Wasn’t a fan of the zone, questline, or event.

The only redeeming factor this year for me was Subclassing, and even that could have cooked a bit more before releasing.

I enjoyed the new Argonian lore (though I would have loved more of it) and there were several really very good side quests. While I thought the concept of the island of Solstice was interesting enough (remote island, buffeted by stormy seas, somewhat mysterious) I think ZOS fumbled the execution of it. It never really felt isolated and unknown, and too many locals seemed to just pop over to the mainland on the regular, which makes it hard for me to believe hardly anyone knew about the island. I also would have liked to find out more of why the Worm Cult chose this island for their plans.

I wish they wouldn't have split the content in two like they did.

The main quest wasn't anything spectacular. Though I enjoyed traveling and working with Raz and Darien, there was too much of a sequel/repeat feel to the theme and the quests. If the Worm Cult was somehow going to be back, I would have preferred them to have something more interesting going on than just planemeld redux.

I did like the way the zone looked, and the delves were all interesting places to explore--the art/graphics team did a great job.

I enjoyed most of the random zone encounters with the various npcs--eastern Solstice had a better crop of those than western, I think.

I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either.

While the arts/assets/location-building team did a good job (as usual!) and many places looked awesome and I also enjoyed the Worm Cult furnishings, sadly the rest of the content wasn't on par with that.

To start with locations: They might look pretty, but everything felt empty with all buildings closed off and most town npcs not having any voice lines.

I found the main story to be formulaic and boring. It was a story that didn't feel worth telling, the way it was. Much more could have been made of Mannimarco's return. I'm actually sad about the wasted opportunity, as this theme is most probably checked off the list now, so we will not see any meaningful lore additions to that anymore.

And also most side quests weren't notable at all. I actually mainly enjoyed three of them: Corelanya Manor in the West (huge compliments to the writer of that one!), and Aldwilne Citadel and Xor-Hist in the East. That's not much. Generally, this release had a very limited number of quests - for the same price as earlier chapters, of course - and many of those are even very short and simple fetch quests.

Lore-wise, there wasn't much this chapter, which was also a huge disappointment for me as a narration- and lore-focused player who joined ESO out of interest for this fictional world and its cultures, myths and stories.

Another problem was that the whole release felt rushed and unfinished. There were masses of bugs, typos, problems with missing or inaccurate translations. Also the one-time event was a huge letdown. Writing also had its problems, and by that I don't only mean the lack of lore, but also lots of plotholes and inconsistencies.

And then, we didn't get new companions either. Also: No new ToT deck. The main problem for me is not even that some aspects might not be added anything new to in a year - the problem is if the purchase price doesn't reflect that.

I'm honestly not sure how to rate this. Some parts were entertaining at least, but on the other hand, there were also problems that are, for me, sadly inexcusable. From my point of view, a product should never be released in such a buggy state.

I really hope next year will be better.

My main issue: it just wasn’t value for money.

The first attempt at a “Season Pass” model was objectively a bit of a disaster. The main event was a bug-fest and poorly designed, but more than that….. where was the content?

No skill line. No class. No companion. No combat changes. No new anything. No significant QoL changes. A single very small zone. Incredibly repetitive quests. But more expensive than the year before.

Absolute daylight robbery.

I’ve still got one more quest in the storyline to finish. I really like the new Argonian character Jeetra, and the story having everyone going back to learn some history in order to try to defeat the Worm Cult is very interesting. After a terrible start, I am enjoying it now.

I’ll update when I get that last quest done.

I don't have much interest in dlc dungeons, so that didn't really add much value for me for the content pass. The zone was nice, delves, main city, ect. As for the main event, I wasn't a fan of the dailies being both phase 1 & 2, especially the fetch quests. I did have fun running the phase 3 public dungeon, but wasn't a fan of the plan to delete it after a week. If you do fix the issues and bring it back, I'll bump the rating to at least a 6.

