The Elder Scrolls Online marks its 10th Anniversary with the Gold Road expansion
Bethesda's massively online role-playing game, The Elder Scrolls Online celebrated its tenth year at the beginning of April. This year's expansion, Gold Road, launches on June 3rd. This new chapter allows players to explore the new zone of West Weald on the border of Cyrodill and Valenwood.
Born from the legendary single-player Elder Scrolls games, The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) had a rocky start with mixed reviews but has since gone on to be one of the most popular online role-playing games.
Pushing gameplay boundaries since its inception, The Elder Scrolls series reinvented the open-world RPG. The otherworldly visuals of Morrowind, Oblivion's medieval stylings, and the Nordic-inspired Skyrim still have a huge following. ESO allowed players to return to these iconic locations.
Set some 800 years before the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, ESO fleshes out the history of Tamriel hinted at in the various tomes scattered about in the single-player games. Some locations will be familiar to veterans of the Elder Scrolls games but with subtle differences. Like the single-player games, the Tamriel of ESO is in conflict. Factions are pitted against one another whilst the immortal god-like creatures, the Daedra, plot and scheme in the background.
ESO launched with a subscription model just as this business model was falling out of favour. Fortunately, whilst Bethesda's Pete Hines told me "No" when I asked him about it in Sydney, the game switched to a free-to-play model in 2015. Rebranded as The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, the game's popularity soared.
A lot of the game's popularity is the vast amount of content in the game. Regular DLC releases mean that players always have something new to look forward to. Whereas ESO Plus subscribers get these new dungeons and story DLC packs as part of their subscription, non-subscribers have to pay for this additional content.
As well as regular DLC expansions, since 2017's Morrowind, ESO has had annual major expansions that add new areas and 30-odd hours of new quests set to unique story arc. These yearly chapters are usually heralded by a DLC expansion and bookended by the same. There have been seven ESO chapter expansions released so far, with, this year's Gold Road being number eight.
Gold Road continues from last year's Necrom expansion, introducing a new Daedric Prince, Ithelia. Players are tasked with unravelling the plans of Ithelia's followers and protecting the people of West Weald from the Forgotten Prince's return.
As well as an all-new story, Gold Road adds a new system to the game, Scribing. Scribing unlocks new magical skills called Grimlores to existing skill lines. The expansion has an entire questline dedicated to this new system with its own story and characters.
The star of the show is the new zone of West Weald, which includes Southest Cyrodil from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The new zone's capital city, Skingrad, can be found in the titular region of Gold Road. The wood elf settlement of Vashaber is tucked away in the jungles of Dawnwood. Brave adventurers need to be careful in the magically cursed area of
Wildburn and watch out for its dangerous occupants. The Colovian highlands is home to an Imperial settlement in a mountainous landscape full of Ayleid ruins to explore.
As well as the above, the new expansion gives players access to new items, delves, dungeons, side quests and world events. Lucent Citadel is a new 12-player trial set in a Daedric vault that challenges adventurers to work together to survive and claim their rewards.
The new expansion adds to an already impressively large online world for players to explore and enjoy. From the swamps of Morrowind to the idyllic High Isle, the diverse and unique landscape of ESO's Tamriel is full of adventure and worth a visit. Here's to the next ten years.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road is out on the 3rd of June for PC and Mac and on the 18th of June for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
