Alright, first things first, the news in case someone is out of the loop: https://www.eurogamer.net/perfect-dark-reboot-and-new-zenimax-mmorpg-reportedly-cancelled-as-part-of-latest-microsoft-cuts

The new ZeniMax MMO was cancelled. Moving beyond the obvious frustration of the people involved and people fired there is speculation on how this will affect ESO. Because, despite the denials (of course there will be denials from the developers), ESO WAS AFFECTED. In a bad way. The game suffered from the spread of attention from the outside perspective, players' perspective. It's reasonable to believe the lower budget of the recent "chapter" was also a product of the spread of the budget, but that's speculation.

Either way, no matter the reason, ESO was getting worse. Here are the undeniable signs:
1. In December 2024, the population hit the lowest point in ~6 years, according to Steam Charts;

2. There was no cinematic in 2025, and while this alone is irrelevant to the quality of the game, it is a likely indicator of a reduced budget;

3. The zones keep getting smaller in more ways than one. People defend it, looking for excuses. "Necrom's zone was smaller because they abandoned their "year stories". "Gold Road's zone was smaller because it was initially 4th quarter DLC". "2025's zone is smaller because it's part of the new direction". Sure.

4. The zones are emptier (of players) than ever. I was present at the release of every chapter (EU), and I never saw a release as empty as Solstice. This point can be argued. "Show proof". "I was there, and it wasn't empty". I'll leave this point unproved, instead I'll ask to consider the truth of it from the perspective of previous 3 points.

5. The plotlines degraded. Only the lazy didn’t point it out. It's not about "too much Deadra" or "they don't like this fictional nation". Anything can look good with good writing. Put "writing" in forum search and look up the threads of complaints.

6. The updates disconnected from the idea of what the game should be based on the fact what it already has. The "subclassing" is absurd from the perspective of visual, gameplay and game design logic, mildly forced by class nerfs, which left a strong feeling of a necessary move with a limited budget available, which may or may not be caused by the other MMO's (cancelled one) diversification of resources provided. Intermixing the skills and passives of the systems (skill lines) that were designed with the idea of colliding, not interacting, was a recipe for disaster from the start. An easy example: there is a reason why dragonknight doesn't have nightblade's invisibility, or why nightblade doesn't have templar's passives. The poll on the forum is a clear indicator of players having mixed feelings AT BEST in their majority, with 33% hating it outright and 33% feeling mixed at the moment of the creating of this post: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/678627/now-that-u46-is-live-how-are-we-feeling/p1

The templar spear change is another good example of this. The visual wasn't too dated or glaringly bad, but it was changed, even though no one even asked it to be modified. But it was asked to be reverted back, a lot of times. With no response at all. An example: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8295620
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Considering all this, here are the things that ESO can improve (and should):
1. Reusing and recycling the old assets should be stopped. Architecture. Furniture. Mounts. Enemies. All the time it's the same guar-horse-wolf-lion-camel with rare exceptions. Recolored guar. Recolored horse. Instead of the new models we get lazy, easy recolours. For 10 years. When a model is slightly changed, it's A NEW ANIMAL and an outrageous price in Crown Store (Turquoise War Pangrit, I'm looking at you).

Now, in 2025, we've got a zone with 90% of reused visuals. Same Summerset buildings, same Argonian ruins and villages. 2 new enemy models are presented like a breakthrough. Is that a result of 10 years of updates? It all affects the stale state of the game, because it's the first thing people see and memorise - the visuals;

2. Focus on ESO individuality instead of conformity to singleplayer The Elder Scrolls games. ESO's combat system is a highlight of the game, it combines gear and stat optimization with physical brain/finger reaction and tactical movement in high-pressure situations. Veteran dungeons and hardmodes are the strongest point of the game. They are replayable, they are engaging, and they are a strong reason people stay in game to optimise builds, to get the rewards, to get better in combat in general. Same could've been applied to PvP, but it's current state makes me want to avoid talking about it entirely. On the other hand Skyrim didn't even have a combat system, or any gameplay challenge whatsoever. Hardly a gameplay philosophy example.

I've heard praises from people who compared Skyrim dragons, merely an irritation, easily killed as any other monster, to ESO dragons, who can oneshot an expert player and require coordinated efforts of a group of people, giving the sense of real danger. It's a great example of gameplay worldbuilding and storytelling. You take the story more serious if antagonists are actually challenging. Which brings us to the next point.

3. Focus on challenge. Less accessible content was requested many times, there is an official thread for that: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread

Many people I know who dropped ESO after 10 or so hours went thought a delve or a main quest, effortlessly killed everything and quit, asking me how can somebody play this game.

The game that asks for focus, concentration and thinking will last longer in people's heads than "this evening's timekiller'. ESO is already the most casual MMO available, from my perspective. It's restrictions and limitations what provide interest and involvement, not the accessibility.

4. Classes of ESO are it's strong point. They are relatively original, each having their unique thematics and style, they don't usually follow the cliches of tank, rogue, healer, fighter and they stay away from D&D atavisms from Oblivion and earlier games. Their uniqueness should be reinforced, because classes are the vector of gameplay we choose. In other MMOs classes dodge differently, have diffrent attack speed, base their abilities not just on resourses, but on longer cooldowns. All of this can be implemented with the current technological limitations, I'm pretty sure of that.

Instead, first we got hybridisation, which gutted the logic of morphing skills into different version, and then "subclassing", which allowed players to just take "the best" skill lines with no downsides. With every update like that instead of proposed "variety" in fact we keep getting more and more rigid system.

5. Writing should change it's course. Comic relief bosmers, flirting dunmer assassins and happy endings with everybody being friends are horrible, horrible tropes. The series strong points always were the esoteric and weird elements, not comic movie clichés. More polemical stories, unafraid to be controversial would be a good start.

6. Remakes of the old zones. The first thing (and the last) many players see. They are dated. They are not good, and they never were for the most part. And they still make up a bigger part of the zones of the game. They are inferior in every aspect compared to the DLC zones: the world/level design, city planning/structure, the textures, the art design.