The Elder Scrolls Online reveals one of the biggest transformations in the MMO's 12-year history with new seasonal model

For long-running MMOs, finding a way to make all your old, current, and future content easy to decipher and accessible can be a bit of a minefield. What is or isn’t tied to a subscription? Do I have to fork out extra for certain DLC expansions, activities, or features? What can newcomers access for free? It can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks, especially if you’ve been running for more than a decade like The Elder Scrolls Online. To make things more accessible and less confusing, ESO is transforming with its new Seasons. Now, Zenimax Online Studios has fully unveiled this new model, and when Season Zero arrives in April, loads of old and new content will become playable at no extra cost.

Let me make one thing clear – ESO is not going free-to-play. You will still have to buy the base game, or access it through a subscription service like Game Pass or Playstation Plus. However, the days of purchasing separate DLC Chapters or last year’s transitionary Content Pass are over. Seasons (which last roughly three months each) will introduce new gameplay content such as zones, quests, story beats, live events, and more to all players for free. As it looks to continue on its quest to become a “30-year MMO,” streamlining future content and making it accessible to everyone is an important and necessary move.

This shift will also merge three beloved DLC expansions into the base game, again making them free to access for all ESO players. They are: Thieves Guild, which features the eponymous faction and the Hew’s Bane zone; Dark Brotherhood, which again adds a faction of the same name and the Gold Coast zone; and Orsinium, which contains a large zone called Wrothgar and is very quest-heavy.

Previously purchasable as separate pieces of DLC, this trio will become part of the base ESO experience once Season Zero begins. In a presentation I was invited to prior to today’s reveal of Seasons, executive producer Susan Kath confirmed that “as we go forward, we will also look at other opportunities where we can bring more of the older DLC into the main game.”

The new seasonal model will also introduce Tamriel Tomes, a new battle pass system. This contains loads of cosmetic rewards, and is progressed by completing weekly and seasonal challenges. Everyone can start working through a free Tome every season, but there will also be two premium paid tracks that you can purchase which contain even more items.

All of this begins with Season Zero: Dawn and Dusk, and this debut season brings a new, limited-time group event zone experience to the game. The Night Market can be found in Fargrave, and is described by Kath as one of the most “challenging” PvE experiences to date. While this is a publishing group activity, game director Nick Giacomini insists this isn’t like dungeons “where you have to form hard groups to come in.” Instead, “the zone will naturally facilitate players working together, and there will be some never before seen elements in [Night Market] that I’m excited by.” These include the ability to side with one of three factions, with collective progress resulting in players engaging in a “race to have their faction win.”

While it will be available for a seven-week period during the season, Giacomini says there is potential for it to become a permanent mode in the future if players enjoy it and want to see it return.

Elsewhere in Season Zero, you’ll find new Challenge Difficulty options, which allow you to ramp up the difficulty of ESO’s overland experience. This is described as a first step in generally giving fans more control over just how tricky (and, as a result, rewarding) they want the MMO to be. The new Vengeance PvP progression system will also make its debut, allowing bloodthirsty players “to rank up and progress to earn new rewards and even unique passive abilities.” A swathe of quality of life changes are also coming in both Season Zero and in Update 49, which arrives even earlier on Monday, March 9.

Season Zero, though, will kick off this new era of The Elder Scrolls Online on Thursday, April 2 and runs until Wednesday, July 8. It’ll also be rolled simultaneously on PC and console platforms for the first time.

Zenimax has also provided a glimpse at what’s to come in Season One and Season Two later in the year via the roadmap below.

Aside from just this new seasonal model, one important takeaway from the presentation I got to see was a change in mindset from the ESO devs. There were repeated mentions of earning more trust with players and increasing transparency, whether that be with more blog posts or developer livestreams, or by simply revealing and sharing content in-game at much earlier stages than before. The Night Market is a prime example of this – here’s an idea that Zenimax thinks you’ll love, but isn’t committing to making it a permanent addition yet so that it can either go back and refine the experience, or abandon such a concept and move on to something totally different. So yes, you’ve got a new seasonal model which makes things more standardized and gives players a lot more content for free. But perhaps the biggest change for ESO is that you’ll be seeing more experimental, early stage content that you can help shape.