Elder Scrolls Online Is Ditching Chapters In Favor Of More Frequent “Bite-Sized” Updates

The Elder Scrolls Online will see big changes to its content roadmap next year, as developer ZeniMax Online has announced it will be ditching its yearly Chapter-based model in favor of smaller, more frequent seasonal content updates in 2025.

In a blog post, ZeniMax Online Studio director Matt Firor explained the reasoning behind why it’s “shaking things up.” Since 2017, new Chapter releases (ESO’s versions of expansions) have come yearly, including this year’s Gold Road chapter. That annual model has been “incredibly successful,” according to Firor. The massive updates introduced new zones, quests, dungeons, followers, and more. They normally released in June, and much of ESO’s schedule was planned around these major content releases, but because of the strict release schedule, didn’t allow the team much time for experimentation.

Moving forward, ESO will instead adopt a seasonal model, with seasons slated to last anywhere from three to six months. Seasonal updates will include new story content, dungeons, and events. Next year will be a “transition year” for the team, Firor said, and some of the larger updates the team has been working on will still be released alongside the game’s new seasonal updates.

“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,” Firor said.

Firor stressed that while the team is moving away from Chapters and its focus will no longer be largely on adding giant new zones, there will still be new story content and, occasionally, new zones. Larger zones will be split across multiple content updates, Firor said, and stories from previous zones will be continued. There will also be new stories focusing on Elder Scrolls factions like the Dark Brotherhood, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, and Thieves Guild. For those looking forward to a new ESO zone, it sounds like there will still be one coming next year, but Firor said players will have to wait until April to learn more details on how it will work differently from previous zone additions.

A desire for ZeniMax Online to experiment on new and different types of content is something it’s heard from the game’s community, Firor said, and 2025 will see some of those experiments come to fruition. They include revamping the Cyrodiil PvP experience to have higher concurrent players by giving classes PvP-specific skills that perform better in the massive-PvP setting, increasing the standard difficulty of combat while out in the open world, more experimental zones, better guild tools, and more.

Firor additionally said ZeniMax Online will be putting a focus on the game’s new and returning player experience moving forward, with visual updates to the game’s starting zones, UI improvements, and changes to make it easier for returning players to jump back into the game more quickly.

ZeniMax Online recently unionized, which parent company Microsoft has voluntarily recognized. The studio joins other unions at ZeniMax including Bethesda Game Studios and ZeniMax QA workers, with all three unions signing forming under the Communication Workers of America (CWA). Microsoft has a labor-neutrality agreement with the CWA, agreeing to not interfere with unionization efforts within the company.