Elder Scrolls 6 And Oblivion Remastered Send Elder Scrolls Online Player Count Soaring

Here is a fun bit of franchise math: the older Elder Scrolls game that just got remastered is helping the even older Elder Scrolls MMO, and the next Elder Scrolls that everyone is waiting for is helping it too. Not exactly what you would expect for an 11-year-old online game, but that is where The Elder Scrolls Online is right now.

ESO is riding two waves at once

ZeniMax Online studio director Rich Lambert and game director Nick Giacomini say ESO is seeing a noticeable lift from two things you would think might cannibalize it: anticipation for Elder Scrolls 6 and the warm reception to Oblivion: Remastered.

Instead of pulling attention away, both have apparently pushed players toward Tamriel’s always-on option. Lambert told IGN they keep meeting folks at shows who are basically using ESO as their Elder Scrolls fix while they wait for the new single-player epic. He joked that people constantly ask him about TES 6, and he has to remind them that is a different studio. The point: Elder Scrolls fans just want more Elder Scrolls, and ESO conveniently serves that up on a rolling basis.

Oblivion: Remastered bump (with a twist)

Lambert said the team braced for ESO’s numbers to dip when Oblivion: Remastered launched. It did wobble briefly, then the opposite happened: active players climbed. He compared it to the way the Fallout TV show pushed people back into the games. Giacomini backed that up, saying they saw a surge of new players and lapsed players returning right after Oblivion: Remastered, and the momentum kept going longer than they expected. The simplest explanation is also the likeliest: people revisit or discover Oblivion, like what they see, and then look to ESO for more Elder Scrolls time.

Yes, people play ESO like a single-player game

This part is a little inside baseball, but it tracks if you have touched ESO recently: a lot of players treat the MMO like a solo RPG. Questing, exploring, lore-digging — and ignoring most MMO trappings if they want. Lambert says they hear that all the time, and frankly they design with that in mind because it is how many Elder Scrolls fans prefer to engage.

• What is boosting ESO right now: pent-up demand for Elder Scrolls 6, the positive buzz from Oblivion: Remastered, and a crossover effect similar to Fallout’s TV-to-game bump

Meanwhile, the studio is still weathering the industry storm

Not everything at ZeniMax Online has been rosy. Their unannounced MMO, codenamed Blackbird, was scrapped during the big Xbox layoffs over the summer — a project Xbox’s Phil Spencer apparently loved. Even so, ESO keeps chugging along in the back half of its 12th year, which is its own kind of flex in a rough market.

"I don’t think you can ride one thing into forever."

That is the ESO lead’s stance on what comes next. Translation: they still want to build something new, even after Blackbird’s cancellation. For now, though, the weird synergy of past, present, and future Elder Scrolls is giving ESO a genuinely healthy moment.