"For the first time in ESO's history," the MMO is moving past the events of the base game with Seasons of the Worm Cult: "We've never really moved time forward"

For the very first time, new Elder Scrolls Online updates are moving the MMO's timeline beyond the events of the base game.

Starting in 2025, Zenimax Online ditched ESO's long-running update structure of dropping one massive annual expansion in the middle of themed years, adopting a seasonal release cadence in its place. Well, the first major update of the Seasons of the Worm Cult saga is out now on PC, and it's the first update in ESO history to put a lid on the story told in the base game.

"For the first time in ESO's history, that I'm aware of, we're moving the timeline forward. The story itself is advancing," said zone lead Jason Barnes in a recent preview attended by GamesRadar+. "We are basically saying, 'the events of the base game, which is Molag Bal's Planemeld, have already happened. Molag Bal is defeated, the Planemeld is ended, and the world is recovering.'"

Barnes was quick to stress that this advancement of the timeline in Seasons of the Worm Cult won't lock you out of any existing content. You can still play Seasons of the Worm Cult updates and then go back and play the base game, and the base game story will still be playable as ever. It's just that in the world of Seasons of the Worm Cult, everything that went down in the base game is in the past.

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