The Elder Scrolls Online adds scribing and takes us to Oblivion's West Weald in 2024 The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road takes us to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's West Weald this year, adding a new skill line, the next part of Necrom's storyline, and more.Tom West Published 18 Jan 2024 FollowtopicsThe Elder Scrolls OnlineThe Elder ScrollsBethesda SoftworksLocal MultiplayerOnline MultiplayerXbox Series X|SAction-RPGTom West With 2024 in full swing, ZeniMax Online Studios has given us our first look at this year's Elder Scrolls Online expansion, Gold Road, which takes us to the familiar setting of West Weald when it arrives on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One in June. The developer has also dropped a small tease for other updates that will arrive throughout this year, which is packed with content... and hopefully new The Elder Scrolls Online achievements.Looking at the calendar for this year, we'll get two new dungeons (Oathsworn Pit and Bedlam Veil), Gold Road's prologue quest in Q1 — Update 41 will arrive in March, and a preview stream will arrive on January 26 for a closer look. Following that, the Gold Road Chapter and Update 42 will arrive on June 18 on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One with a new storyline, Lucent Citadel Trial, and the Scribing skill line. Further, into the year, we can look forward to a new housing feature in Q3 and a new PvP feature not related to Cyrodiil in Q4 along with two new companions.The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Coast storyGold Road continues the story that started with last year's Necrom Chapter, and sees us learning more about the long-lost Daedric Prince, Ithelia. After escaping from her imprisonment, Ithelia wanders West Weald without any memory of who or what she is, affecting the world around her. Unlike the cosmic horror theme we had with Necrom, though, Ithelia comes from the Daedric plane of Mirrormoor, and as such, she brings a crystal theme with her for this year's Chapter, mixed with the Autumnal colors of West Weald. We'll have a chance to learn more about Ithelia during the prologue quest, which will arrive alongside the new dungeons sometime in Q1.Ithelia's presence in West Weald has caused the land to change around her, such as a jungle seemingly appearing out of nowhere in the zone — players who have played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be aware that a jungle shouldn't actually be there. With a Daedric Prince walking the land, a splinter group of Wood Elves called the Recollection have banded together to restore Ithelia's powers — when a god-like being randomly appears and begins changing the world you live in, it's a perfectly normal response to try and help them... obviously.Our mission to find Ithelia will take us to three different regions in West Weald, which is located in the space between Cyrodiil, Gold Coast, Reaper's March, and Craglorn on the map (where the cursor is in the screenshot above). Along with the main city of Skingrad, we'll travel to the windswept, autumnal deciduous forests of The Gold Road, the rocky hills of the Colovian Highlands, and the jungle rainforest of the Valenwood Annexation.From what I've seen of the new zone so far, things look beautiful. I'm already a fan of autumnal colors, but with the addition of mirror-like frost atronachs, the zone has a magical feeling to it — even the Daedra are outfitted in crystal-like armor, reflecting the many colors from the word around them. It's going to be a vastly different experience from last year's Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha. Although it probably wouldn't go with my Warden's theme — please ZeniMax, give us similar armor for our characters!ZeniMax says that there will be "capper" quests included in Gold Road, which will require you to have completed the Necrom and Gold Road main stories to unlock them, so if you're yet to finish last year's story, you might want to get up to speed before June. There will be around 30 hours of content in Gold Road, which includes six delves, six world bosses, two public dungeons, one new trial, new world events, and more. You'll notice that new companions aren't on the menu for this year's Chapter, as this year they'll both arrive in Q4.Some of the footage we were able to see from our digital pre-brief revealed some of the returning characters we'll see on our adventure through West Weald. While I don't want to spoil any of it, I did spot Mizzik Thunderboots, the private investigator we met in Nothern Elsweyr — I love that cat, so Gold Road is now right at the top of my list for most anticipated DLC for 2024.Gold Road's new feature: ScribingAs with each new Chapter, ZeniMax will be adding a new feature to The Elder Scrolls online with Gold Road. This year, we'll have a chance to spend some more of our skill points with the new Scribing skill line, which is aimed towards giving you a little bit of customization for our skills and is a precursor to the spell crafting we've seen in previous games — remember, The Elder Scrolls Online is set 1,000 years before the other games, so ZeniMax can't stress enough that Scribing is vastly different from spell crafting.Scribing gives us the ability to customize and collect skills to add to our builds. At launch, only skills found in the Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Soul Magic, Assault, Support, and weapon skill lines will be available for Scribing. Each skill line will have at least one fully customizable skill you'll be able to unlock and play around with — ZeniMax used the bow skill, Vault, as an example during our pre-brief, which sees your character flip backward, leaving an effect in its wake. During the pre-brief video, we were shown two different uses for the Vault skill. One shot we saw left a poison haze behind, taking out a couple of skeletons, while the second time we saw it, an explosion of sorts was left when the character flipped backward. It's clear that there will be a number of combat benefits for the skills, so I'm looking forward to playing around with the system. Now we just have to hope that the skills are viable for endgame content, or "meta" builds. It'll be really disappointing to get a cool-sounding system like this, only for it to become a gimmick of sorts because it doesn't have a place in endgame content. I could always run a skill or two on my solo build, but having players performing all kinds of other abilities when in group content is where the real magic would happen.Although the work involved with allowing us to change the combat modifiers of every skill in our arsenal would be astronomical, I'll be interested to see if future updates introduce new visual effects for already available skills. Alongside High Isle's Tales of Tribute, Scribing is another new system that has really grabbed my attention. Having additional customization options in an MMO is never a bad thing, so I'm all for it!Using the Scribing skill, you'll be able to change the visual effects of each skill. The actual action will remain, such as Vault's flip, but you'll have a chance to change visual effects like colors and other parts. 22 styles will be available, which are collected and unlocked as you progress through the Chapter, but the main point of Scribing is to offer you utility over each skill's effects, which are dictated by the use of three resources:Grimoire — The skill or core ability (Vault for example)Scripts — each Grimoire, or skill, will have three slots you can use to change the skill's ability, such as damage, healing, buffs, damage type, etc.Inks — the reagent you need to change the ability.The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road launches on June 18 for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, a little while after it releases on PC. We don't know about you, but we're looking forward to this one, adventurers!More The Elder Scrolls Online stories: The Elder Scrolls Online Update 45 is a fantastic glimpse at the MMO's future Elder Scrolls Online event to make tough Xbox achievement easier to unlock Claim your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Perks for January 2025 Controversial Elder Scrolls Online changes are actually a blessing Claim your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Perks for December 2024 Xbox Series X|SXbox One Written by Tom WestTom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.