I’ll be honest right off the bat. As a single player Elder Scroller, the Elder Scrolls Online‘s never managed to hook me for more than a few hours. I’ve given it a couple of goes, usually during periods when it’s gone free to play, but have always bounced off its vast MMOiness. Might the slew of fresh additions coming across the next couple of years be able to change that and finally convince me to spend significant time with ESO in the same way I have Fallout 76 in the past few years? The answer could be yes, if the naval combat and underwater exploration Zenimax have just revealed are as fun as they sound on paper.
Announced last night as part of a showcase kicking off Zenimax’s new season-based approach to contining ESO’s constant embiggening, these boatly exploits are coming at some point in 2026 as part of an event called High Seas of Tamriel. There doesn’t look to have been much info given about this naval combat and underwater exploration yet, with Thieves Guild and Sheogorath-themed questlines getting more focus since they’re set to arrive sooner. Though, the short glimpse of a deck in flames as mounted crossbows are fired and a character floating around below the waves in a big bubble suggest potential for memorable hijinks.
Before Zenimax deploy those, though, they’re kicking things off on April 2nd with a first season confusingly dubbed season zero. This’ll feature The Night Market, a trading post found in a princeless Daedric realm called Fargrave. It’s a limited-time PvE event zone where you can puzzle, battle bosses, and have races to earn rewards for one of three factions unique to the area. There are strong folks, rich folks, and poor thiefy folks. The Night Market’s originally set to stick around for seven weeks, but might return or become a permanent addition if deemed worthy. Exploring it could be cool, though the prospect of competitive numbery busywork lurking around every corner’s not really appealing to me.
In the summer, the Thieves Guild and Sheogorath quests I mentioned rock up as part of season one, which is actually season two. Aside from a rework of the Glenumbra region of High Rock, these strike me as a team currently ploughing on following a 2025 heavy on Microsoft upheaval playing some safe old Elder Scrolls hits, even if executive producer Susan Kath insisted in a chat with our Julian last year that the switch to seasons wasn’t a consequence of recent layoffs or cancellations. Much like when you go to a Metallica gig and know Master of Puppets’ll show up at some point, these quests’ll likely still be enjoyable, but when the sales pitch is “it’s just Sheogorath being Sheogorath”, I’m thinking I won’t miss anything special if I just decide to replay the Shivering Isles instead. To be fair, the new Thieves Guild quests do let you hide in flowerpots and stun guards, both of which are fun new additions.
Along similar lines, Zenimax’s tease for early 2027 was a return to Skyrim. They’ve not revealed which region yet, but the fact this is going to be a dynamically blizzardy “first-ever Excursion Zone” seems to be hinting at Winterhold or The Pale as strong candidates, with Whiterun’s tundra as another. There are about 50 ‘sKyRiM aGaIN?’ jokes I could make here, but I’ll be diplomatic and say that seeing Winterhold pre-great collapse would have potential to feel fresh. Though, the fact we’ve reached a point where ESO’s big teases are likely locations you can visit in the most recent mainline Elder Scrolls entry probably says something about where the over a decade-old MMO is at in terms of searching for new places to go without venturing too far beyond Tamriel and Oblivion.
Will I try to give any of this a go? Well, The Elder Scrolls 6 is still likely years away, so the answer’s almost certainly yes, at some point.
