The final release in the Elder Scrolls Online Gates of Oblivion saga, the Deadlands DLC, launches later this year to complete the story of Mehrunes Dagon's rise to power. For a year, players have experienced Blackwood and sought to uncover Mehrunes Dagon's plans. Now, players will have the chance to confront the Daedric Prince antagonist of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion directly. The Deadlands DLC follows Waking Flame, a recently released, two-dungeon DLC with dire implications for the potential fate of Tamriel.
In addition to the DLC, which finally brings players into new parts of the Deadlands and Fargrave, ESO fans can expect several quality-of-life updates to the base game. Among these are the armory, which allows players to save and switch between builds, and a curated RNG system for item set drops so players can complete their full gear sets from dungeons and arenas.
This year brought many changes to ESO, including the introduction of companions and oblivion portals, and a story contextualizing the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Elder Scrolls Online creative director Rich Lambert spoke with Screen Rant about what players can expect from the remainder of the Gates of Oblivion story, the changes and updates ESO has received this year and will receive in update 32, and what may be next for Zenimax and Bethesda's MMO.
The last piece of ESO's year-long Oblivion story is coming soon. Can you tell fans a little bit about what they can expect to wrap up that narrative?
Rich Lambert: Sure. So we are going to go and explore Mehrunes Dagon's realm of the Deadlands. So, there is some familiarity in there with one of the biomes. It is very traditional, The Elder Scrolls 4 feel, fire and brimstone, jagged rocks, you know, that feel, but there's also an entirely brand new section to this area, and it is focused more on storms and lightning and just ravaged wastes. It's a really cool mix of visuals, in addition to obviously finding more about Mehrunes Dagon, and what he's up to, and wrapping up the entirety of this year long adventure that we've sent players on.
[The Elder Scrolls Online team] introduced companions this year, and they seem to have been pretty well received by the community. What was it like bringing them to life? And are you able to speak to any future plans to expand that mechanic?
Rich Lambert: Well, so on the future plans, I generally don't talk about what could happen in the future, although I have said a few times that it would be a major miss if romance didn't come to the companions at some point. So, we're still working on it. But overall player sentiment has been overwhelmingly positive on companions. Our players really love having that kind of permanent friend to help them through the world, and they also really enjoy the stories that those companions have. In terms of just kind of going through and creating companions, and that kind of process, there was a lot of thought that went into them, ranging from, obviously, the characters and what they are, to how they're going to go about living in the world, and how the players are going to control these characters, all the way to 'how is this going to affect performance?' One of our biggest marching orders over the last year and a half, two years, has been to make the game run better. If everybody's got a combat partner with them at all times, what does that mean in the world? And how does that affect performance? It was a huge, huge system and took a lot of thought and effort to bring it to the point it's at now.
As creative director, are there other specific moments or features in any of these four releases that you're particularly proud of, and then any that you wish might have gone a little differently?
Rich Lambert: There's actually two really huge quality of life improvements that are coming in this last DLC that I'm particularly excited about, and proud of. One of them is the Armory system. That's essentially your build manager and build saver. Players have been asking for that for a while, I have wanted one for a very long time, [and] it makes swapping between different types of content really, really easy. So, that is going to be a huge, huge win. The other one is the curated item set RNG, and that is going to make everybody's lives easier in that you're going to be able to eventually, with enough work, get all the pieces to an item set, rather than just hoping you will eventually get the right RNG roll. That will really help people who are trying to make specific builds. I know I am still personally trying to farm my Medusa Inferno staff at Arx Corinium, and I haven't gotten it yet. So, I'm looking forward to update 32 and going back to Arx and farming that to get my staff finally. I think those are the two big ones for me that really stand out for this entire year, and actually, really, over the last few years that I've been really, really excited about. In terms of features that didn't necessarily hit right, nothing really jumps out at me. There's probably some balance things or particular item sets that I wish we would have gotten right, right off the bat. You know, Hrothgar and Dark Convergence are probably the two sets that pop out. We wanted them to do a specific thing. And, they did it, but they probably were a little bit too good at doing that specific thing.
I'm actually really looking forward to the curated items.
Rich Lambert: I cannot wait. I mean, I play the game a ton. And so, I have builds and things I want to do. I've definitely been bitten by the RNG bug. A story I've told a lot outside of Medusa is with Maelstrom Arena. I went 500+ PMA runs before I finally got my Sharpened Inferno Staff. That's not going to happen now with curated RNG.
That'll make the grind a little bit easier, I'm sure.
Rich Lambert: And there's still a grind there right? It's not going to guarantee a drop for you. It's still going to roll on the table. And as you start to get those items, it's going to start pulling those out of that table. So you're slowly whittling down through the loot table until you finally complete your sticker book, so to speak, and then it goes back to pure RNG.
You mentioned that fans have been clamoring for features like curated RNG, but also the armory. How much input have you taken from fan reactions and critique when making creative decisions for this year-long story and for ESO generally?
Rich Lambert: The best way to answer that is ESO wouldn't be what it is today if we didn't listen to the player base. You know, 2014, when we launched ESO, we kind of really didn't know what we wanted to be. We didn't know if we wanted to be an Elder Scrolls game or be an MMO. We tried to walk that line between them and didn't really do justice to either of those. And the community was like, we want an Elder Scrolls game first and foremost. So that's what we went through, and that's what we focused on, and that's what we built. And so, we take player feedback to heart on everything we do. It's not the only source, obviously. The team doesn't 100% say, 'Hey, we're gonna do it this way, because that's what players say.' But it has a huge part. And we try to take that feedback and distill it down into the core problem, and then try to solve the core problem from there.
It seems like a lot of Gates of Oblivion was completed during work from home conditions. Is that right?
Rich Lambert: It has been, yeah.
What were some of the challenges the team faced when developing a story of this size and scope over the course of the whole year?
Rich Lambert: Really, it's the collaboration side of things that is the hardest. We've been building and working on ESO for years now. We started in 2007, and we actually launched it and went live in 2014. So, we've gotten a lot of those pipelines and processes in place on how to build things. But we had to relearn how to be a collaborative group where everybody is not all in the same space, and you can't go just walk up to somebody's desk and say, 'Hey, I'm thinking about this,' or, 'I'm having this problem with this.' Now we have to use Teams or Slack to call on people, and that has been a really, really interesting learning experience for us. I think we've done a fantastic job. We've hit all of our milestones, and we've hit all of our dates. I think we missed a week when we first initially went back during Greymoor, but since then, we've hit our marks across the board. It's been a challenge. It's definitely been a challenge.
I know you probably can't say very much. So it's okay if it has to be really vague, but can you provide any sort of teaser for what players can expect next?
Rich Lambert: Yeah I mean all I can really be is vague, and I will just say, it's not going to be something that anybody is thinking about.
I like that. And, is there anything else that players should know about the end of the Gates of Oblivion saga?
Rich Lambert: It's the end of the year, but it's not the end of all stories being told, for sure. But, it's the end of this Gates of Oblivion storyline, and it's gonna be a blast. I will say that I think the team has done a fantastic job of doing Mehrunes Dagon right, if that makes sense.
The Elder Scrolls Online's Deadlands DLC will launch on PC, Mac, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 later this year.
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