As an Elder Scrolls Online veteran, I'm worried its new seasonal model could kill my favorite MMORPG

The Elder Scrolls Online is my go-to MMORPG. As someone who's always rejected the very idea of paying a sub to play a game I've already paid for, I never bought into the (official) World of Warcraft ecosystem. This also applied to competitors like Final Fantasy 14. ZeniMax Online's take on Tamriel ran into that wall in its early days too, but thankfully embraced a different direction which instantly won me over. More than a decade later, I worry TESO's age of peace and prosperity is being extinguished.

Zenimax owner Microsoft's year of humiliation (2025) affected the veteran MMO studio, which was working on more content for The Elder Scrolls Online as well as a big secret game that was binned. "It's difficult to work when you're looking at a graveyard," a QA tester told Game Developer of the resulting scenario at ZeniMax. A thinner development team explains a lot of what's next for the ongoing Elder Scrolls title.

The (still passionate) developers behind the enduring MMORPG hit the ground running earlier this month, unveiling an ambitious 2026 roadmap on Twitter that will transform TESO into a more welcoming and flexible fantasy playground that's ditching yearly expansions in favor of seasonal content updates. For the average player, this sounds grand. Yet the more I look at the roadmap, the worse my flashbacks become.

We've been here before

MMOs are among the hardest (if not the hardest) types of video games to crack. They need to be kept interesting for years and are incredibly expensive to maintain, which is why we're largely playing the same ones we were playing 10 years ago.

At some point, we'll get a massive hit which shakes up the status quo, but considering the financial woes the whole industry is facing, funding a big-enough bet is just too risky at the moment. Look at what happened with Amazon's New World.

Freemium seasons have worked out well enough for many titles, but it's a rather strict approach made for far simpler games, such as pure FPS and looter shooters. Destiny 2 lives in the middle space between those two subgenres, and yet its seasonal model proved to be a misfire in the long run due to its remaining third of MMO-ish DNA. 'Forever games' push people to really live and breathe them when their core loops work. Yet that means players will demand more, faster, and better content updates. By design, and looking at realistic dev cycles, that doesn't gel well with seasonal models.

Despite its hours-long raids (if you're a normal player) and meaty endgame loops, even Bungie's long-running MMO FPS is running out of steam because it never figured out what it actually wants to be in the long run. Seasons only made its dense "live narrative" and layered systems even more impenetrable, all while taking away precious resources from the premium expansions most players pay attention to. Why would this work for the far bigger and older game The Elder Scrolls Online is?

Good intentions

As ZeniMax Online studio game director Rich Lambert points out, you can't "ride one thing into forever" (unless you're Blizzard, it seems). TESO has grown in player numbers over the years, and the hunger for The Elder Scrolls 6 and the huge success of Oblivion Remastered have strengthened its position, but it's hard to stay optimistic when Microsoft and Xbox are so fidgety.

I technically like 90% of what's on the aforementioned roadmap, I truly do. Gifting everyone older expansions that greatly open up the game is a sensible move. Class updates and QoL improvements are a must to keep things fresh and engaging. New stories, quests, and zones arriving at no extra cost should make onboarding newbies easier. The list goes on. It's good stuff on paper.

But it's hard to forget about past mistakes veteran studios made elsewhere, and even if the full list of additions and changes coming to the game seems impressive, the amount of actual new content is going down.

More activities, progression systems, and familiar battles passes only translate into FOMO. The most dedicated players will welcome that, but for the more casual crowd who TESO traditionally treated surprisingly well, there's no once-in-a-year, substantial content drop to come back to.

I'm of the opinion The Elder Scrolls Online has shined in the past due to its anti-FOMO approach to content (it's totally modular and never rushed you to the latest chapters) and solo-friendly offerings. It was the rare MMORPG you could dip in and out of without a worry, a massive multiplayer game with robust single-player bones.

As it exchanges its unique voice and rhythm for more aggressive and agile live-service elements, Tamriel's online rendition is bound to change forever. Still – after ZeniMax met Microsoft's bonesaw, was there an alternative? Probably not.

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