The Elder Scrolls Online has been going for 11 years now, which is a huge achievement for any video game. But the developers at ZeniMax Online Studios have an ambition for it to last for at least another 20 years, and are openly talking about ESO being a 30+ year game. Can they manage it? After a recent shakeup at the Microsoft owned studio — and big layoffs that hit Bethesda hard — players are wondering what the future holds for their beloved game.
It was with all this in mind that I sat down to chat with Nick Giacomini, who has taken over the ESO game director role from Rich Lambert, and Lambert himself, who is now studio-wide director, to discuss the past, present, and future of The Elder Scrolls Online. Rich is a true Elder Scrolls veteran, having joined Bethesda Game Studios in 2004 to work on Oblivion. He’s been working on ESO for an eye-watering 18 years, when you factor in the start of development. In fact, he was the second employee brought on the team after Matt Firor, the prior boss of ZeniMax Online Studios who stepped down amid the cancellation of the studio’s unannounced MMO.
Now Nick is leading ESO, and there are big plans for change. At gamescom 2025, Nick and Rich told me they have a significant overhaul in mind, one that would not only modernize the visuals but its mechanics. Read on for all the details.
IGN: It’d be great to get both your takes on where ESO is at as we see it today, more than 10 years later. What is the health of the game? I’m sure you have a number of metrics to decide what that actually means.
Rich Lambert: I think we’re in a really good spot overall in terms of health and players. But one of the bits of feedback that we’ve gotten over the years — and we’ve felt this internally as well — is we’re a little formulaic, a little too predictable. Kind of with the chapter model that we’re doing, it’s one big thing every June and then there’s smaller updates over time. And that has been very successful for us, very, very successful for us. But we needed to change. We needed to do something a little different. And that’s what the whole idea of this seasonal model, this content pass model is, is to give the team a little bit more time to do different things, to react to player feedback more.
When we were doing the chapter model, it took 18 months to build a chapter. We were locked into that cycle and maybe we could get some things in. And now under this new model that Nick and team are working on, it gives the team a little bit more flexibility to do more of the smaller things, more of the quality of life things. And they’re looking at things like, what does a zone even mean now? What does PVP look like now? Really going back in excruciating detail, looking over all of the things. What does progression look like? What does rewards look like? It’s all to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for the future and continuing to build on the game.
Jo Burba, who’s the new studio head, he sat the team down and was like, ‘this is a 30 year MMO.’ And we were like, ‘Okay.’ We get this, right? And that is a huge commitment, but it is something that’s important to us because it’s also important to the community.
Nick Giacomini: The game is 11-years-old now, which is just crazy. And the gaming industry, it’s hard right now. It’s always hard, but now more than ever. Competition is significant where the number of great games out there is so high. We are in a great place because we have an extremely passionate community and group of players, and that hasn’t changed. But, player expectations have changed as new games have come out. We’re looking to honor that legacy, honor the roots, because there is a lot that makes ESO so great that has resulted in the success that we’ve had for the last 11 years. So we want to stay true to that, but we’re a little too formulaic and we’re looking to evolve and change over the course of the next decade.
Rich Lambert: And change is also scary. Just in general, change is scary, but I think we’ve proven over the years we’re not afraid to make big changes, big leaps, right? That’s what ESO is over the years. The PC launch wasn’t awesome. We worked on things. We released One Tamriel, which changed how everything worked and a lot of games started mimicking what we were doing. I think we’ve shown we can do that and we want to do that and it’s time to do that again.
IGN: I’m a lapsed ESO player, which I imagine is part of your thinking about the future. Maybe ESO is starting to look a little bit dated from a visual point of view. Your game is 11 years old — are you having conversations about a potential graphical overhaul or mechanics overhaul to address how the game plays mechanically so it feels more modern?
Rich Lambert: Yes! All of the above! That’s what I mean by painstakingly going through. And you’ve seen some of that in, what was it… 45, 46, we did the starter island revamp where we went through and we swapped out a bunch of assets in those older zones for newer ones that we had built over time. We changed the water. Our water has gone through a bunch of different iterations over time as we got better with the tools and technology. The renderer has been updated a few times.
But yeah, we’re looking at all of those things. Look and feel of combat, that’s been a big thing since launch, like combat feels floaty, it doesn’t feel impactful. All of those things are going into what the team is looking at right now. And you’ll start to see some of the fruits of that come out more and more over the next three or four updates, hopefully. Spoilers, sorry!
IGN: Are you looking to improve how you talk to your community, making sure they understand what’s happening?
Rich Lambert: We’ve always done that, but there’s room to improve and that’s one of the things that Nick is really interested in doing. It’s really hard. It’s funny, we were actually just talking about this as we were walking over this morning. Because Nick is new to this and being in the public, and he was like, ‘How do you handle the haters? I’ve already got the haters. How do you handle that?’ I’m like, ‘It’s really hard.’ There’s all kinds of memes on the internet where a dev opens the box to interact with the community and the community shuts them down and they go back in the box and say ‘never again’. So it takes a really thick skin to do that, but it is really important, and that’s something that Nick is really interested in doing.
