The Elder Scrolls Online – Harrowstorm & Update 25 Preview, Rich Lambert Interview

The Harrowstorm dungeon pack DLC will be kicking off The Elder Scrolls Online’s Dark Heart of Skyrim season soon, and as a result, we get this article on the game’s website that acts as a preview for the upcoming DLC and its accompanying free update for the base game. Here’s what you can expect:

Travel to a mysterious island and venture into the heart of an ancient burial site in Harrowstorm, the first release in the Dark Heart of Skyrim year-long adventure. Learn about Harrowstorm’s two new dungeons and Update 25’s base-game improvements here.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Harrowstorm and Update 25 is coming soon for PC/Mac, Xbox One, and PlayStation®4.

This DLC dungeon pack and update brings the following new features:

• Icereach group dungeon
• Unhallowed Grave group dungeon
• New item sets and collectibles
• The start of the Dark Heart of Skyrim year-long adventure
• Improvements to performance (Update 25)
• Patching overhaul (Update 25)
• Various fixes and balance changes (Update 25)

UNCOVER A DARK CONSPIRACY

In the Harrowstorm DLC, you dive into two challenging new dungeons that set up the events of the upcoming Greymoor Chapter and year-long Dark Heart of Skyrim adventure.

Raiders and grave robbers have forced their way into an ancient burial site in Bangkorai, seeking an ancient power that has remained imprisoned for centuries. In Unhallowed Grave, you must enter this long-forgotten tomb, uncover the reasons for the crypt’s invasion, and put a stop to the invader’s plans before it is too late.

Skyrim’s northern coast is beset by a terrible, supernatural storm. The origin of this maelstrom appears to be the island home of a powerful coven of witches. You and your comrades must travel to Icereach, confront the witches, and shut down their deadly ritual before it brings ruin upon all of Skyrim.

Both dungeons bring challenging monsters and bosses to fight in addition to all-new item sets and collectibles to earn. As the first part of the Dark Heart of Skyrim adventure, both Unhallowed Grave and Icereach also set up the events of ESO’s next Chapter, Greymoor, coming May 18 for PC/Mac and June 2 for PlayStation®4 and Xbox One!

UPDATE 25 IMPROVEMENTS

Launching simultaneously with Harrowstorm is Update 25, a free base-game patch for all ESO players. This update continues to implement the planned performance improvements and introduces a series of new features, fixes, and balance changes.

Performance Improvements

With Update 25, we’re implementing a series of improvements that help framerates on all platforms. This includes changes to the effects manager and addition of multi-threading. This is only the first step in improving framerate for all ESO players, so keep an eye on our Performance Improvements Plan article for the latest information.

Patching Overhaul

This update also implements a massive patching overhaul for the ESO game client, changing the way the game is downloaded, patched, and stored. This change dramatically reduces the amount of space ESO takes up on your hard drive. However, with the implementation of this improvement, ALL ESO players on every platform will have to re-download the game client upon the launch of Update 25. Keep an eye out for more information regarding this process in the near future. You can even earn yourself a free Crimson Torchbug pet for your troubles!

For everything coming as part of the Update 25 base-game patch, including a combat fixes and improvements, you can check out the PTS patch notes on our official forums.

And if you’d like to learn more about ESO’s upcoming Nordic season, you should check out this PC Gamer interview with the game’s creative director Rich Lambert. An excerpt:

“What we tried to do with [Greymoor] was tell our own stories and not necessarily set up prequels or existing characters,” Lambert says. Instead of wallowing in pure nostalgia, giving an origin to every detail of the dragonborn’s adventure, The Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor seems hyper focused on a few chunks of Skyrim that players will remember while mixing in new ideas of its own.

Of course, even set 1,000 years in the past, ESO won’t ditch everything you remember from The Elder Scrolls 5. “We did the same thing with [the Morrowind Chapter] where we were telling our own story in a familiar place,” Lambert says. Despite no Dragonborn, Stormcloaks, or actual dragons, players will return to familiar locales like Solitude and Morthal. But the biggest focus is on the vampire clan that has infested the giant underground expanse that is Blackreach.

Counter to Skyrim’s revolutionary heroics, Lambert describes Greymoor as “gothic” and dark. In a trailer we were shown at the event, ESO’s heroes explore an abandoned town trapped in a bloody red mist. After a scrape with Nord warrior Lyris Titanborn and company, a vampire escapes in a cloud of bats to a giant underground fortress that looks like a proper gothic cathedral. It sets up a dark, sinister aesthetic that Zenimax plans to explore throughout the year.