Does uninstalling eso risk deleting progress?

Malyore

I know on Bethesda's website it says that character information and progress is stored in the ESO servers, so deleting the game won't harm them. But is this indefinite? Can you go years without playing then come back, or will they eventually delete an accounts information after so much time has passed due to inactivity?

fizl101

I still have my beta pc account that I don't play, I play on console. I logged in a couple of months ago and it was still there. I don't think they delete accounts at all

feyii

They did implement some time ago that accounts/character which are inactive for a long time will be moved to a cold storage. As I understand it that means, if you try to login with such characters, the first login will take longer than usual, because it has to be moved to the active character database first. But that's the only impact. You will still have access to all your characters.

DMuehlhausen

No, all information is saved server side. It's this way in games like this going all the way back to Ultima Online. I can still log into my EQ 1 account and my characters are there with their gear and I haven't actually done anything in the game since around the time of WoW launch.

Danikat

None of your account or character data is stored on your PC so you won't lose anything by deleting the game. I've done it several times over the past year due to getting a new PC and then hard drive issues, including times when I uninstalled and then formatted the drive so there was nothing left at all. My account was entirely unaffected and nothing was lost.

Likewise ZOS has never deleted account info because of inactivity. If someone bought the game when it came out in 2014, logged in on the first day and made a character who never left Coldharbour and never logged in again they could come back today and their account and character would still be there.

ZOS_Bill

As mentioned above, uninstalling or deleting ESO will not affect the characters stored on your account.