ESO follows in Destiny's footsteps. Devs focus on smaller updates, seasons and experimentation
The developers of The Elder Scrolls Online are abandoning annual updates and will instead introduce shorter seasons and content experimentation.
The Elder Scrolls Online will focus on bold but smaller updates and seasons.
The developers of the MMORPG set in the universe of the popular RPG series have revealed their development plans for the game in 2025 and beyond in a post published on the title's official website. Along with summarizing the last 12 months, Matt Firor, director of ZeniMax Online, announced that after 7 years, the company is discontinuing large, yearly updates and chapters.
The studio intends to release smaller bundles of new content instead. This is to allow the developers to "experiment" with the development of the game. Large annual updates required the development of various types of content simultaneously, which didn't leave much time for changes to the existing formula.
New form of content and the impact of the community on the development of ESO
The company had been preparing for this since at least last year, but we will only see the results of these plans now. Details on the new content tied to regions and seasons won't be revealed until April (Firor promised players that they will receive the update in March). This is because 2025 will serve as a transitional phase, introducing seasons that will each span from 3 to 6 months.
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.
Later in the post, Firor mentioned changes and fixes dictated by community feedback. These include: improving the province of Cyrodiil (so it doesn't lag behind the latest content), increasing the level of challenge in regular fights, and various enhancements related to guilds. The developers also want to improve the gameplay experience for both newcomers and ESO veterans.
At the same time, narrative and “great stories” are still expected to be an important part of The Elder Scrolls Online. However, it may not necessarily be associated with new locations now. Instead, the ZeniMax Online team will focus on introducing or expanding storylines in the current in-game regions.
Players praise many ideas presented by Firor, but some fans remain skeptical about the season formula. Some of the concerns were dispelled by the devs' responses to internet users' questions. It was confirmed, among other things, that seasonal content such as quests and new regions wouldn't be removed after the end of the season. Overall, the changes aroused considerable interest. Nevertheless, some players prefer to wait for more accurate information.
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