Caveat: I still haven't done the other half of Solstice.
...but the fact that I am utterly uninspired to do so should make it clear how compelling the story is.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I'll just go bit by bit:

The Zone:
Meh. I'm personally not really a huge fan of Argonian or Altmer styles or tropical anything, so this was never going to be a huge hit for me in the first place. But even taking my personal feelings out of the equation, it still wasn't impressive. So much of this just looked recycled from before, to the extent that there's really no difference between the Solstice inn room and the Alinor one. And then we get to the other half of Solstice, and it's a copy/paste of a lot of Coldharbour stuff.

My biggest issue with the zone was just "why?" Really, why is this story set on an island which has never been listed on any maps for the series ever? This was completely fabricated from whole cloth, and now we get the excuse justifications of "oh, well the entire world just forgot about this place despite it being super important as a staging ground during the Three Banners War where all of the alliances came together." If we brought that into an IRL circumstance, that would be like Europe completely forgetting that Istanbul exists and not drawing it on any maps after the Ottomans captured it in 1453 (which is about the same time difference between ESO and Morrowind, when we have Anthology maps where the island of Solstice is nowhere whatsoever).
Let's also not forget that Stirk, an island on the other side of the continent, is used as a staging ground instead of Lilmoth, a neutral city that is quite close by. Also let's ignore the excuse plot of "oh, we can't sail around the Wall" when it's actually easier for the EP side to come to Eastern Solstice, since them coming down normally from Morrowind would require them to circle the island to get to Sunport. So what, they sail through the impassible rough seas to safely get to Sunport? Or do they go up through the Sea of Ghosts and all the way around High Rock to get here? What?

WHY did we not choose a better locale? Seriously, Cespar and Herne or the islands of the Chain are right there. And then, it'd have made sense for Stirk as a staging ground since it's closer, and they could have made the zone be two islands, which makes it so the other island could be completely encircled by the Wall to take care of that question, and it's something that's on maps but has never been developed so the same story would have worked and it would have made more sense for the Corelanyas to have ended up there since they left from Hammerfell and it's close. Heck, they could have even still copypasta'd the setting as an Altmer mashup, but just with Redguards here (who have been starved for content).

All of that just made Solstice just feel like "uhh, let's just throw something in there while the lore people aren't looking. Here, go be distracted by options to flirt with Raz and Darien."

The Quests:
I am getting tired of seeing the same. people. over. and over. again. Honestly, ZOS should make a list of which characters show in which zones, and it should be a "three strikes and you're out" thing. And if the character dies in that story, that's two strikes right there. STOP BRINGING CHARACTERS BACK FROM THE DEAD. There is no emotion at all in any of these stories, since all we say is "huh, I wonder when this character's coming back." I'm surprised we still have any spirits for the Old Life quest anymore.

But let's face it, the writing has been on a severe downswing since the days of Wrothgar-Summerset. There were some - well, not high points, but some less-bad points - in some of the sidequests (notably Corelanya Manor), but mostly it was all very forgettable point-and-click quests. And, as has been noted, there are so many fewer than we used to have.

And on the topic of the writing... there's a lot of consistency that seems to have been overlooked. "Solstice is such an isolated island... but it's just as diverse as the mainland and we all have friends and family there." "The western half of the island is secretive and mysterious, except for the fact that one of the three colleges is headquartered there." "The Worm Cult has been building everything there in secret and it suddenly showed up, even though many of those things are large enough that it'd surely be obvious for miles."

Oh, and one more thing: ROMANCE IS NOT AN END GOAL FOR EVERYONE. Please don't assume that all of us are the kinds of people who will think "I can flirt with Raz!" is our entire life's goal for this game. Sure, there are some players for whom it is. But there are just as many people who see this trend of "instituting romance with a fan-favorite as a cover for good writing" as nothing more than eye-rollingly cringe, on the same level as "early 2010s Whedon-esque snarky humor from everyone instead of good writing."

The Feature:
Look. If something goes on PTS and the general consensus is "this is not thought out at all; this will be bad for the game if it releases in this way," that's probably a sign there that it needs to cook longer. I still remember that 2024's end-of-year letter said "Freeing up the dev team from needing to adhere to a strict annual cycle means we will be able to have teams launch content when it is ready throughout the year and not work to a date in June," and what we got was precisely the team rushing to launch a half-baked mess in time for a June release date when it should have been polished longer.

