Zenimax has reimagined Blackreach not as one single cavern but an entire expanse constantly underneath the player’s feet anywhere in Skyrim. Unlike in The Elder Scrolls 5 where it was just one of many explorable dungeons, ESO’s creative director Rich Lambert says they're 'going bigger' this time.
It's like one of those lingering highschool nightmares where you try to escape but can't find the door out. Forget trying to navigate by spotting landmarks: each dwarven tower and giant glowing mushroom looks like the one next to it. Blackoutīlackreach is a huge cavern whose map you can't zoom out far enough to see all of at once. And it's coming back in The Elder Scrolls Online's next DLC chapter. Except it’s also a horrible upside down world that you can get eternally stuck inside like an unending dream from Inception.
As Hines put it during a livestream, finding Blackreach begins with a 'swim all the way to basically where you think the game is going cut off the map.' You have to hop across ice floes, and he remembers where 'there's some random hermit in a cave who's like 'Oh I have the magic floozit that lets you get into Blackreach.''įinally, you venture underground through dwarven ruins and emerge into a cavern full of skyscraper-sized blue mushrooms glowing like a swarm of underground jellyfish.
