The Elder Scrolls Online's Seasons of the Worm Cult Might Be Its Most Exciting Update In Years

I’ve long held that The Elder Scrolls Online’s Chapter-based formula was starting to feel a bit stale. Not bad, mind you - each Chapter expansion itself were, in their own ways, good MMO expansions. But the formula for each zone, each update, and even the stories being told were starting to feel a bit samey once we got through the first couple of years.

So when ZeniMax Online Studios’s Matt Firor announced that The Elder Scrolls Online would be doing away with the Chapter model in favor of a more seasonal cadence, the announcement was met with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I was personally excited to see how the new formula would shake things up in a way we hadn’t seen since the introduction of Chapters to begin with, but I was also among those concerned that a seasonal cadence would simply mean less content overall for players.

However, as the ESO team revealed today, less content is certainly not on the menu. Instead, what I saw felt invigorating as a long-time Elder Scrolls Online fan, as many of the upcoming systems changes, as well as jumping back into the original story from the 2014 release brings me so much excitement.

Back to the beginning

During the presentation, game director Rich Lambert highlighted the upcoming narrative of the newly announced Seasons of the Worm Cult as a sequel of the story told when The Elder Scrolls Online’s main storyline was initially released. While Chapter updates and the stories told in between  the MMOs initial launch and now have touched on the main driving narrative, it’s been left largely underdeveloped since the events of original ESO.

We don’t know how or why the Worm Cult has returned to Tamriel, but the necromancers are back, this time terrorizing a new area in The Elder Scrolls Online: the island of Solstice. In a new in-game trailer, we see a bit of Solstice in action, with the necromancers of the Worm Cult terrorizing its citizens. 

It’s important to note that this new storyline is not replacing the original story told by the base game in 2014. Again, Lambert clearly uses the term “sequel” when describing it in the presentation today. It is likely, then, that you’ll want to jump into the main questline first if you’re new to Tamriel - which is a marked departure from how ESO has handled its storylines over the last decade. 

While Gold Road was a direct sequel to Necrom, you could start the main quest of the former without ever having played the latter. This was one of the most enticing parts of the Chapter model that set it apart from other MMOs: you could start in the new content right away. 

I’d wager that you’ll still be able to do so here as well, but it likely won’t be as impactful without going through the story that sees you face down Mannimarco and the Daedric prince Molag Bal first. For those of us who completed this storyline at least a decade ago now, there’s no real way to replay it all without rolling a new character, but you can head to Coldharbour and talk to some of the familiar faces there to get sort of a soft recap of events.

Speaking of familiar faces, ESO is bringing some back with the new story, including fan favorite Razum-dar. Skordo is back, as well as Prince Azah, Venus Galerian, Gabrielle, and more. However, knowing the ZOS team and the wealth of characters involved in that original storyline, we’re bound to see many more iconic ESO characters return to put a stop to the Worm Cult once and for all.

Solstice

Despite this not being your typical Chapter update, Elder Scrolls Online players will still have a new region to explore: the island of Solstice. This island is described as having sort of a Carribbean vibe, with architecture that seems to meld both Altmer and Argonian styles - a mix you don’t often see in Tamriel. 

This is because the island is inhabited by outcasts of the two peoples, and they’ve had to thrive and survive as best they can on this island off the coast from the Argonian region of Murkmire in Southern Tamriel. 

The main city of Sunport best highlights this melding of cultures. During the presentation, we got a glimpse of the city from afar and it reminded me of many of the beautiful Altmer skylines we saw in Summerset, but in the town proper you can see the Argonian influences there as well. Run by both the Tideborn Argonians (a new Tribe being introduced with Seasons of the Worm Cult) and the Corelanya Elves. I can’t wait to dive into the dynamic here, especially given the backstory and personal histories of both races within Tamriel itself. 

Subclasses

Arguably, though, the most exciting part of Seasons of the Worm Cult is the introduction of Subclasses. This is a new system that allows players to effectively mix and match skills from the other classes within the game, building the ultimate class fantasy for themselves.

To me, this inclusion truly helps deliver on The Elder Scrolls Online’s original premise of being able to play your way. Classes have defined characters for a decade, but in a game where you could start effectively start at any of the main story threads in each region, travel anywhere regardless of level, choose any weapon and level it up regardless of class, and more, having a hard class limiter always felt a bit stifling. 

While I understand why it’s in the game and it does bring a sense of identity to each character I own, I have longed for some of my Templar skills when playing my Necromancer, and so on. 

