One of The Elder Scrolls Online’s oldest problems, overland difficulty, is finally getting addressed—but the devs are ‘starting really small’ because ‘we didn’t want to take a big swing and miss’

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Massively multiplayer online games, especially those that stay popular for years, face a tricky design challenge. They need to be engaging enough for experienced players, but not so difficult that new players get discouraged. While adding challenging content like difficult raids seems like a solution, even the best players won’t want to spend all their time doing those things.

These enemies will appear in the main game world, which is quite large, so they shouldn’t be too difficult. However, if that world feels repetitive or uninteresting, players will likely lose interest. It’s important that the game keeps players engaged, not having them wait around for long periods with nothing to do.

For years, Elder Scrolls Online players have faced challenges with balancing difficulty in the open world, but a solution is finally arriving. Near the end of the current season, the game will introduce new features to adjust the difficulty of areas outside of cities and dungeons.

I recently spoke with the game’s director, Nick Giacomini, who explained that balancing large-scale MMOs is incredibly difficult – practically impossible. In the past, they’ve often leaned towards making the game more casual to avoid issues. However, players seeking a real challenge understandably find that approach disappointing.

We’re aiming to give players plenty of choices in how they play, and that includes difficulty settings in Overland and solo dungeons. Adding options takes extra development time, but we want to offer more variety and believe player choice is very important.

We’re not limiting ourselves to only small updates, but with something as crucial as this, we wanted to be careful and get it right. We didn’t want to rush in and fail.

Regarding difficulty options, players who enjoy a challenge will be able to choose from several settings that offer increased rewards. However, the development team is starting fresh and building these features from the beginning, as Giacomini points out.

We’re beginning with a limited initial release. While we have big plans for this and will be expanding it over time, we’ve decided to launch with a core feature now and add more functionality later, rather than waiting until everything is complete.

Giacomini explains that they’re still refining the game’s difficulty options. They want to see how players respond to the current system and what improvements they’d like to see after trying it out. This feedback will help them build a more complete and reliable difficulty system over time.

This doesn’t guarantee every feature will be available right away, but the team is prioritizing overworld difficulty. It’s been a long-standing issue for The Elder Scrolls Online, and they want to get it right with this update.

We’re not saying we’ll only ever release small updates, but with something as crucial as this, we wanted to be careful and get it right. We didn’t want to rush in and fail.

This aligns with what both Giacomini and executive producer Susan Kath shared with me about their vision for the game over the next 30 years—you can find more details in the link I sent. It seems ZeniMax is committed to making improvements, beginning with addressing long-standing issues players have had with the game.

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2026-01-14 20:03