The Elder Scrolls Online is not always appreciated, despite being a genuinely good MMO that has been regularly releasing expansions and new stories for a decade. Despite being a main player myself for several years, it is sometimes overlooked in the shadow of Skyrim's eternal relevance and more flashy MMOs. But as Zenimax Online Studios director Matt Filler made clear in his talk at this year's Game Developers Conference, the numbers are winning out; TESO has earned nearly $2 billion in its lifetime and has no plans to stop expanding its world and story.

Firor began his talk at GDC, "10 Years In Tamriel: Success of The Elder Scrolls Online," with the conception of TESO: Origins, which was planned as ". At a time when many MMOs were conceived as WoW killers, inspiration came from World of Warcraft, Firor's previous work on Dark Age of Camelot, and the then-popular Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion which was popular at the time.

The TESO team had already been working on their vision for several years before Skyrim swooped in and set their plans on fire by resetting players' expectations for Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim had fully voiced characters, first-person perspective, mini There were no maps, all of which influenced the new direction of the game, which was renamed The Elder Scrolls Online. It was convenient that at least the acronym remained the same.

Despite efforts to step up to the new standards set by Skyrim, the launch of TESO was not a pretty sight. At the time, we were not impressed either. We received a lot of feedback," said Firor at GDC. Firor listed an unfortunate storm of bugs, lack of player economy, combat criticism, and complaints about required subscriptions.

A year later, after much work, TESO got a comeback story not unlike Final Fantasy 14's famous A Realm Reborn pivot, which was rebranded Tamriel Unlimited in 2015. The update introduced guild traders, a typical Scrolls-style sandbox-like justice system, and made subscriptions optional.

"On PC, the logged-in population doubled overnight. Players could come back without a subscription and just play," Firor said. 'The night after that, it doubled again. The day after that, it doubled again. He said TESO welcomed 3 million new players in just two months, at which point it had reached 500,000 simultaneous players on all platforms.

Firor credits TESO's true long-term success to the Tamriel Unlimited update a year later in 2016. This update allowed players of the three main factions to play together and, more importantly, introduced level scaling throughout the game, allowing any player to play any zone or storyline they wanted. I ask myself, "In GTA or any other modern game, do I care what level I'm at? We wanted ESO to be that kind of game." At this point, Firor said ESO had become "a game like a true successor to Skyrim."

He described ESO's trajectory at that point as a healthy MMO with a growing population where returning players never felt left out. As someone who has dropped in and out over the years, I can confirm that ESO is one of the best MMOs that doesn't make you feel dumb every time you come back; I found FF14 hard to get started (partly because of the subscription, partly because of the fact that it's a very small game), and I'm not sure how much of a challenge it is to get back into the game.

But when I log into ESO, I know I'm only 5 steps away from a great, classic Elder Scrolls side story. One of my best memories of the game was returning to play the interrupted expansion to find that one of the main quest characters had made a cameo appearance in the course of a comedic side quest to find a concerned woman's whimsical son. In other MMOs, the overarching lore often checks out, but not in ESO. My buddy Razm Dar makes an appearance" I love Razm.

Firor clearly understands that storytelling is one of TESO's strengths. After two years of extremely important updates, TESO has adopted a yearly story update. Each expansion is called a "chapter" and is like a four-course meal a year that includes a comprehensive story, new zones to explore, paid expansions, and small DLC.

And now Firor has revealed that it has made nearly $2 billion over its entire lifetime, a very large number, although Firor does not break this figure down into DLC and cash store and optional subscriptions. The developer doesn't reveal much about sales or player numbers, but 10 years after its ill-fated launch, it feels like the right time to celebrate. [According to Steam.db, Steam alone currently has nearly 30,000 concurrent players; according to Steam.db, Steam alone currently has nearly 30,000 concurrent players. It's also the birthplace of some great player stories, including the incredibly impressive House Builder and my favorite local celebrity Sleep on Bridges. I still consider it one of the best MMOs on PC.