The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios has revealed its next chapter, as well as the introduction of a new playable class. The chapter will be named Necrom, a city location from eastern Morrowind that unfortunately wasn't featured in the Vvardenfell-focused Elder Scrolls 3. In The Elder Scrolls Online's Necom DLC, players will be encountering a Daedric Prince last scene in Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Hermaeus Mora, as well as the evils that surround such a significant threat.

New classes in The Elder Scrolls Online are surprisingly rare, given just how much DLC has been released for the MMO. Only two other classes have been introduced to the game post-launch. The Warden was released in 2017 as part of the Morrowind chapter and the Necromancer was added in 2019 as part of the Elsweyr chapter. Perhaps to avoid the complexities that each class introduces to an MMO, it's now four years later that ZeniMax Online Studios has decided to add one more class to the game.

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The new class coming to The Elder Scrolls Online as part of the Necrom expansion is named the Arcanist. A general in-universe description of the Arcanist is that it wields forbidden magics. For players, what that means is that the Arcanist can be played either for offense, defense, or support. The Arcanist also features a unique combo point system, allowing players to chain abilities into stronger attacks or spells.

To try and hook new players, ZeniMax Online Studios also has a special offer for those who have purchased The Elder Scrolls Online in the past. All of the MMO's DLC, other than High Isle and the upcoming Necrom release, are free to play for a limited time. That means Morrowind, Summerset, Elsweyr, Greymoore, and Blackwood are all unlocked, as are the Thieves Guild, Dragonhold, and Dark Brotherhood DLCs. It's a massive amount of content, and only requires ownership of the ESO base game to access.

It's a major announcement from the ZeniMax Online studios team that unfortunately comes just days after some significant negative news. The Elder Scrolls Online development team was one of those impacted by Microsoft's 10,000-employee layoffs. It's unclear how severely the Elder Scrolls Online team was impacted, but community management is one area confirmed to have lost someone to the layoffs.

The Elder Scrolls Online has now been available for nearly nine years and is still receiving massive content updates like the upcoming Necrom chapter. Additions like the Arcanist will change the MMO in remarkable ways. But there are growing questions regarding ESO's future, especially with Bethesda Softworks likely shifting focus to The Elder Scrolls 6 soon. For now, at least, Elder Scrolls fans can look forward to the continued expansion of the MMO with the release of Necrom on June 5 for PC and June 20 on Xbox consoles.

The Elder Scrolls Online is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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