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Elder Scrolls Online is an MMO near and dear to my heart. It’s celebrating ten years of content in 2024, and interestingly I’ve been around since the very beginning. While I haven't been an extremely active player, I was there in the early tests. I covered the reveal of Tamriel Unlimited, which changed the game in such a positive way. However, recently, ahead of the Gold Road launch, I had a chance to sit down with two of the minds behind the game itself.
I spoke to Elder Scrolls Online’s Narrative Director Bill Slavicsek, and the Loremaster Michael Zenke, about characters, following the overall Elder Scrolls narrative, and so much more. It was a captivating chat, and it's evident that both of them have a deep love for the world of Tamriel.
It may not be obvious to everyone, but games like MMOs are the work of massive crews, especially in terms of writing and character creation. No one person is an island unto themselves, so it was insightful to learn more about that. While fans still have to wait a bit longer for the Gold Road chapter, here’s a conversation with two of the creative minds behind Elder Scrolls Online.
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Elder Scrolls Online’s Narrative Director and Loremaster on how far they’ve come over the last decade
Q. First, thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. How does it feel to know that it has gone on for 10 years, and has accumulated such rich, deep lore?
Bill Slavicsek: Oh, we're very proud of the fact that we're still kicking and doing well and that people seem to like what we're doing and very proud of all the work that the team has put together in 10 years. Yeah, I'm just super excited to still be doing this and looking forward to another 10.
Michael Zenke: Absolutely. It's Gold Road, a lot of new opportunities, a lot of new, new stuff. So I feel like we're continuing to find new, sort of ground to cover, new stories to tell, even though like you said, the game's been around for a hot minute.
Q. Some games have “Lore Bibles”, that contain requirements for the story to follow or should follow - such as the Doom Bible. When considering story updates for ESO, is there an “Elder Scrolls” bible you have to follow, or is it more loose?
Bill Slavicsek: So we kind of have an internal Bible. It's called me and Michael. And of course, we run all of our big ideas past Bethesda to make sure that they're OK with where we want to go and what we want to do. But then other than that, we just try to keep in mind what it means to be Elder Scrolls. And as long as our stories are hitting that we feel we're in the right ballpark.
Michael Zenke: Yeah. It's one of the hallmarks of the Elder Scrolls IP, that it's this sort of open-ended collaborative environment, right? Like, even just since Skyrim, Skyrim release, there have been other products, right, that have been released in the Elder Scrolls canon and all of us together are sort of in there in, in the same shared world that Bethesda started, telling stories and opening up new opportunities. So it's no, there's no lower Bible per se.
But part of the whole conceit is that with unreliable narrators, the only stuff that's really like hard canon is the stuff that happens to you as a player. So if you finished Skyrim, you, the Dragonborn, faced off against Alduin. And that's real, right? That's a real thing that happened. Everything else that people tell you stuff, they tell you in dialogue or in a book you read in a book that's all open to interpretation because just like in the real world, history is written from a certain point of view, from a certain angle, and that gives us a lot of freedom to kind of like you said, do the stuff that, that interests us, take, take new opportunities.
Q. Another interesting thing about Elder Scrolls Online is that it takes place 1,000 years before the events of some games, such as Morrowwind/Oblivion. Was that intentional, to make sure there is less of a chance to conflict with already-established games?
Bill Slavicsek: So that happened before either Michael or I were really involved. But as I understand it, yes, it was a good spot where we knew a little bit about what was going on but not a ton, and we would have room to, to play and grow without doing too much to what happens later. And we keep in mind, you know, we're not a prequel per se, but we try not to do anything that would not work for what happens later,
Michael Zenke: Right. We're sitting in the year 582 of the Second Era in Tamriel’s timeline and prior to Elder Scrolls Online's release, this era was defined by just a couple of notes and a couple of lore books. It's technically, we're in an era of the empire called the Interregnum.
The empire proper has fallen like there's, there is no empire proper and the war between the three alliances is the sort of dominant sort of political element of the era. And, you know, I think the goal was, ‘Hey, that sounds fascinating in an online video game, which obviously PVP is a core component, one of the core pillars of the game, having a couple of different factions, all with different sort of like group cultural groups from across Tariel, you know, duking it out for the Ruby throne.’ That sounds like a great fit for a video game, right?
And obviously, we've now in the 10 years since we've taken things in our own direction and kind of put our own goals and our own context to all of that. But it, it, it was, I think literally just like, hey, that sounds like a good hook for a video game. Right.
