ESO has released the Studio Director Matt Firor's 2025 & Beyond Letter. ZOS (Zenimax Online Studios) has been listening to player feedback and as a result will switch things up in a major way!
In this article we will go over all the major points from Firor's letter and summarize what you can expect to see in ESO in 2025.
Seasons will replace Chapter content in 2025
In 2025 ESO will be moving away from its massive Chapter content releases and will be focusing on more themed content in Seasons. Seasons are expected to last from three to six months and will introduce a mix of themed content such as stories, events, Crown Store items, dungeons and more.
ESO Seasons are NOT a battlepass or FOMO and instead are permanent additions to the game. The Seasonal model frees the ZOS dev team from the strict annual cycle and enables them to create smaller bite-sized pieces of content. The teams are able to focus on a greater variety of content for all different kinds of players.
What Happens to our 2025 ESO Content?
There will be a normal content upgrade in March 2025 which will be added to the PTS (Public Test Server) in January. We will get more information on the March update early in the new year.
The first ESO Season starts in April 2025. ESO's big announcement event will also happen in April 2025 (instead of the normal January announcement), where we will get more information about the Season.
Experimental Content and Changes
There will be experimental content on the live servers that might later be developed into full game systems. ZOS wants ESO to be less predictable and shake things up. Here is a list of experiments that they have been thinking:
- Addressing Cyrodiil Perfomance. There will be a campaign where all classes will have their normal skills replaced with PvP-specific skills. The expectation is to get more players per campaign and have the same performance as in 2014.
- Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat
- Improving the overall feel of combat with animation, effects, 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
Improving the New and Returning User Experience
Firor Recognizes that new players can feel overwhelmed by the vast world and endless opportunities which is why they want to implement essential guidance. Additionally returning players can feel lost making it harder to continue playing. Below are a few changes Firor mentions in the letter:
- 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
Story Content for Existing Zones
There will be new quest content, but there will not be giant new landmasses. Instead Firor mentions they want to use existing zones and bring back familiar characters. New stories will be added to the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Fighters Guild and Mages Guild. Additionally larger zones will be split across multiple updates.
ESO 2025 in Conclusion
All the changes listed in the Studio Director Matt Firors letter have been made so the development team can focus on improving the game and find a new cadence for releasing content. There will be announcements, Season launches, new content, systems and experiments throughout the year, just not in the way we're used to.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article! You can read more news in the ESO-Hub News section.
