The Elder Scrolls Online is getting subclassing—which'll expand its roster of classes to 'over 3,000' combinations of mix-and-matched skill lines

The Elder Scrolls Online Seasons of the Worm Cult screenshot — (Image credit: ZeniMax Online Studios)

The Elder Scrolls Online is celebrating its 10th anniversary soon—and there are some big changes coming up in the pipeline. The biggest shake-up to this MMO, which has pretty admirably stood the test of time alongside its competition, is the introduction of subclassing—as announced in the latest ESO direct.

This grenade—filled with cool stuff, mind, but explosive all the same—thrown into the game's balance ecosystem works as follows: In ESO, a character typically gets to choose a set of abilities from up to three skill lines in their class: The Templar, for instance, has the Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath, and Restoring Light skill lines. With subclassing, though, players will get to choose skill lines from all classes—with a few limitations.

This, the direct boasts, expands the game's seven base classes into "over 3,000" combinations—which is, uh, a little intense. Game director Rich Lambert seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing in a post-preview Q&A—expressing that the team had done some extensive testing, and while "Power level will go up," developers are "fine with where it is."

It's a very ambitious move for a 10-year old MMO to be making, turning ESO from a mono-class game into something with an ARPG-level amount of build options. But from a relative outsider's perspective, it does somehow feel… well, right. The Elder Scrolls series has always been about cobbling together your own hero from a bunch of different options; and the subclassing system will allow you to do exactly that.

The new subclass system, along with the start of its Seasons of the Worm Cult structure, will kick off in June—so get your build calculators ready, this one's going to be a doozy.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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