In the fourth and final episode of The Elder Scrolls Online podcast, a special series produced with Kinda Funny Gamecast, ZeniMax Online's Head of Studio Matt Firor and Game Director Rich Lambert revealed that the studio is making changes to the game's underlying technology to potentially introduce cross-play in the future.
Rich Lambert: Anything is possible.
Matt Firor: We're working on doing some underlying tech changes that would make it possible. We know how important it is. Again, we started working on this game in 2007. We didn't even think about two platforms, much less six or whatever we support now.
That whole concept, the "this is an Xbox" thing, because that philosophy now comes from the top, makes it easier to get the agreements done, to do what you need to do to do cross-play, which is an extremely long GDC presentation of technology, you know, handshaking other technologies. You don't just flip the switch.
Rich Lambert: And it's not just a technology problem, either.
Matt Firor: So, it's something we know about. It's something we really want to do. We're working on the underlying tech for it and we'll see if we can make it happen.
I had asked Rich Lambert about The Elder Scrolls Online cross-play in our previous interviews, most recently at Gamescom 2024, when he said:
It's never been a no; it's always been a holy hell. We made many decisions in 2007 that are very difficult to change, and then we'd have to get all of the first parties together to make sure that they're good with how we would go about implementing. It's a huge technical challenge to solve. Do I think we will get there in the future? Maybe. I think that's where technology is just going in general. People just want to be together and make it easy and remove all the friction to play with each other. But like I said, we started building this game in 2007, when that wasn't even remotely a thought in anybody's head back then.
It looks like the ZeniMax team has decided to give it a solid try, even though they haven't committed to cross-play coming to the game yet.
The popular MMORPG is transitioning from its previous yearly expansion model to a seasonal model beginning this June with Seasons of the Worm Cult. The update will also add a major new feature, multiclassing.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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