The Elder Scrolls Online launches its latest DLC: Waking Flame

The Elder Scrolls Online is releasing their Waking Flame DLC today, August 23rd. This is all part of the Gates of Oblivion yearlong event that started with ESO’s newest Chapter, Blackwood, which launched on June 1st. I thoroughly enjoyed the Blackwood story and questing through the zone (you can read my review here, spoiler alert, it’s great…buy it) and was hungry to continue the storyline.

The Waking Flame DLC includes two brand new dungeons: Red Petal Bastion, and The Dread Cellar. I got treated to a little preview event with the developers where I got to play through Red Petal Bastion with them ahead of today’s launch. They explained that they are taking a different approach to dungeons this time around, keeping it to three bosses, and something I am sure a lot of veteran players will be excited about, you can now enable challenge mode on all three bosses. This is a change, as previously you could only activate it on the last boss in Veteran Mode. You will be able to complete both dungeons on Normal, Veteran, and Hard Mode for added challenge.

In Red Petal Bastion, the once noble Knights of the Silver Rose protected Tamriel from the forces of Oblivion. But, TES wouldn’t be TES if people didn’t go mad and get all cult-y and stuff, so of course they start indiscriminately looting shrines to collect holy relics which are kept within the Red Petal Basion. Your job is to go in and see what is going on, along with our “good friend” Lyranth who, as usual, has her own agenda. The zone was quite fun, with some unique mechanics to go with the new bosses.

The devs hinted that there are some hidden items and interesting things within both dungeons, so exploring is definitely recommended. You will also get new armor sets, achievements, trophies, and collectibles! I hope they add the Knights of the Silver Rose banner to the Crown Store, as well as several of the items within the dungeon, because they would make great housing items. The dungeon was a lot of fun, and I had a blast with the devs, as usual!

If you have an ESO membership, you’ll automatically have access to all the new content, or you can buy it in the Crown Store for 1500 crowns, just like previous DLC. There is also a Waking Flame Collector’s Bundle for 4000 crowns, which comes with the Silver Rose Senche-Serval mount, the Ironclad Senche-Serval Kitten pet, and five Crown Experience Scrolls. Last but not least, you will get the Scorion Pyreling pet simply by entering either one of the new dungeons!

With the launch of the Waking Flame DLC, we also get Update 31, where we’ll see several bugs fixed, balance changes, performance improvements, and a series of quality-of-life additions. From ESO’s website:

“This includes the ability to toggle between HDR modes on consoles in your Settings menu, the addition of Dynamic Resolution Scaling (creating a more responsive framerate experience and providing generally higher resolutions when running in Performance Mode on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5), a beta for Multithreaded Rendering on PC (potentially improving frame rates), and a Reply function for your in-game mail. In addition to this, an assortment of new houses, furnishings, and houseguests will arrive in the in-game Crown Store in the coming months.”

I am very excited to hop into the live update tonight and not only continue the main story, but to check out The Dread Cellar dungeon as well. The events that unfold in The Waking Flame will set up the events of the next DLC, Deadlands, which will be arriving in the 4th quarter of 2021.

For more information head on over to ESO’s official website. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more information on GamingTrend.com!

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