Bleakrock, Bal Foyen, and Khenarthi’s Roost have all undergone a makeover, bringing them more in line visually with the detail of ESO’s recent additions such as West Weald or the Telvanni Peninsula.

These starter zones have received improvements to their terrain transitions, materials and lighting, and atmosphere. Signs and banners have been positioned to better highlight services (such as crafting or banking locations), and lighting has been adjusted to better define important paths and other areas of detail. With the addition of more organic clutter and props, various portions of the zones should feel a little less sparse and a little more lived in—go check them out!


Quality-of-Life Improvements

This base-game patch also features a host of quality-of-life improvements to the game. This includes an improvement to the initial mount experience by significantly increasing their starting movement speed value (without dramatically increasing their top end speed). The team has also reworked specific Craft (green) Champion stars so they no longer need to be slotted for you to benefit from their effects. Finally, the team has also increased the visibility of the value of Mundus Stone Boons, including reminders as to when and where you can find them.

This is just the start of a series of general improvements to the player experience in ESO. Keep an eye out for even more additions and tweaks like the above throughout this year’s updates.

Tamriel is besieged on all sides, and the people of Cyrodiil need heroes, no matter what side of the conflict they are on. Are you ready to take up arms and defend the Moth Priests of Lep Seclusa or the forgotten soldiers of the Three Banners War? Are you excited to learn more about the various updates and improvements coming to the overall ESO experience? Let us know via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook.

Get a first look at ESO’s upcoming base-game update and adventures with a new preview livestream.

A new year means new adventures for Tamriel’s heroes, and we’re thrilled to reveal just the first part of 2025’s releases during the Update 45 Preview Livestream. Tune in to https://www.twitch.tv/Bethesda at 2PM EST this coming Thursday, January 9, as ESO Community Team members Jess Folsom and Gina Bruno are joined by Lead Encounter Designer Mike Finnigan and Lead Combat & PvP Designer Brian Wheeler for an early look at both the Update 45 base-game patch and the first dungeon DLC of the year!

As announced in our Studio Director’s letter last December, the 2025 ESO Global Reveal will take place in April this year, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some amazing stuff to reveal between now and then.

Drops will be enabled during the show, so don’t forget to link your ESO and Twitch accounts before it all kicks off on https://www.twitch.tv/Bethesda at 2PM EST this coming Thursday, January 9 —see you there!

Keep yourself well-stocked for the year’s upcoming challenges with these rewards you can claim simply by logging into The Elder Scrolls Online!

This January, we’re starting the year off with a special thank you for our players on the first two days of logins, as we appreciate everyone’s patience with recent server outages. We hope you find these enhanced login rewards (detailed below) to be a great start to a great year.

Claim these and other rewards to begin the New Year supplied for anything. Want to know more about Daily Login Rewards? Read over this helpful article to discover everything you’ll need to know.

Here are a few of the major highlights you can claim throughout January 2025!


Seals of Endeavor ×1000, Grand Gold Coast Experience Scroll ×5—Days 1-2

Thank you to the players of ESO!

On your first day of logging in this month, you’ll receive a full 1,000 Seals of Endeavor right off the bat, and logging in for a second day will give you a hefty stack of 5 Grand Coast Experience Scrolls for heavily boosted XP gain. We hope both make your time in Tamriel that much more enjoyable!


Riding Lessons—Days 4-6

Ride out and meet the New Year

What better way to approach the New Year than on your mount, racing forward to new opportunities? Thanks to these Riding Lessons that increase your mount’s speed, stamina, and capacity, you can hit the ground galloping. Claim three Crown Lessons: Riding Speed on your fourth day of logins, followed by three Crown Lessons: Riding Stamina on your fifth day, and finally three Crown Lessons: Riding Capacity on your sixth day of logging into ESO this month.


Winter Furnishings—Days 7, 14, and 21

Stay cozy when snowed in

If you ever need a break from adventuring out in the cold and wintry weather, head to your in-game house and place these furnishings by your hearth! You’ll receive two each of the following furnishings: Nord Drinking Horn, Display on the seventh day you log in this month, Nord Candle, Antler after your 14^th daily login, and Nord Brazier, Hanging with 21 days spent logging into ESO.



Grand Gold Coast Experience Scroll ×1—Day 19

Open yourself to new experiences

Been on a leveling streak and already used your scrolls from the beginning of the month? Why not have another scroll on your nineteenth day of logins and carry it even further—you incredible power-leveler, you.


This isn’t even everything you can claim this January to help you take on the new year. Head in game and take a look at the Daily Rewards section of the in-game Crown Store to see the full list. And be sure to let us know your plans for these spoils—and for the New Year—in ESO via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

Enjoy up to 67% off the Gold Road Chapter and up to 40% off select Crown Packs during ESO's end-of-year sale.