Q. The majority of ESO takes place on the continent of Tamriel, which is a gigantic landmass. However, it’s not the only continent in this world - there are also places like Akavir and Atmora. Has there been any discussion of perhaps leaving the Tamriel continent for a more lengthy excursion, or is there simply not enough known about those places?
Bill Slavicsek: So we talk about things like that all the time. Nothing is off-limits as we explore our options. But we can't actually tell you where we want to go next. That's not allowed. We're not supposed to give any spoilers. But, yeah, I mean, you can imagine that every time we get in a room to talk about what's next, the whole world is part of our discussion,
Jason: It would be sort of interesting though to be able to go to one of those places that say none of the games have been to and essentially create your own lore for that place.
Michael Zenke: Yeah, for sure. And we've definitely done that before, right? Like, High Isle, just recently, right? It was a place that was only mentioned in the lore. It was just on a couple of maps and the two releases, the two chapters that were, sort of dropped in that locale two, excuse me, a chapter and part of a chapter that were part of that locale.
They were like, totally new for us, which is, you know, we've done that a couple times in the past. To Bill's point, right, I don't think it's so much about like, the challenge of doing it is like, hey, what's the, what makes the most sense to do next? Right. Like we, when, when Bill and, and Jeremy Sera and Matt Firor and Rich Lambert when they sort of developed the ideas for a high level chapter idea, it's always about like, what makes the most sense to get at the goals that we want to hit at. What, what's the most sense for the next thing to do? And there's no, there's no stuff we can't do. It's just like what makes the most sense to do next.
Q. While I’m sure TES VI is several years away at this point, do you think the stories that have been put down in Elder Scrolls Online could help influence the lore of that future game? Or are the ZeniMax and Bethesda teams more separated?
Bill Slavicsek: We'd like to think that what we've done will be utilized in some fashion. If it makes sense to do so. But we are two separate teams. They're doing their thing, we're doing our thing. We talk to them at the beginning of any project to make sure that they're on board with it. But after that, they don't, they don't look over our shoulder at everything we do. They let us go do our thing and we let them do their thing.
Michael Zenke: Yeah, it's the same, I mean, I literally see it as the exact same situation as we have with the single-player games except in reverse, right? It's opportunities. And some of these opportunities might make sense just like literally, oh, that's a great idea. I'm gonna pick up and carry that forward or some might look at the next game might look at what we've done and go, oh That's a cool idea. But I wanna do this other thing instead, right? Like there, it's literally just, it's, it's the whole idea of a shared IP, right? Like it's nothing but potentialities and then choosing the one that makes sense to carry forward.
Q. The Elder Scrolls as a franchise has a number of unsolved lore mysteries: One in particular that gets asked about a lot is the Dwemer. Unfortunately, Todd Howard has said in a previous interview that the secrets and mysteries of the Dwemer are never going to be explored. Has the ZeniMax team been given a reason for that? I know they can be briefly encountered in Vvardenfell as spectres, but other than that, they’ve still left an indelible mark with their automatons. Does Todd’s statement mean Dwemer will never be featured in the game?
Michael Zenke: Let me be really honest with you. Any answer that we give you will be way less interesting than anything you come up with in your head. That's, that's at the end of the day. Right? I think why people call it a black box or a mystery box from back in the lost days, right?
Like I think it's far more interesting to put a couple of things in your franchise in that box and keep them sort of sacrosanct so that you could talk around them and speak to them but never directly answer them. I think that's a really interesting way to do an IP. There's a downside, you know, look at, look at “Lost” as a television show.
There's a bad way to do that too or a less good way to do that too. But like, I think the Dwemer and the vanishing of the Dwemer and a couple of other things, right? Like the Knahten Flu, there's a couple of other bits like that in the Elder Scrolls IP, that I'm really glad we have mysteries to keep people interested because that just drives an interesting narrative.
Right? It's, it's opportunities for story and if we came out and, and did a release, that's like ‘here's why the Dwemer vanished.’ Frankly, it would just, it would just cut off future stories. It would answer a question that I don't think people actually want answered. That’s my view of it.
Jason: I'm not necessarily looking for that to be solved because I love a good mystery. I just wonder if they will ever sort of appear, like if it's possible for them to appear or by, by Todd Howard saying that, that mystery will never be explored that they also really just can't appear other than, you know, sort of brief instances here and there or like their automatons scattered across Tamriel, which are very cool.
Bill Slavicsek: If a Dwemer appeared, they would no longer be missing. So I don't see that occurring.
