Three decades later, I’m still adventuring in Tamriel. The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO), the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by ZeniMax Online Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, took the continent I once wandered alone as a teenager and turned it into a shared world. Seven years in the making before its 2014 debut, when it launched with a then-mandatory monthly subscription, ESO now spans Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S, with a storyline that ties indirectly into the rest of the series.

But the specs have never been the point. For me, Tamriel isn’t just a game world. It’s home.

The first time I played Morrowind, I set up my character and instantly found out the game included lessons I’ve also learned in my real life. I realized that “evil” is just misunderstood by the popular kids. Dagoth Ur, my heart goes out to you every day. Everyone has their own agenda and will get you to work for them; people will use you, so stick to your boundaries. Not all that wander are lost—a.k.a. learn your maps; that random cave will come in handy later. And learning history can help you prepare for your future (great houses fighting over power, Ashlanders, the imperial tribulations, religious conflicts), because history always repeats itself. The most important relationships you will make in your life are your first and your last. And even the practical: Save the game (or that document you worked on for weeks) often.

But every lesson Tamriel taught me traces back to the Black woman who brought those Atari consoles home.

She would try any game we wanted her to play at least once. I can recall this one time she knocked on my bedroom door and danced her way into the room, as she does to any hip-hop song she isn’t familiar with. (On this occasion, it was Nelly’s Hot in Herre.)

She sat down on the bed next to my desk as I explained the cultures and factions of Tamriel. “The Nords are like Vikings; Imperials are like the Roman realm,” I said. I told her about the Elven culture’s magic and the spells that players can have across classes and cultures. It wasn’t long before she exclaimed, “SOLD!” and scooted me out of my computer chair, and then we spent the rest of the night setting up her character and account.

During Summer Game Fest 2026, hosted in sunny Los Angeles from June 5-8, Black Girl Gamers connected with developers across every corner of the industry, including the ESO team, who were on-site to showcase their revival of a beloved questline turned downloadable content. 

The original Thieves Guild DLC, released in 2016, operates as both a criminal faction and an exclusive skill line built around sneaking, pickpocketing, and heists. The guild calls Abah’s Landing in Hew’s Bane home, giving members access to lucrative gold-making opportunities through thievery alongside a strong set of passive skills.

The long-awaited revival, showcased at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, arrives on July 8 as Season One: Return of the Thieves Guild—the first installment of ESO‘s new seasonal model. It delivers a fresh adventure set in Glenumbra, featuring a new storyline, expanded stealth mechanics, high-stakes heists, and the return of legendary characters—IYKYK. The season also brings a new naval-themed event titled “High Seas of Tamriel,” which includes “ship-based action and underwater treasure hunting,” plus a separate questline following the Prince of Madness as he attempts life as a mere mortal—all of it free to the community.

During the festival, I sat down with Game Director Nick Giacomini and Associate Design Director Jason Barnes to discuss the evolution of the franchise, the returning questline, and the evolving landscape of MMORPGs.

BGG: With the changing climate of MMO gaming, what are some ways that you have made the game appeal to Generation Alpha without alienating your brand loyalists like myself and my mother that have been rocking with you since 1997?

NC: That’s something that we talk about a lot because, like so many, MMORPG gaming has changed so much, like in the last 30, 20, 10 years. It’s always evolving. And in a game like ours, we have such diverse players in terms of how they engage with the game, how much they want to play, and how little they want to play. So it’s really hard to try to design the game to appeal to so many different people, but it’s something that we try to do.

One of the things that we’re leaning into more is trying to work with how much time a player may have to play ESO. A lot of MMORPGs, especially the more old-school ones, can be really long, grindy, and not really respect players’ time. Nowadays, a lot of newer games do a great job of being able to just jump in. You can easily have a satisfying play session in a short amount of time. ESO is trying to do more of that. You’ll still have epic dungeons and quests and things like that. So that’ll still be a part of Elder Scrolls Online, but more short-form, engaging, rewarding experiences is something that we’re definitely going to try to do more of, and we are doing more of. Is there anything you wanted to add?

JB: I asked my 10-year-old daughter, ‘Is this fun?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, are you having fun? I need you to get off Roblox for a sec and come check this out.’ But no, I mean, it is trying to find a middle ground when you have a game where your audience is everything from teenagers to some gamers who have been playing since the ‘80s and ‘90s.

BGG: Yes, like my mother.

JB: I love your mom. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, you have to find a good balance, and you’re always shifting; you’re always adjusting. The gaming space is very different than it was 12 years ago when we first came out. Sometimes you might have only 10 minutes to log in. And as gamers get older, they have less time now. It’s an honor when someone says, ‘I’m choosing to play with you again,’ you know? Sometimes, I have two hours, sometimes, at night, if that. I ask myself, ‘How am I going to choose to use this time?’ So making sure people can just hop in, have fun, feel like they accomplished something—that’s a really big thing that we’re looking at.

BGG: Thank you for your service on that. And last question. Traditional Elder Scrolls games thrive on ultimate player freedom and consequential choices. How do you design MMORPGs that honor the single-player legacy while maintaining the shared camaraderie, with balance for your players?

JB: That’s a good question. I think part of it is that when we looked years ago, when we were designing the game and trying to figure out what it was, at some point, we made the decision that this needs to be an Elder Scrolls game first. And then, with an MMO system as part of that, too, we found ways to blend those things together. Every character in the game is voiced, without AI, so thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of story content, with wonderful voice actors and actresses, can get you really immersed in this interactive world. It may not be as high fidelity as Skyrim itself, but we built the world in a way where it’s very immersive. You can pick up almost anything laying around, and coming soon, we have a justice system where you can, if you want to live the life of a thief and go and rob people, you can.

BGG: Makes sense for a game titled Thieves Guild!

JB: Yeah! So you can live that type of life, or if you just want to go fishing and hang out with your friends, you can do that as well. One area where The Elder Scrolls Online truly shines is its housing system. With hundreds of homes and thousands of collectible furnishings, players are free to build and customize however they choose. Whether it’s a quiet lakeside cottage or an ambitious creation built from nothing but wall pieces—yes, even a spaceship—the system encourages pure creativity. Time and again, the community rises to the challenge, producing some truly impressive designs.