The Elder Scrolls Online announces Gold Road Chapter coming June 3rd — New zone, story, and brand new Scribing system!

There are a lot of exciting things coming to The Elder Scrolls Online this year with the announcement of the Gold Coast Chapter, which will be coming in with Update 42 on June 3rd 2024. With last years Necrom Chapter leaving us with a major cliffhanger, we will see Gold Road pick up where things left off. Gold Road will come loaded with new delves, public dungeons, world bosses, objectives, dungeons, world events, and a new 12 player trial.

As with previous ESO Chapters, we will get an all new zone to quest in, along with a story that will span the course of the year. If you’ve played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, then you’ll be familiar with the West Weald zone, which is situated between Cyrodiil, Gold Coast, Reapers March, and Craglorn. The West Weald will be split up into three biomes: The Gold Road which features a forest that is windswept and loaded with fall colors. Valenwood Annexation which will be a jungle rainforest, and the Colovian Highlands with rocky hills and fall colors.  Our main hub city for the new Chapter will be Skingrad within the West Weald.

When players quest through the prologue they will discover a long-forgotten Daedric Prince named Ithelia that was once imprisioned has escaped. Once the Gold Road Chapter arrives, players will find themselves in the West Weald , where a mysterious jungle has sprung up out of nowhere. Ithelia has no memory of who she was, why she was imprisioned, or how she escaped,  and although I have a pretty good hunch, I’ll have to wait and play through the Chapter to find out! Ithelia’s realm was once called Mirrormoor, and her esthetic is crystal and colors, not cosmic horror as we have seen with a lot of the previous Daedric Princes. A group of Wood-Elves called the “Recollection” are working to restore Ithelia’s powers when we first arrive in the West Weald, and weird things keep happening all around Ithelia wherever she goes.

There will be a series of quests that need to be completed in both Necrom and Gold Road for the main story quests to unlock, so now is a great time to finish up Necrom if you haven’t already! I reviewed Necrom last year, and had so much fun on the new Arcanist class, if you have not picked up Necrom, or for that matter any of the previous ESO Chapters, it has never been a better time.

Along with all the new content packed into Gold Road, we will get a brand new system called Scribing. With the introduction of Scribing the goal is to give players more customization avenues.

What is Scribing?

• Play with the nature of magic itself with Scribing, an all-new game system unique to Gold
  Road. Collect and customize skills to tailor your builds, granting you the power and
  freedom to truly play your way.
• With Scribing, players can collect and customize unique skills, letting players tailor their
  character’s playstyle by editing their primary, secondary, and tertiary effect
•  Focus at launch is on Weapon & World lines (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Soul Magic,
  Assault & Support)
•  Focus on these so everyone can participate in the system, and not just specific
  classes
• Each one of these lines will have at least 1 unique unlockable skill that you can configure
  & tinker with
• 3 major resources in Scribing:
  ▪ Grimoire: Skill or core of the ability that never changes (i.e. vault in the bow
  line)
  ▪ Scripts: Each Grimoire has 3 sockets or script slots on it. These slots give you the
  freedom to change the various characteristics of the ability. (i.e. heal/damage,
  damage type, buffs, etc)
  ▪ Inks: A consumable reagent to change or scribe an ability

Styling:

• As part of this system, players will also have the ability to change the look of ability
  visual FX (i.e. Wall of Elements can have a purple color)
• 22 styles at launch, all of which can be unlocked/earned in-game

We expect to see two new dungeons (Oathsworn Pit and Bedlam Veil) with Update 41 in March of this year. ESO players can tune in to the Update 41 preview stream on January 26th at 3pm EST on twitch.tv/bethesda to get more information. June 3rd will be the release of the Gold Road Chapter, which includes Scribing, and a new Trial called the Lucent Citadel. Q3 will see a new Housing feature that has yet to be announced, but I am very excited to find out more. The end of the year will see a PvP feature which will NOT be Cyrodiil related, along with 2 new Companions. PTS for Update 41 will launch on Jan 29th 2024.

ESO is the only MMO that has continued to hold my attention over the years. As many of you know, I am a huge fan of the game, and am always excited to jump in and check out new content. Gold Road is gorgeous, and the story looks like it’s set to not only continue the fantastic story from Necrom, but also add on some wonderful new content and lore. Stay tuned here at Gaming Trend for my full review at launch!

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