Bethesda is bringing in a sizeable update for The Elder Scrolls Online with the Update 25 base-game patch. Update 25 will be arriving February 24th for PC/Mac, but players on PS4 and Xbox One will have to wait until March 10th. One of the many things included in Update 25 is the Patching Overhaul, which completely reworks how the ESO game client is downloaded, patched, and stored.
Bethesda spoke on the benefits of this update, as well as several other features, in their most recent announcement on Steam.
“Once this update is complete, you will see major improvements to the game’s load time and the speed at which assets are loaded into the world,” their announcement states. “Most notably, this change dramatically reduces the patch sizes for all future updates, and it results in a major reduction of space taken up by the client on your machine’s hard drive.” Bethesda also states that console players will feel this improvement more than others, but that PC/Mac players will still experience benefits nonetheless.
So how does this affect players in the meantime? For starters, all ESO players will have to completely re-download the game once Update 25 launches. This shouldn’t require any additional effort afterwards; the ESO launcher should begin teh download automatically once the update goes live, so just allow it to run. Players shouldn’t notice any further changes to the launcher or download process, and settings/add-ons should be untouched – though it’s certainly worth backing them up just to be safe.
Sadly, there’s no way to begin the download early – the download will begin the morning of the update’s launch. Players won’t be able to enjoy the game while they wait for the download, unfortunately, but it isn’t too difficult to wait.
As a thank you to the community, the devs are adding a free pet to the crown store. This glowing little buddy, the Crimson Torchbug, can be found under the Pets category. It will be free for only two weeks after the launch of Update 25, so grab it while you can. PC/Mac players have between February 24th to March 9th to grab the gift, while console players have March 10th to March 24th. Two weeks should certainly be enough time to complete the download and grab the pet!
Update 25 will be releasing simultaneously with the Harrowstorm DLC game pack as well. Combined with the complete overhaul that Update 25 brings, it seems that ESO is going to be getting quite a bit of content to close out the first quarter of 2020.
