New Development Plan for The Elder Scrolls Online — Seasons, Battle Passes, and More
Once again, developers at ZeniMax Online Studios are changing the development plan for The Elder Scrolls Online. This year, the game is transitioning to a seasonal model, which means players can expect the introduction of battle passes, dubbed "Tamriel Tomes." The creators claim that the seasons will allow them to "respond more effectively to feedback and introduce various types of content that are not tied to a rigid structure like chapters were."
Let's start with the positive — from now on, new zones, classes, challenges, dungeons, and story expansions will be free. As part of this initiative, the already released expansions "Thieves Guild," "Dark Brotherhood," and "Orsinium" will be included in the base version of the game with the start of the zero season, and "Greymoor" will join them in the second season. Additionally, the aforementioned Thieves Guild will receive a new questline, and updates will now be released on PC and consoles simultaneously.
In the zero season, developers promise additional difficulty options and class improvements — both visual and gameplay. The team acknowledged that the introduction of subclasses negatively impacted the competitiveness of "pure" classes, so they will now adjust skill trees to make them more viable. Another pleasant bonus awaits werewolf fans — a female werewolf model will finally be added in June. In the same month, a PvP update is expected as ZeniMax introduces a new system.
Returning to seasonal passes — "Tamriel Tomes" will replace daily login rewards. The mechanics are not particularly original. During the season, players will "flip through" the tome's pages to unlock developer-prepared content. Each season lasts for 3 months. Since the main content will now be free, ESO+ subscribers can expect another bonus in the form of "tome points," which they will earn at an accelerated pace. ZeniMax promises that battle passes will have tasks for all types of players, whether they prefer quests, dungeons, or PvP.
There will be three versions of "Tamriel Tomes":
- Free — automatically granted to all players at the beginning of the season.
- Premium — a paid version that unlocks access to premium rewards (cosmetics that do not affect gameplay). Additionally, the pass remains active after the season ends, allowing players to unlock all content at their own pace.
- Premium with bonuses — everything above plus two caches with 2,000 "tome points" each and instant access to a unique collectible item.
Alongside "Tamriel Tomes," the team introduced the following improvements for the upcoming major update number 49:
- Return of the 30-day window for guild traders.
- Option to hide equipment on the chest, waist, legs, arms, and feet.
- Ability to redistribute skills and attributes directly from the user interface without any cost.
- Selection of tracked objects in the zone.
- 16 mounts will be available for purchase with in-game gold (one of them brand new).
- Cure for vampirism and lycanthropy will be free.
- Vampire and werewolf bites will be removed from the store.
- Much more.
The update will be released on March 9, and the zero season launch with the first battle pass is scheduled for April 2.