We’ve been speculating for the last few weeks on what would be in the Elder Scrolls Online end-of-the-year letter and whether it would portend a change-up to the game’s content cadence after all these years. Apparently, yes – in a very big and potentially worrisome way.
In his address to players today, Elder Scrolls Online’s Matt Firor says that the game is moving to a seasonal model with smaller updates – which effectively means no more large-scale expansions aka chapters.
“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.”
That said, Firor does clarify that 2025 will be a “transition year” and will still offer zone-based content, but going forward ZOS will limit the addition of “giant new landmasses” in favor of adding content and quests to existing zones and areas with old familiar characters and storylines focused on core Elder Scrolls factions, as well as adding new territories in smaller chunks.
“We have been hearing from you, the community, that we need to experiment more, to shake things up and not be so predictable,” he writes. “The game needs new and different types of content, and for long-standing feedback to be addressed.”
Those goals include addressing performance in Cyrodiil, boosting overland combat difficulty, improving combat animations and effects, adding tools for guilds, and experimenting with high-end gearing content like Craglorn. Revamping the user experience is also high on the list, alongside a new patcher for PC, improving the tutorial, visually improving base game zones with better art assets (starts in March), removing compass pins for newbies (what?), and revamping the map and UI.
It sounds as if the first big announcement of 2025 will be coming in April, when the first season is announced, following the March content update – so don’t expect the traditional January reveal.
Finally, following the upsetting admission that ZeniMax Online Studios has canceled the major NA community event next year, Firor says that the team needs to “focus on the game itself for a while this year,” which isn’t expressly given as a reason for the cancelation but is apparently meant to be read that way.
Unsurprisingly, the fanbase is on the wary-to-panicked spectrum over the letter. The ESO community, like us, has been rumbling about the dullness and predictability of the Elder Scrolls Online content cadence for literally years, and most of the things on the studio’s to-do list address longstanding complaints from veteran players. However, the game’s reliability and strong content output was also what ensured its place in the Big Five MMOs of the genre, and losing both at the same time is nerve-wracking.
On Reddit, for example, the phrase “maintenance mode” is already getting some play, as gamers are understandably nervous about such a massive change and what it really says about the game’s budget, whether it will entail annoying seasonal monetization bumps, and what it actually portends for the scale of content going forward.
