General:2025 ESO Direct—Update 46 Preview

Originally published April 10, 2025. The original article can be found here.

Prepare for new features and improvements to ESO’s base game with Update 46, including a whole new form of character customization!

When ESO's next big patch, Update 46, arrives in June, you can expect great things. A new system will shake up character builds and customization like never before, returning players will find a new welcome back experience, and ESO Plus™ members get a new tool to handle their furnishing storage burdens—plus additional quality of life changes!

Class Your Character Up with Subclassing

Subclassing is a new way to customize your character in ESO. With this feature, available completely FREE to all players when Update 46 launches, you can swap out up to two of the three skill lines inherent to your character for options from other classes.

Want your Dragonknight to have some ice to go with their fire? Add the Winter’s Embrace skill line from the Warden. Maybe you trade out your Earthen Heart skill line to do so—who needs stony protection when you can both burn and freeze your enemies before they reach you? You could even add in the Sorcerer’s Storm Calling Skill line and leave only Ardent Flame from the Dragonknight to become a true master of the elements!

Wield flame, frost, and lightning

With subclassing, you can swap skill lines whenever you use a Shrine of Stendarr or a Scroll of Respecification. The skill lines you can choose, how to unlock skill lines for subclassing, and other details are coming closer to June. There’s much, much more to share about the incredible possibilities subclassing introduces to your builds, so keep an eye on the official website for more to come as Update 46 draws closer.

Hero's Return Welcomes You Back to Tamriel

Sometimes life gets in the way of adventure, and you need to take a break from Tamriel. With Update 46, the new Hero's Return feature makes it easy to hit the ground running with reminders and rewards.

Hero's Return automatically detects when you haven't logged in to ESO for an extended period and offers you handy tools and guidance to help get back into the thick of things more swiftly. The first of these is a brief, optional adventure you can choose to complete to help refresh your combat skills.

Tamriel welcomes you back

Once you complete this adventure—or if you choose to skip it—you gain access to the Hero’s Return Golden Pursuit and a few days of unique Login Rewards. This special Golden Pursuit is multifaceted, with multiple smaller campaigns within it that point you towards resources, content, and gameplay you may have forgotten about during your time away. Rewards from both the Pursuits and the Login track have been selected to be helpful in your return to Tamriel, but don’t replace other rewards earned in game, so you’ll still have plenty to enjoy after completing your Hero’s Return to Tamriel.

Declutter Your Home with the Furnishing Vault

Update 46 also brings with it a new benefit for ESO Plus members: the Furnishing Vault. This new collectible lets you store up to 500 unique furnishing stacks in a vault accessible from any your homes throughout Tamriel. Whether placed in a home or accessed directly via the Housing Editor, the Furnishing Vault makes it easy to manage your furnishing collection and decorate across multiple homes.

A spacious storage solution

Do you have a spare house full of Daedric thrones or other goods purchased from the Luxury Vendor Zanil Theran? Now you can clean it up and decorate properly!

Additional Quality-of-Life Changes

There are also smaller quality-of-life improvements coming Update 46. For example, your in-game map has undergone further work after Update 45’s existing changes. The new map updates include adding better tooltips, enhanced quest visibility, and more.

We’ve also added improved tutorials for the Wayshrine system, making these map enhancements even more impactful for new and returning players who need to learn (or relearn) how to traverse Tamriel.

There's another improvement continuing forward from groundwork laid in the last game update—console addons! We previously expanded the API to enable add-on creators to begin their work, and Update 46 will allow creators to upload their add-ons and console players to download add-ons. Look for more information on how it will work soon on elderscrollsonline.com.

With all manner of features coming with the free Update 46 base-game patch, from big shakeups to smaller tweaks, the core experience of ESO continues to improve. Let us know which change you’re most excited about via Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook.

Update 46 arrives free for all players on PC/Mac on June 2, 2025 and for Xbox and PlayStation consoles on June 18, 2025.