The Elder Scrolls Online News

Claim charming collectibles during February’s Golden Pursuits campaign!

[h2]Hasten to Heart’s Day![/h2]
This month’s Golden Pursuits campaign, Hasten to Heart’s Day, kicks off on February 11, 2026, and runs until February 18, 2026. During this campaign, complete various in-game activities, including reviving friends, sharing gifts with your companions, taking down bosses alongside your allies, and more, to unlock the following rewards:

• Complete two activities—4 Stonelore Crates
• Complete four activities—Small Dibella’s Bouquet
• Complete six activities—Love-Blessed Kitten Moppet
• Complete eight activities—2 Love-Blessed Chairs
• Complete ten activities—Love-Blessed Table
• Complete 12 activities—Heart’s Day Kiss Emote

Hasten to Heart’s Day Rewards

You can complete a total of 21 activities during this period, highlighting the value of companionship and teamwork while you adventure in Tamriel. Head over to the Golden Pursuits section of the in-game Activity Finder to check out a full list of this campaign’s activities.

[h2]Share the Love[/h2]
Enjoy bonus rewards this February, including an affectionate emote, furnishings, and more, by completing Golden Pursuits activities! Are you excited to receive some Mara-blessed rewards with your companions and comrades? Let us know via Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

The first ever Heart’s Week in-game event comes to ESO with new quests, boons, and rewards!

***

"Mara teaches us that love is not only reserved for the lovestruck or newly married, but for friends and passing strangers alike. Our celebrations remind us that we dance in her light whenever we are brave enough to bare our hearts."—Kuzam-jo, Priest of Mara

***

[h2]Heart’s Week[/h2]
Mara’s blessings come to ESO with the arrival of a new in-game event. Celebrate those close to you during Heart’s Week, from February 11, 2026 to February 18, 2026.

During the event, you can earn special rewards including Event Tickets and the new Heart’s Day Duelist outfit style. In addition, your Companions gain XP (including Skill Line XP) at a 100% increased rate and enjoy an increase to Rapport gained by 50% and a decrease to losses of Rapport by 50% during this time.

Share the love with Kuzam-jo

To help share the love, you can complete the “Heartsick Follies” quest offered by Kuzam-jo at the Festival Grounds in Craglorn, just outside Belkarth. This quest is optional for the event's bonuses, but it awards the Amulet of the Heart memento required for certain event Achievements as well as a new event reward box, called Mara’s Parcels (more on both rewards below).

[h2]Parcel Out Rewards[/h2]
During the event period, you can earn Mara’s Parcels in several ways, but primarily by completing adventuring tasks with friends. Being in a group with one or more other players counts, as does having a Companion summoned. The tasks that award parcels are:

• Defeating a delve boss.
• Defeating a world boss.
• Defeating an Infinite Archive boss.
• A chance for a parcel when you complete an Incursion, such as a Dark Anchor or Abyssal Geyser.
• Looting a treasure chest.
• A small chance for a parcel when you harvest resource nodes.
• Pickpocketing an NPC.

Additionally, each of the event’s four non-repeatable quests, including “Heartsick Follies” (which starts the chain), grant a parcel for completion.

Enjoy boons for your Companions

The first time you receive a parcel during a day, you are awarded a gold-quality Mara’s Extravagant Parcel. Subsequent awards during the same day yield purple quality Mara’s Delectable Parcels instead.

Mara’s Extravagant Parcels contain:

• A chance of assorted Alchemy materials
• A chance of a random style item
• A chance of crafting boosters, such as Pitch, Embroidery, or Tempering Alloy
• A chance of one of the following:
  • A furnishing recipe
  • A Heart’s Week-themed Provisioning recipe
• A chance of one of the following
  • Unbound Equipment Repair Kits
  • Bound Group Repair Kits
• A chance of one of the following
  • A random Treasure Map
  • A Guild Citation consumable for the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, or Undaunted
  • A Companion Gift consumable
    • These new items boost Rapport with a given companion. Each companion has a “major” gift and a “minor” gift specifically for them. You must already be at least friendly with the Companion for them to accept a gift from you
• Companion gear, provided you have unlocked one or more Companions
  • The very first Extravagant Parcel opened during the event will contain a guaranteed gold-quality Companion Ring
• An unbound Heart’s Day Duelist armor outfit style page, if you have not already received one that day