Let's just say that there's probably a reason that soon after this feature released, we got: a forum thread asking for our general feelings on it, a massive survey on balance and identity, a massive survey on PTS feelings, a deep dive on an upcoming Class total refresh (which the ESOLive said started soon after the release of said feature), and more than one dev admission of "this did not land as we had hoped."

Oh, and this new Class refresh coming up isn't a final answer if it's going to take 2+ years to finish. BALANCE THE [SNIP] GAME. Don't drop a nuke on endgame and then spend the next two patches saying "yeah, we don't want to change much about combat because we didn't see this coming despite all warnings to the contrary still want to see how this shakes out. That's a great way to ensure that everyone loses all faith in the combat team.

The Dungeons:
aka the one bright point in this year.

Ok, I'm a huge sucker for dungeons. Exiled was a fun story and had a few interesting fights, Lep was actually a lot more fun than I'd expected (I had previously decided that if something involves Gryphons, it is a horrible slog) and the final boss was great, Naj had a really fun side event, and BGF is now my new favorite dungeon because of the incredible HM mechanics on all three bosses.

However... it still does feel bad that ESO+ subscribers were already getting them, and now we're supposed to be excited to pay $10 more for them in the Pass? Why not just pay the $40 for the Pass sans dungeons since we're already getting them with the sub?

The Trial:
Ossein was okay, but Lucent's final encounter was so fresh and interesting that a return to the same-old setup (but this time with entirely too much trash between bosses) was a bit of a let down. Plus, can we discuss another Lore implication in Lord Low Warden being pulled back into service when his Animus is currently trapped in my shield? I have mine saved and locked and he still talks to me from time to time, so I know he's still in there... so how is he able to pop back out into the trial?

The other major issue here is what relates to the above: the horrific balance that decimated endgame again, drove off a significant number of raiders, and crystallized the meta to one single setup that does over 50% more than any other build. That just put a damper on the entire thing since raiding in general has been so un-fun since June.

The Wall:
The next time you consider a FOMO event as content, do us all a favor and write that idea down, and then douse it in gasoline and toss it in a bonfire.

The Wall event was impossibly overhyped the whole year. Anyone who knows what's possible in this game already knew there was no way that it was ever going to measure up, and then it dropped on PTS so we could see first-hand that it was all just a series of dailies to grind. I still remember trying to puzzle out the timing of everything and read between the lines of what they announced (more on that below) and when things would release, and it looked like they were planning something like grinding this event for a month and a half or so?

And then it was finally announced: an indeterminate time of grinding dailies on repeat. Except with one additional thing I didn't even foresee - bugs out the wazoo. "Catastrophe" doesn't even begin to describe how it went.

It was obvious that the percentages were manipulated several times behind the scenes (I can only imagine some poor devs sitting there crying "please, just let it end"), only for the climactic endstage to fizzle out due to literal gamebreaking bugs. Which was honestly a shame - the Fortress itself was really cool and a great setpiece... but you couldn't help looking at it and wondering how much dev time was sunk into a fun experience that was going to be deleted from the game forever and how that dev time could have been better spent doing literally anything else.

The Communication:
Ok, it does seem to be getting better... but we're seriously at the point of "anyone can say words, it's time to show us you mean it."

Still, an entire year of "we can't wait to show you what's coming!" was maddening. There comes a point when it feels like we're being led on and we start tuning it out. We crossed that point quite a while ago. It's nice to hear that we are getting a reveal, and quite soon at that. But it needs to actually reveal things. And at this point, it needs to reveal quite a few concrete things that was can get hyped about, not just say "hey, here's a preview of the Q1 PTS, but the rest of the year is (tee-hee) a mYsTeRy! LmAo!1!1!

The Value:
NEXT.

More expensive than a Chapter, for mathematically less content? And what did we get otherwise? Stuff that we get with ESO+ anyway. And where are the expansions on old things (new Companions, new Tribute decks, new Grimoires) or the exclusive features (new Classes)? Nonexistent.

