The Elder Scrolls Online (1994–) invites players into an immersive fantasy universe – a world shaped as much by its deep history and lore as by the players who explore it. Across titles like Arena (1994), Morrowind (2002), and Skyrim (2011), the series has pushed the limits of open-world design, turning technical innovation into new storytelling possibilities. From ancient cities built in 3D to dynamic systems that respond to player choice, each game invites exploration and reinvention, letting the world of Tamriel grow richer over time.
The Elder Scrolls Online’s second chapter, Summerset (2018), brought back a location from the series’ early pixel-art era and recreated it as a detailed 3D world.
Summerset Isle is an island chain on the coast of Tamriel. Ruled by the high elves, its borders are opening to outsiders for the first time in years. This is true in real life as well – Summerset Isle hasn’t been a playable area since the first game in the series, The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994).
Developers Zenimax updated key locations from the original game, like Ceporah Tower, from pixel art into refined 3D graphics. The chapter also explored new stories by allowing users to play as the mysterious Psijic order, and explore their island home of Artaeum.
Curator Notes
Rebuilding Ceporah Tower
In the original game, The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), every image is made from small pixels and polygons of colour that create a whole. Today’s process of making photorealistic 3D graphics is very different.
This model of Ceporah Tower is composed of a geometric base, which creates the shape of the tower. Layers of texture create the illusion of stonework, and meshes simulate natural reflection of light. The blue collider box marks the edges of the tower, and stops players being able to walk right through them.
High Isle
Previous chapters of The Elder Scrolls Online had revisited or reimagined existing locations in Tamriel. The High Isle chapter (2022) introduces an entirely new region, expanding the game’s fictional history and giving players the opportunity to explore Tamriel with fresh eyes.
The new region, the Systres Archipelago, is a group of four islands with thick rainforest, coral coasts and volcanoes. The largest, High Isle, has its roots in real-world European climate and architecture.
The buildings of High Isle’s capital city, Gonfalon Bay, references realistic medieval architecture. Players can see ornate carved stonework and arched windows in wealthy areas of the city, and eye-catching striped timber houses throughout the island.
The striped effect is called half-timbering – a 2000-year-old construction technique, brought to life in a videogame. Like the people of Tamriel, the buildings are designed with a history of their own.
Grand designs
ZeniMax Online Studios usually focus on making environments feel real – but sometimes breaking the rules leads to something even better.
In The Elder Scrolls Online, ‘Player Housing’ gives decorators huge creative freedom. Furniture isn’t limited to a set grid – players can hang chairs from the ceiling or combine objects into strange, impossible artefacts. These rule-bending builds spark imaginative creations that couldn’t exist in the physical world.
The Dark Heart of Skyrim
When players first see the city of Markarth in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), it looks built to be unbreakable. Stone walls rise from Skyrim’s iconic mountain ranges, where the city is attacked from – all while already fighting corruption from within.
The Elder Scrolls Online’s fourth major storyline, The Dark Heart of Skyrim (2020), explores the dark past of Markarth. Set 1000 years before Skyrim, the game renders the familiar city uncanny and strange.
The city’s stonework looks like the original designs created for Skyrim – but the mood has changed. Now the city feels gloomy, dark and cold. It’s ruled by the tyrant Ard Caddach. Unnatural ‘harrowstorms’ created by the Icereach Coven fill the sky, and vampires lurk in the caverns below.
Markarth is one of The Elder Scrolls series’ most recognisable locations. In development, Zenimax compiled a 12,000-word lore document to make sure the story didn’t contradict Skyrim’s existing history.
“Our version of Skyrim still included a number of iconic bluffs and mountains, because those don’t change over the course of a thousand years. But everything else we were able to build on our own, and show some of the initial forts and smaller towns that would later turn into those giant awesome cities that you see in the other games you play” – Rich Lambert, game director.
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