The dashing Heart’s Day Duelist armor outfit style

Mara’s Delectable Parcels contain:

• A chance of assorted Alchemy materials
• A chance of a random style item
• A chance of crafting boosters, such as Pitch, Embroidery, or Tempering Alloy
• A chance of one of the following:
  • A furnishing recipe
  • A Heart’s Week-themed Provisioning recipe
• A chance of one of the following
  • Unbound Equipment Repair Kits
  • Bound Group Repair Kits
• A chance of one of the following
  • A random Treasure Map
  • A Guild Citation consumable
  • A Companion Gift consumable

Note that the daily Extravagant Parcels have improved chances of all random rewards compared to the repeatable Delectable Parcels.

As a further source of rewards, you can earn Mara’s Piquant Parcels in your in-game mail for completing event Achievements using the Amulet of the Heart. Mara’s Piquant Parcels contain:

• Crafting materials
• A random style item
• One of the following
  • A furnishing recipe
  • A Heart’s Week-themed Provisioning recipe
• A bound Group Repair Kit
• A Guild Citation consumable
• A Companion Gift consumable

[h2]Event Tickets & The Impresario[/h2]
You can earn up to two Event Tickets each day by participating in the event. You earn tickets alongside your Mara’s Extravagant Parcel each day. Note that these items are looted together, and the tickets are not contained in the box itself. Also be aware that Event Tickets cannot be earned by pickpocketing—the holiday is for stealing hearts, not rewards! You can earn up to 16 total Event Tickets over the course of Heart’s Week.

Once you’ve earned your Event Tickets, you can spend them at the Impresario’s tent in the usual fashion. She’s acquired the finest Heart’s Day wares to offer for the event, including:

• Bound Heart’s Day Duelist outfit style pages
• All three Roseblood Bat pet fragments
  • Crimson Bat Statuette
  • Red Rose Petals
  • Sharp Rosebush Thorn
• The first two Roseblood Wings Recall customized action fragments
  • Embellished Dance Card
  • Rosy Boutonniere
• Group Repair Kits
• Companion Guild Commendations

Earn fragments for the Roseblood Bat pet!

If indriks are more your thing than festive goods, the Impresario’s associate Nenulaure has the following items available to suit your fancy:

• Nascent Indrik Feathers
• Dawnwood Indrik Berries
• Spectral Indrik Berries
• Springtide Indrik pet
• Haunting Indrik pet

And of course, the event also sees the Impresario’s assistant doing his humble best to spread the celebratory spirit with some additional goods, including:

• Unstable Morpholith pet fragments 
  • Deadlands Flint 
  • Rune-Etched Striker 
  • Smoldering Bloodgrass Tinder 
• Soulfire Dragon Illusion pet fragments 
  • Hallowed Hourglass Basin 
  • Illuminated Dragon Scroll 
  • Kvatchian Incense 
• All three Passion Dancer Blossom pet fragments  
  • Chartreuse Lily Petals 
  • Enchanted Silver Flute 
  • Mystical Sheet Music 
• Doomchar Plateau house fragments 
  • Scorching Pillar 
  • Searing Column 
  • Molten Key 
  • Profane Pedestal 
  • Unholy Tablet 
• Sacred Hourglass of Akatosh furnishing fragments 
  • Engraved Glassblowing Tools 
  • Hallowed White-Gold Ingot 
  • Mysterious Time-Lost Sands 
• Hoardhunter Ursauk mount fragments 
  • Blessed Honeycomb 
  • Gilded and Dyed Saddle 
  • Sorcerous Golden Ink 

[h2]Open Your Heart[/h2]
Across Tamriel, diverse cultures celebrate togetherness during Heart’s Week. Join them in honoring friends, adventuring companions, and loved ones as Mara looks on—don’t mind Sanguine over there, this has nothing to do with his Summoning Day. Honest.

Do you have any plans with friends or guildmates for Heart’s Week? Let us know via Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 
The Heart’s Week in-game event begins at 10AM EST on Wednesday, February 11, and runs until 10AM EST on February 18.

Microsoft are telling the world that the sooner we all switch to using generative AI tools in our day-to-day lives, the sooner we will 10x ourselves. Yet the corporation are still only finding haphazard pick up by videogame developers, including some of their own studios.

