The Elder Scrolls Online “Blackwood” Chapter Revealed

Last night, I sat up late and watched every minute of the Bethesda and Zenimax live stream for The Elder Scrolls Online, and wow, was it worth it. It seems 2021 and undoubtedly a little beyond that it’s going to be the biggest and most dynamic the game has ever seen; possibility even bigger than the One Tamriel update.

Blackwood

After a year’s worth of Elswyr, then last year we had Skyrim, this year we’re going to Blackwood. This is a part of the map that joins the Imperial City and Shadowfen. It’s a large zone about the size of North Elswyr, maybe larger actually. It’ll be the zone that introduces us to the year’s content theme “Gates of Oblivion”.

Check out the new Blackwood trailer below!

About Blackwood

Fire and ambition come to Tamriel with The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood, part of the Gates of Oblivion year-long adventure. Explore the diverse region of Blackwood, gain powerful allies with the new Companions system, and uncover the terrible schemes of Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince of Destruction, 800 years before the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion!

Pre-purchase The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Blackwood now to begin your adventure immediately in the Base Game or previous Chapters, gain instant access to the Nagahide Welwa Ravager mount and Nightmare Bear Cub pet (only available now until March 17), and receive additional bonus items at launch. Coming June 1 for PC/Mac and Stadia* and June 8 for PlayStation® 4 and Xbox One.*Available only in limited territories.

March Dungeon DLC – Flames of Ambition

Kicking off ESO’s 2021 is the Flames of Ambition Dungeon DLC pack coming March 8 for PC, Mac, and Stadia and March 16 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Flames of Ambition opens the year-long Gates of Oblivion story with new dungeons that reveal the threat of Mehrunes Dagon and leads players directly to the Blackwood Chapter story in June.

On top of new dungeons dropping in Q3 after the Blackwood Chapter release, the end-of-year story DLC sends players into the climax to the year-long adventure, tossing them straight into the heart of the infamous Deadlands, Mehrunes Dagon’s personal realm of Oblivion. We will share more details on the Q3 dungeons and end-of-year story DLC, which promises new adventures and areas, in the future!

Live Stream

The stream was quite long, so to re-cap everything would be crazy. So here are my highlights. Blackwood is the new content for this year. It’ll have a prequel quest “coming very soon” that involves a pair of dungeons. There will be the main expansion in the spring, and another zone DLC towards the end of the year; similar to previous years release schedules.

The new prequel and update 29 are live from today on the PTS server. This is important, as the Champion Point system will be getting nuked and rebuilt with their new system. The way passive abilities are applied has changed and the level cap is now CP3600, however, it may be that CP810 converts to 3600 on the new system, but the way that points need to be distributed is drastically different… we’ll find out soon.

Also, a new game starting quest is being added. It’ll cover the basics of movement and combat, before giving you the option of which DLC/zone to start in. Before, you were forced to start the game at the latest DLC prequel quest.

There are new houses, mounts, Motifs, a new Trial, crates and so much more. It’s a lot to cover. We expect we’ll have more details updates and a changelog later this week on the Elder Scrolls Online homepage.

How to Play

June Chapter Release – ESO: Blackwood, arriving on PC June 1 and on Consoles June 8. Pre-purchase for IMMEDIATE access to the Nagahide Welwa Ravager Mount and Nightmare Bear Cub Pet (limited time only).

Liked the chairs you saw in the stream? Check out these awesome ESO noblechairs here.