Subclasses aims to allow that creativity to flourish even more. Effectively, Subclassing lets you learn the skill lines of the other classes, learn and master their skills, and mix and match them with the rest of the skill pool you can choose from. 

Want to create the ultimate pet class? Grab some skills from the Arcanist, the Sorcerer and the Necromancer to build an army. One option highlighted in the presentation was the idea of an Elementalist, combining the fire and lightning skills from the Dragon Knight and Sorcerer. 

The cost to learn these skills are doubled compared to your own class skill lines, and you will still be forced to keep one of your class lines as well while having two others active from other classes. But nothing is inherently stopping you from learning every skill in the game now on a single character.

I also adore that the team at ZOS are making this real simple for those of us with alts: you need only unlock Subclasses on one character by hitting level 50, then it’s an account-wide benefit much like the Champion system. All of your skills and progression are shared account-wide as well, which means if you’ve been leveling alts over the years, all that work will pay off with a ton of subclass opportunities come launch.

The new system will release alongside the first major content drop with Seasons of the Worm Cult in June, and I honestly can’t wait to mess around with it. This might be one of the most exciting additions coming to ESO in recent years if the team can pull it off well. 

Cyrodiil Champions

One area that has plagued Elder Scrolls Online PvP players since launch has been the state of Cyrodiil. The large PvP zone at the center of both the Alliance War and Tamriel itself has faced its own host of issues, especially as it pertains to performance. The team at ZOS has been working to improve the situation in Cyrodiil, and the team has been running tests to try to pinpoint the exact cause and way to fix the performance problems in Cyrodiil itself. 

Cyrodiil Champions is the next evolution in those tests. The team’s goal is to get the zone back to the level of gameplay and insanity that was present just after launch without the pesky performance issues. So stay tuned as more and more tests are incoming it seems to continue to iterate on the work the team is doing to get there. 

The Writing Wall

Seasons of the Worm Cult will play out in a seasonal cadence, which means unlike Chapters where we got basically all the content up front with a few updates throughout the year, the Seasonal content will play out over the year, from narrative beats, fixes, updates and, in the case of the drop coming late Summer 2025, a new server-wide event.

Keen-eyed viewers would have seen what looks like an ethereal, fiery wall rising above the Altmer-infused spires in the shots of Sunport. Well, this is a literal wall dividing Solstice in two. The Writing Wall is ever present on the horizon, and the late-Summer update will see players have to tackle the problem of this wall head-on.

Joining the Fellowship of Stirk, players will have to tackle the Wom Cult Invasion in the Writhing Wall event, a new servier-wide story event that will play out across the entire megaserver for the first time ever in ESO’s decade-long history. Players will defend siege camps, build defences and eventually the weapon itself that will see the wall, which was described in the presentation as a wall built with “soul-juice concrete.” 

Gross.

The goal for the server is to break through that wall and unlock Eastern Solstice to help progress the story. Because the progress is bound to your megaserver, Lambert says that this means that players across ESO’s landscape will experience the final encounter at “different times.” 

This event is effectively a server-wide world first race to break down the wall, and I’m curious whether there will be any other pay off other than just being able to access Eastern Solstice sooner. We’ll see.

Seasonal Pricing

With the new seasonal cadence comes a new way to (at least for ESO) to pay for the content. The 2025 Content Pass will bundle every major content update of the year into one package, which will run you $49.99 which is, if you’re keeping score, more than the standard edition of the former Chapter updates. However, unlike Chapters where the DLC packs that tied up the story throughout the year were either included with an ESO Plus membership or you had to pay extra for them, the Content Pass gives access to every update throughout the year for the one-time payment, including the dungeons as the new 12-person trial coming this year.

ESO Plus players won’t get access to the Seasons of the Worm Cult story content as part of their subscription, but they will get access to the dungeons being released this year like normal. The ZOS team said in a follow up Q&A press during a pre-brief earlier this week that the team is looking for more ways to incentivize ESO Plus even further. 

It all kicks off in June (though the Prologue Quest is available starting today), and honestly, I’m more excited than ever to jump back into Tamriel. ESO has been kicking along for 11 years now, and it has never shied away from embracing change to serve its community. One Tamriel proved this, as well as the Chapter model, which has been so successful for so long. During the presentation, Zenimax revealed that over 26 million players have jumped into ESO across its myriad platforms, and the MMO still doesn’t show signs of slowing down. If it proves successful, the new seasonal cadence is just another step on that journey.  

Also - seriously, that Dark Brotherhood tease? Don't play with my heart, ZeniMax.