As executive producer Susan Kath tells me, the Elder Scrolls Online team haven't yet found a part of development where they can use it. "Right now, we generally use it for things like this," Kath says, indicating our call. "A lot of us get a lot of use out of Copilot, for meetings, for summaries, inbox organisations, stuff like that."

But, in the case of art, coding, or writing, generative AI is not something the team are using in Elder Scrolls Online's development, and its adoption is still an open discussion within the studio. "I don't know what our decision is going to be, because we're still having conversations about where we go with that," Kath says. "Obviously we all have strong opinions within the studio. Obviously Microsoft has invested heavily in this. That would be a thing that I would imagine we would talk about in the future."

Read more

Learn about the new Challenge Difficulty system, coming later this year, via this developer deep dive.

Arriving late as part of Season Zero, Challenge Difficulty is a new way for Tamriel’s veteran heroes to experience The Elder Scrolls Online’s overland content. If you’re the kind of adventurer who likes a challenge while questing and exploring, this new optional system is for you! Interested? Read this breakdown on the first iteration of Challenge Difficulty direct from Associate Design Director Mike Finnigan and the ESO content team.


Hi everyone!

With the January Reveal fresh in everyone’s mind, we wanted to give an update on one of the most anticipated features announced, Challenge Difficulty (previously Overland Difficulty).

[h2]Challenge Difficulty[/h2]
First things first, why the new name? This name more accurately reflects the goal of the feature and allows us to be more flexible with this system overall. Challenge Difficulty will initially be applicable in overland and overland-adjacent zones (delves, public dungeons, story instances, etc.), but we wanted flexibility to apply wherever it makes sense in the future. Challenge Difficulty will not affect zones that already have bespoke difficulty balance (Dungeons, Trials, Arenas, Infinite Archive, and the new Night Market).

Experience greater challenge while adventuring

At launch, we plan to have three Challenge Difficulty options, along with the current difficulty. These options will increase the damage you take from monsters and reduce the damage you do to monsters. Your gold and experience from monsters will also increase based on the level of difficulty you have chosen. The current planned difficulty options are:

Adventurer
This is the current Challenge Difficulty and default within the game. There is no associated effect, and all rewards are as they are now. If you like how Overland currently operates, then this is the difficulty that is right for you. 

Seasoned
You will take 100% more damage from monsters and do 20% less damage. You will receive 50% more gold and 20% more experience from monsters.

Master
You will take 300% more damage from monsters and do 50% less damage. You will receive 100% more gold and 75% more experience from monsters.

Vestige
This will be the most difficult option at launch. You will take 600% more damage from monsters and will deal 80% less damage. You will receive 200% more gold and 100% more experience from monsters.

These numbers are the initial stab (see what I did there) and are subject to change based on feedback once the system reaches the Public Test Server. You will be able to opt-in or out at your leisure, and there will be an indicator on your UI so you know what difficulty you have selected.

When entering a zone where Challenge Difficulty is not in effect, the icon will be suppressed, but it will take effect when leaving, so you do not have to keep selecting your difficulty every time you enter a new zone.

[h2]Design Thoughts[/h2]
To understand some of the choices made with the current version of Challenge Difficulty, we want to talk about some of our core points of consideration during the design process.

First, we are making a choice to make sure players are not separated by difficulty. We want to ensure you can engage with any player you want regardless of difficulty. To do this, the choice to opt-in or change your difficulty is up to you. If you like Overland the way it is, great! No change is needed. If you want it to be far more punishing, then opt-in to Vestige Difficulty. You can still play with friends, all while having the bump in challenge.

Whatever the difficulty, you can still play together

Another pillar of design is around the rewards for participating in Challenge Difficulty. At launch, we will start with additional experience and gold rewards only. We are doing this for two core reasons. Based on feedback from various in-person events and player discussions, we believe starting with experience and gold is a good way to gauge player engagement. We also want to avoid potential exploitation and make sure Challenge Difficulty works without the incentive to exploit for a valuable reward. 

That said, we are building Challenge Difficulty to be expandable in the future and layer with other existing systems to help reward players for taking on the challenge. For example, we could have Golden Pursuits with Challenge Difficulty-specific pursuits. If you complete those, you could get a specific tiered reward for your efforts. Expanding the rewards for Challenge Difficulty will be an ongoing discussion after launch, but we want to make sure you know why we are starting with experience and gold.

