During our time in Los Angeles at Summer Game Fest: Play Days 2026, we had the opportunity to chat with two key developers of The Elder Scrolls Online: Game Director Nick Giacomini and Associate Design Director Jason Barnes. Our interview dives into the upcoming Season 1 update, what players can expect with each Season, a return to Skyrim, and even potential Switch 2 support in the future. Thank you to Nick and Jason for their time and insights, and thank you to Bethesda for the opportunity! Please enjoy.
The Elder Scrolls Online is available now with PC Game Pass, giving subscribers immediate access to the MMORPG. What are some features that PC Game Pass subscribers can take advantage of in The Elder Scrolls Online?
Nick Giacomini (hereafter referred to as NG): Right now, we’ve just switched to this new seasonal model, and one of the things that we did with this new seasonal model is that everything new that we’re making is now free. For any of you who own the game, you have it.
For PC Game Pass players, they can jump right in and experience the latest and greatest that we’ve done. That includes the Night Market right now, which is ongoing. It’s our first-ever event zone. It’s a new type of zone and content that’s different than anything else we’ve done, and it’s really exciting. It’s really tight, action-packed, very difficult, and players can jump into that right now.
Tomorrow, we’re launching challenge difficulty. It’s a new difficulty setting for players. For those who want to experience more of a challenge and get more rewards, there are options to make the world feel more difficult, more dangerous. So that’s coming.
We have Veteran Seasons, our new PvP progression system, that’s coming. So they can dive in, get cosmetics, titles, things like that, players can work toward. Season 1 is just around the corner, and that’s coming out in July. Again, there’s no preorder. They don’t have to purchase it or anything. They can just experience it.
So it will be new quest lines, new systems, rumors, favors, Sage’s Vault, and dynamic encounters, in addition to lots of quests that are just around the corner. So yeah, a lot to take advantage of, plus the thousands of hours of content that existed over the base game and the DLCs that we just made free, like the original game, Imperial City, Orsinium, and Dark Brotherhood, that players can experience.
As you mentioned, there are thousands of hours of content, and with so many expansions available after more than 10 years of service, how can new and returning players keep track of the content they should play to get caught up?
NG: Right now, in terms of support in-game, that’s actually something that we’ve been talking about quite a bit recently, to provide better mechanisms to do that. We have nothing concrete to announce regarding that, but that is an ongoing topic of conversation.
That’s not just like, “Oh yeah, we talked about it and dismissed it.” It’s actually something that we really want to do to provide not just a more guided experience for players who want that, but to make it feel more cohesive, complete, and rewarding.
But no details to share on that right now, just that it’s an active conversation. Otherwise, we have this wonderful community with content creators and players who are extremely helpful. They’ve created guides in terms of what you want. If you want to play it in chronological order, this is the way to do it, this is where you go, etc. Players can reference those and go to them.
One of the great things about The Elder Scrolls Online, just like other Elder Scrolls games, and something we believe in, is to play the way you want. So you don’t have to play in a specific order.
You mentioned that Season 1 is right around the corner and ESO is transitioning to a seasonal model. Could you talk a little bit about that approach instead of the traditional expansion model that many other MMORPGs use, and what fueled that decision?
NG: Yeah, so we had the chapter model since 2017, which was very similar to a traditional expansion model. In our case, every single year, the new chapter came out, and it was a new zone. There was usually some kind of feature, like a new class or something like that, that came with it. There was a trial, dungeons, etc. That worked for us for a long time. It had a lot of benefits. It was dependable. Players knew that every year, “I’m going to get this big thing in June-ish and these other things here.” But it was really limiting. A chapter, like an expansion, is great, but it was this massive commitment. It took years, literally, in terms of start to finish. A huge amount of the team was all hands on deck for two years in order to build what a chapter was. That was extremely limiting, especially for a game that is 12 years old.
Now we’ve added all these different zones, and players were asking us to make more foundational changes, address issues, modernize the game, and excite them again. The chapter model was getting in the way in a lot of ways. In MMOs, you can inhabit our game in a way that most genres just don’t allow you to. It’s not a game you play from start to finish in 50 hours or something. There are thousands of hours of content. For many players, the game is home. For players who wear this as a home, they should have a say in how that home is built. A lot of them felt that way.