Nick Giacomini: This is as much the players’ game as it’s ours, and we do care deeply about what players say, what they think, how they interact. Without the players ESO is nothing. It’s always been an important part of the development process and we want to make it even more so going forward. And we do want to communicate and let the players know that we are listening. We do care, because it’s true. They’re so important to us and they play an incredible part in this. And that is, again, one of the reasons that we are trying to shift to this new model, is to allow more of that, more opportunities to communicate, more opportunities to iterate and try things, get feedback and try to provide the game experience that players love and want and need from us.
This has never been about one person. I mean, while I’m here talking with you, happy to continue doing this of course, this isn’t my game. We have an incredibly talented team, an incredibly passionate team. And part of what’s hopefully going to be changing over the course of the next year is our community is going to get to know certainly me, but more of the developers just generally and their areas of expertise, how they’re thinking about things, and have that back and forth that’s so important to creating a good game. So yeah, I expect there’s going to be a lot of changes to come.
IGN: Do you have any idea when the community might get a roadmap? I know that they’re clamoring for that, or is it too early to say at this point?
Rich Lambert: It’s probably a little bit too early. We do have a roadmap that we release at least once a quarter that’s like, here’s what is up now, here’s the next two or three that are coming. And the two or three that are coming are a little bit less detailed. But that’s one of the things that we’re looking at. How do we make that a little bit better? I think a lot of that starts to get much easier in the new model because it’s shorter development cycles, so you’re a lot more sure of when something’s going to hit. Whereas when it was the 18 month cycle, it’s like, well, we’re on track right now, but it’s game development and something could happen.
The philosophy in the older days was we try not to share things with players until we are confident when they’re going to land, because we don’t want to promise something and people get excited and then by the way, that’s delayed because ‘unforeseen circumstances.’ So it’s that tightrope to walk. But we do want to try to improve that.
IGN: I love Elder Scrolls generally, and for me ESO would scratch that Elder Scrolls itch between mainline releases. Am I in isolation there?
Rich Lambert: I don’t think you are. We hear that a lot. It’s really interesting over the years going to the various shows and community events, you hear that a lot, right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered the, ‘When’s TES 6 coming?’ ‘What’s TES 6?’ ‘Tell me!’ And it’s like… That’s a different studio, right? But yes, people are super passionate about Elder Scrolls. For a lot of people, this has been their home because they love Elder Scrolls and they just want to play more of it, and we’re able to provide that.
And actually, a lot of players play ESO like a single-player game. In the early days, at launch, we tried to walk this kind of tightrope where it was MMO and Elder Scrolls, and we didn’t really hit either one particularly well. And when we decided we were going to make it Elder Scrolls first and then MMO second, that helped solve a lot of the problems. And we started to see the players coming in and saying, ‘Oh, you mean I can solo all of this stuff? Oh, I don’t have to play with other players. They just happen to be there.’ And then you have these organic things that happen.
But there’s a lot of people that play the game that way. And then there’s a lot of people that just do housing or just PVP or just play the card game. We built on more systems to that over time, but at its core, a lot of players do play it like a single-player game.
IGN: I suppose you’re benefiting from the absurd wait for The Elder Scrolls 6, aren’t you?
Rich Lambert: And the Oblivion Remaster was another big thing. That came out and we were like, ‘Okay, that’s going to hit our numbers for a while.’ And there was a small blip and then the numbers went up. Kind of like the Fallout show. We were like, ‘Wow, this is cool. Right?’ So yeah, it’s interesting.
IGN: What do you put that down to? People getting back into Elder Scrolls with Oblivion Remastered and then…
Rich Lambert: … and then going, ‘Oh yeah, Elder Scrolls Online. Yeah! Let’s go continue the Elder Scrolls thing. That was a great game, let’s go do this.’ I think! I don’t know for sure.
Nick Giacomini: We don’t know for sure, but we saw a lot of new and lapsed players come back very quickly after, and it continued actually for quite some time. It was pretty exciting.
IGN: How do you approach building on the Elder Scrolls canon in the context of the time period in which ESO is set, but also having to be mindful of other studios who are also building on the canon? In my mind it’s like that meme with the guy with all the string on the board.
Rich Lambert: You’re not far off! Seriously.
IGN: ESO is canon, which is part of the appeal. Internally is it a nightmare, or a lot of fun? Or a bit of both?
Rich Lambert: It’s a bit of both. It’s controlled chaos. Trying to dig through all of the different games and all of the lore and just all of the lore books, right? There are so, so many. It’s fun. We actually have a person, a lore master. Their sole job is to do a lot of that stuff and try to make sure we’re all on the same page.
But we also work really closely with Todd’s BGS [Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios]. So whenever we’re pitching new lore things, new story things, I sit down with them and I talk them through it. There’s a negotiation that goes on. Perfect example, when we were doing Dark Brotherhood DLC, I worked on Oblivion with them in the way back days. And so I thought that I totally understood the Dark Brotherhood and all its ins and outs, and so we were really confident.