That’s the nuts and bolts of Challenge Difficulty. We still have some work to do before you get your hands on this feature, and hope this gives you a better understanding of what a more challenging ESO overland will look like in the future!

Challenge Difficulty is scheduled to arrive in the latter half of Season Zero, so keep an eye out for more information about the system, how it works, and when you can experience it for yourself in the coming months. Don’t forget, starting with Season Zero, all new systems and adventures will be free to ESO players. Are you excited to take on a tougher Tamriel? Let us know via Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

Seize the spoils of victory when you dominate your fellow players in ESO’s various PvP game modes during Whitestrake’s Mayhem!

[h2]Mayhem Returns to Tamriel[/h2]
Warriors, prepare to take up arms! Whitestrake’s Mayhem returns to Tamriel this Wednesday, January 21 at 10AM EST, and will run until February 4 at 10AM EST. During this in-game event, all players can enjoy a 100% boost to Alliance Point, XP, and Tel Var Stone gains, as well as some additional goodies when competing throughout Cyrodiil, the Imperial City, and Battlegrounds.

Are you prepared to draw swords (or bows, staves, etc.) against your fellow players? Follow the steps below:

1. Open the in-game Crown Store and pick up the “Details on the Whitestrake’s Mayhem" quest
2. Head over to your Alliance War faction's main gate in Cyrodiil using the Alliance War menu or a Battlegrounds camp outside major cities

• You are not required to travel to Cyrodiil to kick off the event

Locate the NPC “Predicant Maera" to continue the quest

• Please note that if you’ve already completed this quest during a previous event, you won't need to do it again

Complete the quest to receive a complimentary Pelinal’s Boon Box
Keep in mind that the Scroll of Pelinal’s Ferocity is no longer needed to enjoy the increased gains to Alliance Points, XP, and Tel Var Stones. These buffs are now passively shared with players logged in during Whitestrake’s Mayhem.

Show Predicant Maera what you're made of

[h2]Earn Glorious Rewards [/h2]
A ton of in-game loot awaits those taking part in this month’s Whitestrake’s Mayhem. Check out the goodies you can earn during this event!

NEW—Tava’s Goshawk outfit style

Stalk your prey while donning the feathery guise of the Tava’s Goshawk style, dropped in Pelinal Boon Boxes.

Pelinal’s Boon Boxes                             

You can earn Pelinal’s Boon Boxes after completing any of the following activities throughout the event:

• Battleground quests from Battlemaster Rivyn
• Scouting, Battle, Warfront, and Conquest Missions
• Elder Scroll capture and recapture quests
• Town quests in Vlastarus, Bruma, Cropsford, Cheydinhal, and Chorrol
• Imperial City daily quests

Whenever you open a Pelinal’s Boon Box, you have a chance to receive the following items:

• Parcel of Tel Var Stones
• Cyrodiil Repair Kit
• Soul Gems
• ONE of the following:
  • Alchemy ingredients
  • Style item for your Alliance's armor style
  • Style item for Akaviri armor style
  • Daedric siege weapon
  • Whitestrake's Mayhem book furnishing
  • Forward Camp for your Alliance
  • Chapter of your Alliance's armor motif
    • There is a small chance that the full book may drop instead of a single chapter
  • Prismatic Runestone
  • Chapter for the Akaviri armor motif
    • There is a small chance that the full book may drop instead of a single chapter
• Small chance to receive one or two fragments of the Alliance Breton Terrier pet
• Small chance to receive a Transmute Geode
• Very small chance to receive a Tava’s Goshawk outfit style page.
  • An Arkay Unending Cycle or Truth in Wisdom outfit style page may drop instead if you’ve already collected a Tava’s Goshawk style page that day

Tava’s Goshawk outfit style

Bonus Resources & The Golden

In addition to all the rewards featured above, harvesting nodes in Cyrodiil will yield bonus resources during this event period.

Adhazabi Aba-daro, sometimes better known as “The Golden,” is also refreshing their stock with rotating CP160 legendary-quality jewelry from various Cyrodiil item sets. Necklaces will be available during the first weekend of the event, and rings from the same sets during the second.

