How Elder Scrolls Online adds a new class 8 years after launch

As part of last month’s Elder Scrolls Online Global Reveal Event, we received exciting news that the Necrom update will add the Arcanist – only the third new class to be added to the MMORPG since its inception 8 years ago. It’s a big moment for the game – and a big undertaking for the developers at Zenimax Online Studios, who are weighing 8 years of existing content against each other.

When creative director Rich Lambert appeared on the Xbox podcast last week, he explained the creation process of Arcanist and dived deep into how the team tackled the precarious task of adding something so new to an established game.

It’s worth first emphasizing how different the Arcanist is from what came before. As Lambert put it, “It’s really important for us as developers, but also as players, that it doesn’t feel like you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve done this class before, but it’s just a different color ‘ or ”The numbers are slightly different.’ We definitely had a lot of things to think about.”

With that in mind, the Arcanist offers some very different ways to play IT IS. “She has three main skill lines just like the other classes,” Lambert explained. “Herald of the Tome – this is essentially like a DPS line – Apocryphal Soldier – this is a tanky line – and then the healing one [is Curative Runeforms]. This class is very different from anything we’ve actually built before. It’s really tightly integrated with the overall storyline and themes. So much of the inspiration for this class revolves around Hermaeus Mora and this thirst for forbidden knowledge. It’s a bit darker, it hits that cosmic horror vibe, the graphics are really, really cool, the sounds the audio team came up with are really something you’ve never heard before.

“And then even down to the individual abilities and the core mechanics of this class are different. I think it’s more focused on a combo point system – we’ll call it Crux – but the general concept here is that some skills build Crux and some spend Crux, and when you spend Crux your skills do slightly different things or completely different things. And then, with the morphs and how we’ve integrated everything, you can control some abilities that aren’t dispensers or builders from the start, but you can morph them to do that. So there’s just this massive toolbox to really learn and play with, and a lot of interesting choices for players to make to truly master this class.”

Making a class so fresh means a lot of work has gone into making sure it fits seamlessly into the game it’s participating in. “We have standards to which we align everything […] But to really dive into the class and its inspirations and themes, and how it fits into the world, we talk a lot about what the class defining traits are, what mood you’re going for with a class, and how that’s different than anything we’ve done before have made.”

IT IS is mostly story-driven, and that will continue in the updates coming to the game this year – which will focus on the Elder Scrolls’ Daedric Prince, Hermaeus Mora. This meant that the arcanist had to be of great importance to this ongoing saga as well.

“This course, this arcanist, focuses on knowledge, and that’s very much in the wheelhouse of Hermaeus Mora – that’s what Hermaeus Mora does, hoards that knowledge, and so we’ve used a lot of it,” Lambert said. “And as players have seen in some of the Global Reveal stuff, but as they’ll see over the coming months, there’s a lot of Hermaeus Mora influences on this character and he just fits so well with that overarching story.” ”

This overarching story will be everything for the upcoming Scribes of Fate and Necrom updates, which will be postponed IT IS‘s ongoing story in intriguing directions. Most importantly, it will take us to the east coast of Morrowind – a place the Elder Scrolls hasn’t been able to visit since the mid-’90s. “Yes, 1994 in The Elder Scrolls: Arena‘ Lambert makes clear. “So yeah, obviously a lot has changed since 1994, both technology-wise and game-wise, so we’ve been able to go in and show players things and explore things that you couldn’t necessarily do in the ’90s.”

This balance between new and old is key to IT IS, which leverages a quarter decade of RPG storytelling but offers new ways to experience it. That’s how it feels with the arcanist IT IS nails that balance.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom will launch on June 5th for PC and June 20th for Xbox consoles, introducing new zones, stories and updates alongside the Arcanist class. You can Pre-purchase the update Now.