This has absolutely inspired me to wait to buy any other Season/Content Passes for ESO. Unless there's going to be an Artificer Class involved, I can't imagine ESO in its current state being able to make something that's worth full-price, and more than a Chapter was at that. I thought 2025 was the make-or-break year after the rough latter half of 2024 we had... and then 2025 came by and said "hold my beer."

Final Thoughts:
Yes, the Microsoft layoffs in March were devastating. But... pretty much the entirety of 2025 was planned by that point, so I can't blame all of 2025's problems on that.

I do expect that the team's morale was in the toilet after that, not to mention that the cancellation of the NA anniversary event in fall 2024 suspiciously coincides with the standard US fiscal year turnover, which makes me think that ZOS got a huge budget cut for FY25, which also could explain a lot of the lacking issues we had this year.

But at the end of the day, this is a business. If ZOS (and Microsoft) intend to make a profit, they need to deliver. We, as customers, should not be expected to continue to finance sub-par goods if the quality we expect is not there. And there are a lot of big fans (and supporters) of ESO that have decided to cut back on or stop spending entirely because of how this year went.

A lot of us on the forum have a lot to say about this year. But that is because we all really do love this game. We don't want Microsoft to pull a surprise New World on us. But if the quality and direction of ESO continues on the trajectory it's on, well eventually see Microsoft decide that it is no longer profitable, at which point ESO will go the way of Legends.

Let's not see that happen. The devs want a 30+ year game. We want a 30+ year game. But that means the game needs to deliver.

One thing I really didn't like were the first 2 stages of the Writhing Wall event. I did enjoy the Writing Fortress, though.

I also found the amount of bugs to be the worst I've ever seen.

Great stuff

It was horrible, unbalanced, poor writing on a story, horrid event that was just a generic event, none of it was good.

Some of the side quests were okay and the main story was…generic and forgettable but not so bad that I regret touching it. While I understand why they recycled so many assets I’m not a fan of it.

It's another optional something else to do in the game. I did not pay for the cash grab and haven not been to Solstice and cannot comment on the zone. Eventually I expect to get there when it's added via ESO+ or by some other means. I have so many zones yet to do that can keep me busy until then.

As for the Writhing Wall Event, that took too long to my mind. I enjoyed the daily quests for the first few days but then they got tedious and boring so I stopped doing them. Kind of like the current New Life Event daily quests - too time consuming and not worth the rewards. But I should do them while double XP is in effect. Not sure that I will. /shrug

I forgot to mention one of the best things! The Tide-Born bench we can lay on and enjoy a cool drink! Now we need beds we can actually sleep in!

1 - It's so bad it caused my wife and I to quit. Have not logged in since I think may.

The zone is boring, uninspiring. The elf/argonian architecure looks bad mixed together.

The MSQ was forgettable.

Subclassing plain killed any enthusiasm we had about playing our characters.

I don't think there is any redeeming this failure. I see no reason to spend money going forward when Zenimax is ok with charging what they did for content of this calibre, not gonna get fooled again.

5/10

The zone itself is painfully dull, by far the worst place I’ve set foot in across my 11 years of playing ESO. Sorry, ZOS, but I genuinely don’t think Solstice is a good piece of work.

The first half of the story is weak as well. The side quests fail to convey any real sense of urgency, and the zone keeps trying to push this “tropical paradise” vibe when the narrative focus should clearly be on the colossal wall dividing the island. That contrast is never explored with the weight it deserves, and as a result the entire experience feels disconnected and unfocused.

That said, I did raise my score. Initially, this would have been a 3. What improved it were the narrative choices surrounding the fates of certain characters. From the second half onward, the story stops being outright bad and becomes at least somewhat engaging. I appreciated how some characters were genuinely affected by the events, and for the first time in a while I felt a hint of real narrative boldness from ZeniMax.

This is far from my favorite ESO storyline—hell, I can’t even say the overall result is positive—but they did manage to salvage a little of what I had major issues with.

And yes, I was also lucky: I didn’t encounter a single bug during The Writhing Wall. Because of that, the event itself was actually really enjoyable for me.