The chapter model was really restricted in terms of player feedback. Because again, two years. Let’s say a chapter comes out, and players say, “Oh, I like this. I didn’t like this. Could you please change this?” I’d love to, but we’re in the middle of the next chapter. So maybe we can get to it next year. It was really limiting. So we wanted to break free of that and have a content model that allows us to be more flexible, allows us to co-develop the game with our players. They have a really strong say in terms of what we’re building and how it’s being built. We wanted the space to be able to address foundational things.
We talked about how this game is 12 years old. We talked about how we want to be a 30-year-old game, which on one hand is like, “A 30-year-old game? That’s crazy.” But we’re almost at the halfway mark. When you really think about what a 30-year-old game entails, it’s not just adding a new zone, and a new zone, and a new zone. You have to evolve. You have to change. What MMOs looked like 20 years ago is very different than what they looked like 10 years ago. It’s very different from what they look like today.
We needed a model that allowed us to address the foundational components of the game, like combat, classes, the way that you engage in our content and systems, to make it more interesting, dynamic, and exciting in order to meet players where they are, and meet and exceed their expectations based on them playing this game for a long time and what they’d like to see. And what they’ve seen in other games as the competition has risen, we have to rise to meet it and exceed it. This new model allows more flexibility in terms of investing in all those things.
With the new model, is there still going to be expansion-esque content in upcoming seasons, such as zones or other story-based content?
Jason Barnes (hereafter referred to as JB): Yeah. As we’re kind of getting our feet under us and figuring out the seasonal model, we want to start with a lot of little things and a lot of new systems. One of our goals is always fleshing out the world more, giving players more things to find as they explore. That’s not just, “Oh, it’s a delve, it’s a dungeon.” That’s going to be a continued focus. But we have also heard the player base. They want new areas to explore, new zones, and new ways to approach content.
We’ve already talked about it a little bit. We haven’t announced anything formally, but we have said we are going back to Skyrim next year for a brand-new zone that is very iconic that we’ve never been to in ESO. With the seasonal model, you’ll see a little bit of this, a lot of that. It gives us the flexibility to hop back and forth. Season 1 is a good example. It’s a lot of things. It’s the Thieves Guild, the Sheogorath questline, and all these new systems and things like that that are integrated into the world itself. But then next year, you’ll see a larger chunk, something that encompasses more in a whole package that is similar to when we would release a big new zone. But it will have new things, new twists, and new ways to approach it that we’ve never seen in ESO before.
Hopefully, it doesn’t get away from what we’ve always done, which is story-based content and narrative challenges. We’re not going to make it super hard for players, with one-shots or anything like that. So the core player base will still have what they always love, but we’re adding new twists and turns, adjusting the rules, and changing the way that we’ve always done it. It’s going to be a mix of both. We have lots of plans to do exactly that. So yeah, you’ll see a mix.
That’s super exciting to hear, going back to Skyrim. Update 50 brought massive 900-player campaign battles in its Vengeance Alliance War campaign. What can players expect in terms of the overall gameplay loop and earnable rewards?
NG: Veteran Seasons is going to be coming out alongside Vengeance. Vengeance is going to be a permanent mode. For players who still want their traditional Cyrodiil experience, that’s going to be there. But Vengeance is coming out tomorrow to allow exactly that massive, chaotic experience. It’s really fun. I think it’s really fun.
Alongside that is Veteran Seasons, which is a proper progression system. It’s seasonal-based, so it’s not tied to the season series. I think it’s six-month-ish PvP seasons where players can progress primarily in any form through PvP. It can be Vengeance, it can be Cyrodiil, Imperial City, and Battlegrounds. As they gain AP and experience, to a lesser degree, they make progress in this new system and can unlock new perks, new cosmetics, some skill styles, outfit styles, new titles, and things like that.
I think that it’s one of those foundational things where, yes, there was progression within PvP. Sure, there are some unique item sets there. But now here’s a proper system with bespoke, unique cosmetics for players to get, work toward, and show their mastery over this form in our game that I’m really excited about. It’s not just a “here’s a new batch, and okay, we’ll see you in five years.” We’re updating this every six months with new rewards for players to be able to unlock, chase, and earn.
We’ve talked a little bit about Season 1. For players who might not have caught the news, what’s coming in Season 1? And maybe even a little tease beyond that, as we’ve talked about Skyrim coming next year.