The 2024 ESO Holiday Sale is now live, allowing you to pick up The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road Chapter at up to 67% off and The Elder Scrolls Online: Standard Edition at up to 75% off. These seasonal deals are available across all platforms, including Xbox (Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S), PlayStation (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5), and PC/Mac (The Elder Scrolls Online Store, Steam, Epic Games Store).

You can enjoy these savings on all versions of the Gold Road Chapter (Collection, Deluxe Collection, Upgrade, and Deluxe Upgrade), allowing you to explore autumnal West Weald, traverse the many paths of fate, and master the art of Scribing!

To get started, visit our Buy Now page and select your edition.


In addition to savings on the latest Chapter and base game, we’re also providing some major discounts on Crown Packs:

• 21,000 Crowns—Up to 40% off
• 14,000 Crowns—Up to 35% off
• 5,500 Crowns—Up to 30% off
• 3,000 Crowns—Up to 25% off
• 1,500 Crowns—Up to 20% off

Ready to take advantage of these limited-time savings? Head over to the Buy Crowns page to grab your bundle of choice. You can use these crowns to purchase all sorts of convenient or cosmetic items from the in-game Crown Store such as pets, costumes, houses, skill lines, XP scrolls, and more. Check out what offers are currently available by visiting the Crown Store page.

Both discounts are available for a limited time and may conclude on different dates or have different availabilities depending on your platform and territory. To discover when your platform’s sale ends, check out the schedule below:

Xbox

• Standard Edition—December 13, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Gold Road—December 13, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Crown Packs—December 13, 2024-January 2, 2025

PlayStation

• Standard Edition—December 20 2024-January 6, 2025
• Gold Road Deluxe Editions—December 20 2024-January 6, 2025
• Crown Packs—December 20 2024-January 6, 2025

Elder Scrolls Online Store

• Standard Edition—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Gold Road—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Crown Packs—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025

Steam Store

• Standard Edition—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Gold Road—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025
• Crown Packs—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025

Epic Games Store

• Standard Edition—December 12, 2024-January 9, 2025
• Gold Road—December 12, 2024-January 9, 2025
• Crown Packs—December 19, 2024-January 2, 2025

These discounts on the Gold Road Chapter, ESO base game, and Crown Packs can provide you with an abundance of new adventures and opportunities this holiday season. Which of these deals are you planning to celebrate with during the 2024 ESO Holiday Sale? Let us know via X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

ZeniMax Online Studios’ Studio Director Matt Firor talks about another big year for The Elder Scrolls Online and some of the even bigger changes coming to the game in 2025 and beyond.

Welcome to everyone in the Elder Scrolls Online community! As the year is drawing to a close, I’m going to take some time to walk you through my thoughts on 2024 – and look ahead to 2025 and how ESO will be evolving to meet the changing needs of the community. 

First, a few notes about 2024. I probably say this every year, but 2024’s ESO content was among my favorite. I loved the vibe and story of Gold Road, and now that Home Tours is allowing me to see so many other people’s homes, I’m seriously considering making Merryvine Estate my main house – although it will take a lot to unseat me from Mournoth Keep…  2024 showed that we are still creating wonderful content for all our players. We ended the year with two new Companions – I am currently adventuring with Zerith-var, although I’m early in my journey with him – as well some fun tweaks to Battlegrounds, and much more. I look back on 2024’s content and updates, and am very satisfied with our story, content, and systems updates.

It was wonderful to spend time with fans in person in April at our Amsterdam 10 Year Anniversary event, and for team members – sadly I could not make it – to attend the German ESO Tavern in July. We had many other smaller regional community events – some for the first time in their territories – sprinkled throughout the year, where fans of the game got to meet one another and share stories about their shared time in Tamriel.

And now it is time to look forward, which will comprise most of this end of year message. Change is a constant, especially in gaming. The gaming industry changes, player habits change, other games come and go. In fact, change has been constant since ESO launched in 2014. We have been able to keep up with the times, make hard decisions and big changes when it was time to make them. Looking back on all the changes that have gotten us here, it is pretty clear that we have generally made the right decisions at the right times for our game. And now, we are looking forward to 2025 and how we can change ESO to keep it relevant, awesome, and compelling. 

Since 2017, we have released amazing content and systems every year - but always on the same schedule. This annual cadence pushed the team to focus on short deadlines – every June – where all types of content (systems, content, zones, etc.) had to be completed at the same time and has not left us much time for experimentation or thinking about doing things differently.

At the end of last year, we gave a slight heads up that we would be shaking things up. Our lead times are so long that we were already planning for some of these changes back then. And, I’m very happy to say that starting in 2025, you'll see new ideas and ways of launching content start rolling out. 



We have been incredibly successful with our strong annual Chapter releases: starting with Morrowind in 2017 up through Gold Road just six months ago. Zone design and quest/content is at the core of every Elder Scrolls game, as our annual Chapter release model highlighted. We will still do lots of story content, but now, looking into 2025, we need to concentrate on different types of content to support all types of ESO players. So, we are putting Chapters aside and will be focusing on new types of content, and a new release philosophy. More on that below.