Michael Zenke: Well, and, and let me throw one at you on that front. Right? Like the thing you're sort of poking at is in the Morrowind release, there's a character that claims he's the last of the Dwemer, right? Like how do you know? Right. He just tells you that's true. Is that true? Right? Like, and that's the thing that I think is great, right? It’s because we have to rely on dialogue and his historical texts and basically, I think it's a very real experience, right? Just like in the real world, everything except for the thing that you actually experience firsthand is pretty subjective
Bill Slavicsek: And even that can be subjective, too.
Michael Zenke: 100%. Listen, Magic and Daedric Princes, man. They throw some curveballs.
Q. Away from the topic of the unsolvable, there are so many new, interesting antagonists that come with the various ESO chapters. How do you two, as Loremaster and Narrative Director, come together to put together something fans may recognize, while also being something fresh and new?
Bill Slavicsek: It depends on the character. If we're talking the main story that usually starts with me and potentially Michael, depending on the lore connection. If it's other characters just in the zone, that's other writers and designers working together. They, we all have the same goal to make it interesting and exciting and, and quirky characters. For Ithelia, for example, the new Daedric Prince for the Gold Road, I wanted it to fit the mold of a Daedric Prince but be different.
So Michael and I, you know, we made a matrix of all of the portfolio pieces of all the Daedric Princes that we know, we looked at the holes where the opportunities were to put something new, where we wanted there to be some overlap because with overlapping of conflict.
And then we talked about ‘What is that character gonna be?’ We want a Daedric Prince that you can get to know and not just wanna fight. And so we did a lot of work to make her a very three-dimensional Daedric Prince. And I think that's gonna come out when people play the news, the new zone. Michael?
Michael Zenke: Yeah, even her sort of chief lieutenant, Torvesard, who's a Dremora. You met him primarily just as an antagonist in Necrom, but over the course of the Necrom narrative and, and now the Gold Road –
Bill Slavicsek: And he was a rival, not necessarily an antagonist, right? You don't, you don't fight him.
Michael Zenke: But that's the thing, right? It's like you get a chance to see some characters to your point that are villains, right? That have different goals than you do. But they aren't necessarily just mustache-twirling bad guys that sit in the back and go ‘Mwa-ha-ha’, right? To answer your question directly, I think all the stuff we're talking about is just, ‘Hey, we've been doing this for 10 years.’ Bill and I both have a lot of stories under our belts and working with a really freaking incredible team. There's 10 other writers on the narrative team besides Bill. So nine others besides the two of us.
And you know, that collaborative element, right? The interplay between narrative and content design, the goals of the chapter, the opportunities that whatever the location we're in bring us, right? Like because we're in the West Weald and we're dealing with some imperial characters like that affords us some opportunities that other releases haven't had.
It's really all about sort of like looking at the board of what we have in front of us, what, what assets we can use and finding a way to like, infuse good character, good motivation into that, in a way that surprises people because like you said, we, you know, 10 years we've had a lot of villains. Some good, some, some bad, in terms of how they played out and it's always an opportunity to try something new, try to, try to top ourselves.
Bill Slavicsek: And we do like our villains to be not just the bad guy. We want to give them goals that you can understand, maybe even be sympathetic toward, depending on the villain.
Q. I want to talk about the topic of a Loremaster because I think it’s honestly one of the coolest jobs in the world of MMOs. Just how deep is your Elder Scrolls lore? What makes you qualified to be the Loremaster?
Bill Slavicsek: I gave him a 24-hour test that he passed. No, go on Michael, you can tell him.
Michael Zenke: I mean the pithy answer is I was dumb enough to say yes. So I would say what, what are my qualifications? Let's start there. I've been telling stories and games for over a decade. I'm a very character-first, sort of character-focused person and I think that's the Hallmark of, of the Elder Scrolls IP is that while there's dates and names and, you know, battles and stuff, I think it's the characters that rise above kind of the fray that really help Elder Scrolls as an IP stand out from other, other franchises. You know, your Martin Septims your Sheaogoraths, right? Your Sotha Sils, right?
Like these from even the earliest games, Bethesda infused a lot of really good, strong narrative chops into the IP at a base level. And that's something that I'm super like, engaged with something that across my career, I've spent a lot of time working on. So when I think about the Elder Scrolls IP, you know, you sort of like, do I have everything memorized? No, like I don't, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, you know, every single date and name and place and stuff, but I feel like I have a really good working knowledge of the cultures in particular. Like the cultures of Tamriel are such an important living breathing component to the game world.
