Elder Scrolls Online's new Firesong DLC warmly invites you to stop "killing and questing", and give the neglected animals some love for a change. Of course, there's a whole lot more to do in the final update of the year-long Legacy of the Bretons chapter, but let's be real: pettable animals will always, and rightfully, steal the spotlight.
Elder Scrolls Online zone lead Jason Barnes and lead content designer Jeremy Sera walked me through all of the new base game updates, and gave me a tour of the Firesong DLC. And while I was impressed with the new zone and creatures, I have to take a minute up front to talk more about pets and petting.
You've been able to pet and interact with a variety of animals in Elder Scrolls Online for a while now, but the Firesong DLC, and the accompanying update 36, add to that interactivity in some really fun ways. For example, you can give your horse a little snuggle, and there's a cow you can now lovingly pet. There's also a new Achievement called The Best of Friends, which tasks you with finding and petting a bunch of friendly animals around the brand new island of Galen. Doing so not only grants you a unique Achievement, but also unlocks a fragment of the new Druid King deck to be used in the Tales of Tribute card-battler mini-game.
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The team at Zenimax Online isn't just appealing to the ever-fruitful social media fodder that is petting cute animals; it's also hoping these changes make Elder Scrolls Online a more immersive game. "It's about making the world feel more interactive," Barnes tells me. "To make it feel more alive and have things that aren't just 'kill and quest'. The more we can make this feel like an actual world where you have different options to go and do things and have fun, the more we've succeeded in what we're hoping to accomplish."
Barnes also jokes that, "pretty soon you'll be able to pet everything on the island if we don't put a stop to it – and we're not going to stop." I will also go on the record here, and say that I definitely won't object to an infinitely pettable Elder Scrolls Online ecosystem. And, really, who would?
Moreover, one of my favorite quality of life additions in the base game update is the ability to hide other players' pets in town. It might not seem like much on paper, but the next time a Warden Bear parks its rear right on top of your crafting station, you'll be thankful for the option to make it disappear. Personally, I've always found other players wandering around with a company of fantastical creatures highly distracting, so this new feature also helps me stay immersed in the world.
There's also a new target marking system that lets you identify enemies and allies with a unique marker, as well as a bunch of quality of life updates to the housing system, and more that's available to all Elder Scrolls Online players as of November 1.
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Remember how Barnes talked about Elder Scrolls Online's last update of 2022 being more than just "killing and questing?" Well, there's plenty of that, too. Firesong includes a whopping 15 hours of new story content that dives deep into druid lore, and ties up the events of the Legacy of the Bretons chapter. In theme with this year's decidedly more grounded, almost Game of Thronesian story, the 2022 finale is more about people than Daedric princes.
"We wanted to keep the story grounded no matter what," says Barnes. "That was really important to us, because we have already done these cosmic, world-ending threats. Even though we're on the land of the Druids, and there will be a little more magic, we wanted to make sure that the story never gets into that 'Oh, this is a threat to the whole world thing… Keeping [the story] very grounded was a mandate to ourselves."
As Barnes and Sera take me through the new area of the map you'll explore in Firesong, Galen, the westernmost island of the Systres archipelago, I'm taken by the history and lore of the new locales. Barnes tells me the island's capital city, Vastyr, is home to a more working class bunch compared to the rich and pompous High Isle, and you can very much see that reflected in the humble, utilitarian architecture and similarly proletarian locals, who are busy selling goods from their fishing vessels, farming crops, and enjoying a cold drink after a long day's work. I leave Vastyr wanting to know more about its history, its people, and the massive great white shark proudly displayed in the town tavern, which Barnes reckons is "just the bartender's catch."
There's also a variety of new fauna you'll get to meet in Galen, including Elder Scrolls Online's take on a chimera. This "guardian of the island" has a lion head, a griffin head, and quite uniquely, a wamasu head. "That would be one hell of a mount," I remark as I gaze at the chimera, jaw agape. Barnes, clearly in a hollow attempt to placate my dumb suggestion, says he'll "add it to the list of cool things we might want to do some day."
The Phoenix Moth is another new critter you'll contend with in Galen, born from the active volcano on the island. I meet one while being shown around Glimmertarn, the home of the Stonelorn Druids, which coincidentally reminds me of Northern Arizona, with its cracked dirt, towering trees, turquoise streams and waterfalls, and ancient carvings on the walls of massive rock formations.
I'm then taken to the Jungle, which is home to much more formidable and dangerous foes, including the Forest Wraith, which Barnes describes as "the embodiment of death and chaos", before absolutely bodying the poor thing. I should note though that his character is over-leveled and over-equipped for the purposes of showing me around without interruption – so don't expect such an easy fight for your own character.
I'm even more impressed by the island of Galen and its inhabitants when I remember Zenimax Online built it all out of whole cloth, simply because the area hadn't ever been explored in any prior Elder Scrolls game.
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"It's the mix of new and old – or rather, the way Zenimax Online has managed to make features from nearly 30-year-old games feel fresh and exciting – that's made the Legacy of the Bretons one of my favorites in TESO's catalog."
Over the course of my walking tour of Firesong, I'm frequently reminded of Elder Scrolls games of yesteryear. Whether that's because of the focus on the Druids of Galen, which were first introduced in 1994's Elder Scrolls Arena, or because of the smaller-scale story, or simply because High Isle looks more like a classic Elder Scrolls setting than say, Western Skyrim or Elsweyr, I can't say for sure.
I'll be the first to admit I'm not usually a lore buff, but one of Elder Scrolls Online's strengths has always been its ability to weave a story together that compels me to dig further into the events preceding it. And to my delight, High Isle, and particularly the Firesong expansion, is like a history lesson on the Bretons' origin, something that hasn't ever been thoroughly examined before now.
"The idea that there are these other characters, this other race, that we can learn about is something that's been super fun to explore," Sera says. "We've had a chance to expand on [their story] but we love the lore and the culture that's already there. I feel like the Bretons have been given a raw deal. They're super interesting, but I think people just think they're these generic characters, but that's totally not the case."
Throughout Firesong's campaign, we'll also get to learn more about the fabled Sea Elves, which have only ever been mentioned in mainline Elder Scrolls but were given the chance to blossom in Elder Scrolls Online, and the Gilded Blade, a military group of Sea Elves formed in opposition of the Dreadsails.
It's the mix of new and old – or rather, the way Zenimax Online has managed to make people, races, and locales from nearly 30-year-old games feel fresh and exciting – that's made the Legacy of the Bretons chapter one of my favorites in Elder Scrolls Online's catalog. Several times I've tried my luck with the highly media-trained developers to find out what's next for the MMO to no avail, so I didn't try again this time, but it likely won't be long before we find out which part of Elder Scrolls history it'll explore in 2023.
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