I went down to BGS, sat with Emil [Pagliarulo, Studio Design Director at Bethesda Game Studios] for a bit. I had a three page pitch, a story doc, like here’s the things. And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, this is kind of cool. Let me think on this. There’s a lot to digest.’ So the next day he gave me 10 pages of feedback on like, here’s what you got, right, here’s what you got wrong, here’s how things could be improved. And so that’s how it works.
When we were doing Elsweyr with dragons, there were no dragons in the Second Age. I was like, ‘Well, what if we did it like this?’ And they’re like, ‘Okay, I can see that.’ And so it’s just kind of that talking back and forth. They’re really good about, ‘This can work in your game. You can do whatever you want mechanically and whatnot because your game is your game, but the lore, we need to kind of work through it and talk through it.’ And they’ve been really good about it over the years, and now they super trust us, which is great.
Nick Giacomini: The cool thing about the time period ESO is in is that it’s not very well established in the lore, and so there are stories for us to flesh out. There’s a lot that we get to create and explore. You asked if it was stressful or fun. It’s fun to talk these things through and try to figure out what stories we want to tell and show our players. So it’s a lot of fun.
Rich Lambert: We get that in ESO all the time. Like, ‘The map should be this way or the map should be that way, this game said the map was like this.’ And the beauty of Elder Scrolls and just the lore in general is it’s told from multiple perspectives, right? There’s no one major DM or omnipotent being that says this is the single source of truth. So there’s lots of fudge factor in there, and lots of ways to play, and it’s a really fun IP to dig into and play with.
IGN: You’ve talked about the idea of ESO being a 30+ year game, which would be incredible. What can you do to make that happen? How do you even begin to try and plan in a tangible way to set ESO up for that sort of longevity given how things change so quickly and so dramatically almost every month?
Rich Lambert: I think part of it is you just have to be willing to change and evolve, adapt. And that’s Nick’s mantra: iterate, go fast, don’t be afraid to change, listen to players. But time goes really fast. When I think about it, 18 years has gone by in a blink. I would totally be lying to you today if I said I knew I would still be working on this game 18 years from when I started. That’s kind of a hope. You’re like, I want to work on this thing. I want to do this thing. I want it to be successful. But you don’t ever go 18 years, 20 years successful.
And so I don’t think it’s much of a stretch for the game to go 30 years. If the fan base is passionate and if the developers are humble enough, I guess is the word I’m looking for, but want to support the community and want to interact with the community and deal with the community and understand that community is first, I think there’s nothing stopping us from doing any of that stuff. I don’t think it’s a ridiculous statement personally.
Nick Giacomini: 11 years is already pretty incredible, that the game has achieved the level of success that it has for this amount of time. And to go another 20, that would be exactly like you said. It’s a very short list of games that ever stayed relevant so long. So it’s something that is mind boggling. You asked about tangible, it’s hard because as you said, 11 years, the game is what used to be cutting edge in 2014. Player expectations have changed and a lot of great games have come out. And we have limited resources ourselves, so it’s difficult.
We recently redid the tutorial zones to try to make onboarding better for players. To your point about lapsed players, we recently did the Hero’s Return to ensure that lapsed players have a better onboarding experience because it can be overwhelming. We are updating things — we can’t get into super detail about that — but we’re updating visuals that are going to make the game feel more modern. And we have to balance that against creating new and exciting things and trying to ensure that we’re changing things. And we’re doing all of that right now. We’re taking a hard look at zones. Traditionally, the zones looked more similar this last few years. And that’s a point of feedback we hear often.
So what can we change? What can we do that’s more exciting? Let’s stay true to our roots, because we have a core group of players that love this game. But what can we do that they will love too? And that is going to be exciting and new. PVP Vengeance is a good example of that. We’re looking at that really across the board.
It comes back to the players and ensuring that we continue to do the best that we can listen to the players. And a lot of it ultimately comes down to trust. When there’s so many different games, so many different things that players can invest their precious free time, that’s the most valuable thing that anyone can get. And there’s so many different ways. It comes down to trust. And a lot of that comes down to can we do right by the players? Are we listening to them? Are we providing them what we need? And since we have such a diverse group of players, how do we hit all these different layer types to ensure that ESO continues to be a home for them and a place they want to return to.
Rich Lambert: All that and make sure the technology’s up to date. We made a lot of decisions in 2007 when we started building the game that, looking back on, maybe we shouldn’t have done that. Hindsight’s always… and I wouldn’t change any of that. We wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t have all those stumbles and learnings. But technology has to change as well. We’re updating the game, modernizing it, but there’s also all of the technologies on the backend that have to be updated and changed as well. So yeah, it’s a huge, huge undertaking.
IGN: Well, you’re nearly halfway to 30!
Rich Lambert: I know, right? It’s crazy!
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