I know the characters inside and out. And when it comes time to, for people to ask a question about ‘Hey, what are our opportunities here?’ Because that's really at the end of the day what my job is. I'm like the ultimate support class. I'm the bard at the back of the party, like singing a little song, trying to help people make the game better. That's the kind of stuff that I bring to the table like, ‘Hey, these are opportunities, this is stuff we've done before. Here's some ideas to fuel new stuff.’
That's what Loremaster, on ESO at least, really means. I'm an opportunity scout and just trying to make sure that we're all appreciating the vast horizon that is the Elder Scrolls IP.
Bill Slavicsek: And I think for both Michael and I, we understand what it is to tell a story in Elder Scrolls, we know the boundaries and the opportunities and if we don't recall something right off the top of our head, we know where to go to look to get that information.
Q. On that note, were there any particular expansions you had more say-so in, or more input than others? I imagine perhaps Morrowind since it was set in a region familiar to the TES fanbase, or perhaps Greymoor since it featured Skyrim?
Bill Slavicsek: Well, I've worked on every one of the expansions and chapters since launch and while it's a team effort, my expertise is certainly shown in all of those pieces. First as a Senior Writer, then as a Lead Writer, and now as the Narrative Director, I'm involved in all of that storytelling.
But beyond that, Michael was with us for the launch of the game and then he went off to try something else, and he's been back since High Isle. And once he became Loremaster, which was, I guess, right after High Isle, right? When, when our previous Loremaster Lehman went to work on our other project. So, since then, we've both been totally involved in everything that's going on. I'm not sure there's any one place I could point. That's what I did, but my finger’s in all of the pies.
Michael Zenke: I think Bill and I both definitely have the philosophy of, like I was talking about before, storytelling in MMOs, in particular, is like, it's a team sport, right? It's a collaborative endeavor. And so the two of us just happened to, we've just done this a lot. It's really, we've got reps in the game, right? So when we talk to more junior writers, when we talk to content designers and stuff, like we're just there as folks who can help point out the, the good do's and don'ts, rather than and this is a gentle push back, but I think there's, there's in some cases in some parts of the industries is the concept of the “auteur”, right? The person who like is the face of the game and with MMOs in like a lot of games, I would argue.
But in MMOs, in particular, like that's not a thing, like there's no one person responsible for any even the story, right? Like Bill and I are part of a larger team and that team. The narrative team is part of a larger content group and all of us together are the ones that make the story for ESO coming together. So, so, yeah, absolutely.
Q. While ESO has many fan-favorite antagonists, what about the protagonists and allies that have joined players over the years? Were there any you and the team had the most fun creating?
Bill Slavicsek: So when it comes to individual characters, that's where you might see a little more of the individual writer taking charge. We have certain characters that I've written more of, or Michael's written more of, or somebody else on the team has created and is now shepherding these characters forward. As I like to say, what I'm currently working on is always my favorite just because that's my mindset when I'm working.
But the ones that we've shared, I mean, writing Lyris (Titanborn) was a joy and I didn't write her initially, but I wrote her later on. Well, it was written by a couple of different writers. Wynne McLaughlin did the early stuff and then I took over from there and wrote his Coldharbour and then later - what's another one that was a group effort? Rasim Dar, Michael set the stage and I wrote him later. And then some other people have written him since. Those are the ones that stand out for me as more of the collaborative characters. What about you Michael?
Michael Zenke: Yeah, absolutely. Like any character in ESO, that sort of rises to become sort of what I would say, like a fan favorite is probably the effort of a lot of different people pitching in on some level. I always like to talk about and, you know, releases since Blackwood we've done - the companion characters and those are some of my favorites in the game for the same reason.
There's a writer and a content designer that help really shape the personality and the dialogue of those characters. But companions are a great example of how much this is a team sport because there's a deep, deep system to companions that requires a ton of behind-the-scenes work. And there's a systems designer involved who helps to shape all of the sort of rapport elements of those characters.
So if you take a character like Ember, who I think people really, really like, she's the result of art and design and systems and writing and a bunch of other disciplines, VO casting, audio, great, incredible voice actress, all coming together to, to create sort of an output on the other end that people have really grown to love.
Bill Slavicsek: And that's true of everything we do. Every character, every story is that whole list of disciplines that Michael just pointed out. Not any one group shares or claims the credit.
Elder Scrolls Online’s 10th Anniversary celebration rolls on, with the Gold Road chapter coming up next. You can learn more about that from our recent preview session with the developers.