Please note that Adhazabi Aba-daro will not be offering any Monster Masks during Whitestrake’s Mayhem. Also, despite her title, the Golden will only accept Alliance Points in exchange for purchases during this event, not gold.

[h2]The Impresario & Event Tickets[/h2]
Each day of Whitestrake’s Mayhem, you can earn up to three Event Tickets by completing the following PvP activities:

• Two Event Tickets from the first Cyrodiil or Battleground daily quest
  • These include Bounty Board quests, a town daily, the Conquest Board quests, or the daily Battleground quest
• One Event Ticket from an Imperial City District daily quest

Collect three Event Tickets each day, and you’ll have amassed 42 Tickets by the event’s conclusion! However, don’t forget that you can carry up to 12 Event Tickets at any one time. If you ever find yourself lugging around too many Tickets, swing by the Impresario’s bazaar and trade them in.

Be sure to visit the Impresario’s tent!

Here's what the Impresario is offering during Whitestrake’s Mayhem:

• NEW Roseblood Bat pet fragments
  • Crimson Bat Statuette
  • Red Rose Petals
  • Sharp Rosebush Thorn
• NEW first fragment for Roseblood Wings Recall
  • Embellished Dance Card
• NEW Tava’s Goshawk style pages
• Bag of Veteran's Glory containing one of the following (Updated 1/20):
  • Legion Zero style pages
  • Standard-Bearer emotes
    • One for each alliance
  • Second Legion style pages
  • Standard-Bearer staves and shields
    • One for each alliance
  • Legion Zero Vigiles style pages
  • Ebonsteel Knight Armor style pages
  • Black Drake Clanwrap style pages
  • Black Drake Warpaint body or face markings
  • Battle-Scarred body or face markings
  • House Dufort Banneret style pages
  • Tools of Domination Weapon style pages
  • Gloamsedge Outfit style pages
  • Sancre Tor Sentry Weapon style pages
  • Sancre Tor Sentry Armor style pages
  • Dovah’s Du’ul style pages
  • Ayleid Lich style pages
  • Group Repair Kit
• Group Repair Kits
• Companion Guild Commendations

Of note, this event is your first opportunity to snag the full set of fragments you need for the Roseblood Bat morphing collectible pet.

The Roseblood Bat pet

This January’s Whitestrake’s Mayhem will also be your first chance to start collecting fragments for the first morph of 2026, the Roseblood Wings Recall!

The Roseblood Wings Recall

In addition to the offerings above, Philius Dormier, the Impresario’s Assistant, will also have the following items in stock, which can be exchanged for Event Tickets:

• Unstable Morpholith pet fragments
  • Deadlands Flint
  • Rune-Etched Striker
  • Smoldering Bloodgrass Tinder
• Soulfire Dragon Illusion pet fragments
  • Hallowed Hourglass Basin
  • Illuminated Dragon Scroll
  • Kvatchian Incense
• All three Passion Dancer Blossom pet fragments
  • Chartreuse Lily Petals
  • Enchanted Silver Flute
  • Mystical Sheet Music
• Doomchar Plateau house fragments
  • Scorching Pillar
  • Searing Column
  • Molten Key
  • Profane Pedestal
  • Unholy Tablet
• Sacred Hourglass of Akatosh furnishing fragments
  • Engraved Glassblowing Tools
  • Hallowed White-Gold Ingot
  • Mysterious Time-Lost Sands
• Hoardhunter Ursauk mount fragments
  • Blessed Honeycomb
  • Gilded and Dyed Saddle
  • Sorcerous Golden Ink

And lastly, Nenulaure the Indrik Vendor will be refreshing her inventory with the following items, purchasable with Event Tickets:

• Nascent Indrik Feathers
• Dawnwood Indrik Berries
• Spectral Indrik Berries
• Springtide Indrik Pet
• Haunting Indrik Pet

[h2]Fortune Favors the Bold[/h2]
Heed the call to battle and collect valuable rewards as proof of your valor during this month’s Whitestrake’s Mayhem in-game event! Are you ready to clash with other aspiring champions on the battlefields? Let us know via Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. 

The Whitestrake’s Mayhem in-game event begins Wednesday, January 21 at 10AM EST, and runs until February 4 at 10AM EST.