As 2025 will be a transition year for new content, we are going to have new zone-based content launch in 2025 - but you'll have to wait until April to hear the specifics about how it is different. Stay tuned!


  

Over the course of 2025 we will be moving more towards a seasonal content model and away from launching massive content updates once a year, as we did with Chapters. We will be talking much more about this in the future, but in 2025 expect to see named Seasons of three or six months duration with a mix of themed story content, events, store items, dungeons and more.  

2025 will be a mix of old and new as we move the dev team towards creating smaller bite-sized pieces of content. We will still have some larger items that we've been working on for over a year, which you'll see launch as well. 

Freeing up the dev team from needing to adhere to a strict annual cycle means we will be able to have teams launch content when it is ready throughout the year and not work to a date in June – this will let us focus on a greater variety of content spread over the year. This supports the new Seasons model, and will enable us to release content, updates, fixes, and systems in a more efficient manner.



We have been hearing from you, the community, that we need to experiment more, to shake things up and not be so predictable. The game needs new and different types of content, and for long-standing feedback to be addressed. We have already started on some ideas that will be tested in 2025. These systems and ideas will be clearly marked as "experiments" in patch notes and are ideas that may or may not be fleshed out into full game systems. With our new focus on breaking up content into seasons and away from years, it gives us time to do these experiments and changes.

Here are some of the ideas that we are working on, some of which you may see on the live servers as tests in 2025 and beyond. Some of these will be tests and some will be improvements based on player feedback: 

• We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign

• Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat
• Improving the overall feel of combat with animation, FX, and potentially audio work
• Experimenting with more zones like Craglorn (although not as large in area or scope), created exclusively for high-end group and soft-group content with associated gear chase 
• Adding and refining tools to make guild recruitment, interaction, and management easier and more logical 
• We have many more ideas here, and of course, we are listening to you and will be coming up with new ideas based on your feedback 

It is long past time that we address ESO's new and returning user experience. The game is so large at this point that we need to refine the new user experience. Our goal is to shield new players from being overwhelmed by dozens of content options presented to them on entering the world, and instead give them the essential guidance they need to enjoy the game before opening it up to all possibilities.

Additionally, we have many millions of players who return to the game every year after taking months to years off – and it is often confusing to them what they should be doing. We need to address this by making sure that the game’s map and other quest/informational UI areas clearly show the user where they were when they left, what has been added since then, and where they will find content they will love. 

Here are just a few of the items planned to improve the new and returning user experience – some of these will launch in 2025, some afterwards:  

• A new patcher, with improved visuals and performance (PC only) 
• Returning to the original Wailing Prison tutorial area for all new players - this has already launched, but we will be regularly tweaking it to improve the experience 
• Visually improving base game zones with updated textures and art assets, starting with the "starter islands" - these should start rolling out in March 2025 
• Not showing new players prologue quest or Chapter quest compass pins. The jury is still out on how Stuga will feel about this
• Sprucing up the game's PC UI, which is long overdue for a modern visual upgrade
• Other map and UI systems (still in design/idea stage) to make returning to the game more seamless and get you back into the action quickly 

With the changes to our content release model, please be assured that we are not abandoning new quest content – but we will do it in different ways than we previously have. As our focus will not be on adding giant new landmasses – although we will do that from time to time – instead, we will use existing zones and areas to tell new stories. Some of these are:

• Continuing the stories in existing zones and storylines and bringing back familiar characters 
• New stories focused on hallmark Elder Scrolls organizations like Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Fighters Guild, and Mages Guild
• Splitting a large zone across multiple updates

We are embarking on these changes to give the development team the space to find a new cadence that can mix new content and systems with addressing feedback, fixing issues, and adding new quests and activities to existing zones and stories. It will not be as regular as the old annual cadence - so expect Season launches and new content, systems, and test announcements throughout the year, not necessarily in January as we have done since 2017. 

Speaking of, to give everyone a heads up, our next big announcement event will be in April 2025 as we introduce our first Season. There will be much more in the April announcement, but for that, you will have to wait. We will still have a content update in March 2025 (on PTS as normal in January), and we will give you more information about that sometime early in the new year.

You have already heard the news that we will not be doing a 2025 North American community event as we originally planned. This was a difficult decision, but as shown by all the planning and development changes listed here, we need to focus on the game itself for a while this year. That said, we will still see you at local community events in many territories, so stay tuned for announcements and details on those. 

And finally, my thanks to all of you. Thank you so much for being part of the wonderful community that makes up this amazing online virtual world. As I have said many times before, we would not be here without you. You all have navigated many changes throughout the years and have given us invaluable feedback that has helped steer our decision making since our beta program started in 2013. 

Have a wonderful holiday and see you in Tamriel!

Matt