JB: I think Season 1, the main focus is the Thieves Guild. It’s a new faction of the Thieves Guild that spins up in addition to the one that we already have, but it takes place in Daggerfall, which is one of our original base game zones. It’s a continuation of the story, but if you haven’t played the original story, that’s fine. But if you have, you get some extra conversations or some unique payoffs and things like that that you would normally get.
In addition to that, we’ve also made improvements to some of the more stealth-type gameplay. We’ve got a new item. It’s a powder that you can throw and distract NPCs so they don’t see you. We’ve added more things to the world that you can interact with. So you can jump into a giant plant to hide or hide behind curtains and stuff. If you’re doing a bunch of sneaky stuff, there are more ways to avoid guards.
We’re also doing a Sheogorath questline. It’s our new one, we’re calling it Tales of Tamriel. It’s something that we’ve never done before. All of our quests have always been very zone-based or area-based, and we wanted to start telling stories that brought you all around the world, to different zones, where you were traveling all over.
We decided to take the Daedric Prince of Madness and bring him to our world because he’s basically going on vacation to see what it feels like to be a mortal. Of course, that goes off the rails very quickly, hijinks ensue, and you’re off to the races. That’s some of our more traditional content that players are going to be familiar with, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, this is the type of ESO content.”
In addition to that, we’re introducing a bunch of new content systems. We have something called Favors, which is a new daily type of quest where you pick it up from this board that’s character-specific. There’s an ongoing storyline, so every day when you do it, you get a letter from them, and it progresses the story. It’s just a simple thing, nothing super complex, but it’s something to find in the world, something to do in addition to everything else.
We have a new system called Rumors, which I’m really excited about. I always say it’s like a throwback to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind-style questing, where you find things in the world, but you don’t really get any UI to tell you where to go. It’s like a puzzle or a mystery that you have to solve.
You may find a body in the woods, and there’s a note next to it that’s like, “Oh yeah, the boss is on to us. We need to figure out a plan. Meet me at this location.” That’s all you find. Then it’s up to the player to go to that location, dig around, and find more clues. There’s a whole UI element that will collect all the pieces that you have, and they all have multiple endings. So there are different ways to complete them. Some of them have secret endings, and those are going to be scattered throughout the world.
We have dynamic encounters, which are just random things that will spawn in various parts of the world. Like a farm gets attacked by a bunch of bandits, and you have to go in and rescue horses and put fires out. Anyone can pop in at any phase. Or maybe a vampire lord shows up in one of the zones, and players have to team up and track him down and figure out a way to defeat him.
Then, on top of that, and this is why we have a lot of stuff coming, we have something known as the Sage’s Vault, which is a very experimental new type of content. It’s a plane of existence that has all these various rooms that are randomized, and each of them has a unique goal and a different type of gameplay.
Whether it’s killing things before poisonous gas fills up a room, or doing a stealth puzzle where you’re trying to figure out where the source of the singing is coming from, but every time you make a sound, it causes the people singing to teleport around, or even giant mushrooms that you have to do jumping puzzles on while fireballs are trying to shoot at you. They all have a reward system built into them.
Underneath all that, my favorite part is that there’s a giant puzzle. Basically, every room has a secret that the player will need to figure out. Then, the secrets they learn, they bring them to other rooms to solve more puzzles. Eventually, if you figure everything out, you’ll unlock this really cool griffon mount as a reward.
That’s just Season 1. That’s a lot. And that’s not including Writhing Wall of Tamriel, which is a new event. We have a new trial coming. Solo Dungeons in Season 2. It is jam-packed. It feels like we have more stuff coming out than ever before.
That’s really exciting, and a lot of stuff I think players have to look forward to. My final question here: y’all have players across all platforms. With The Elder Scrolls, we recently got the Switch 2 update for Skyrim. We’ve gotten confirmation of Oblivion Remastered. I know you can’t obviously outright confirm or deny whether or not it’s in development, but is Switch 2 a platform that the team would be interested in supporting in the future? We’ve seen major MMOs confirmed for the platform, like Final Fantasy XIV this year, and I know there are a lot of players on that platform interested in ESO.
NG: There are no concrete plans right now, but that is also something that we have been talking about. So I would say it’s definitely a possibility, but nothing really to announce right now.
