The Elder Scrolls Online is out now; here’s our Elder Scrolls Online review.
Zenimax Online Studios has a big plan for The Elder Scrolls Online, stretching from a player’s very first impressions of the game, right through to their fifth year of play. That future obviously includes additional content, and the studio is already working on add-ons to ensure the game continues to be a compelling experience.
Talking to VG247at Gamescom, Zenimax’s general manager Matt Firor explained his process behind The Elder Scrolls Online plan: “There’s a metric thing I have on my whiteboard that’s kind of a ‘game designer’ thing where it’s ‘five days, five hours, five months’ and ‘five years’. The game needs to work on those time scales.
“At five hours the art needs to be good, it needs to feel good when you sit down. Five days is the levelling needs to be good, five months is the end-game needs to be good and the five years is the one you’re talking about. That’s the magic one, the one that’s really ‘community’. You’re going back because you like the people you’re playing with, it’s also the hardest to achieve obviously.”
Alongside a strong community, Firor realises that a continued stream of great content will also maintain Elder Scrolls Online as a persistent entry in player’s game schedules. “The other side of it is, you need to make sure there’s something for those players to do that’s new and refreshing on an ongoing basis. So the other side of that is we’re planning regular content updates and pretty substantial ones like every month to six weeks – we’re working on the actual cadence just now – but we’re already working on post-launch content now.”
Bethesda recently revealed that The Elder Scrolls Online will use a traditional subscription model akin to World of Warcraft. Hopefully that indicates that some of that cash flow will be pumped into the development of some great add-ons and expansion packs. If that’s the plan, Firor’s five-year fantasy may not be outlandish at all.