Online:Megaservers

Megaservers (or realms) in Elder Scrolls Online are the individual servers on which you create your character. They are divided by platform and by geographic location. Characters cannot be transferred between megaservers, although your account technically has access to all megaservers on the platforms for which you have a copy of the game. Console players are automatically assigned to their nearest megaserver, but PC players can choose manually. Unlike traditional MMOs, ESO has very few servers in order to keep the game population together and facilitate large-scale PvP.

Crowns are linked to your account and so can be shared between megaservers, although objects bought in the Crown Store are bound to the megaserver on which they were purchased. ESO Plus membership is also cross-server but platform-specific. PC players who own the Steam version of ESO use the same megaservers as those who purchased directly from the online store, but must open the game through Steam in order to play. Different megaservers have different times for maintenance and updates, and are therefore often running different versions of the game.

The game population is further divided by Alliance and Campaign. This is important to note, as these systems will limit your interaction with other players even if you share a megaserver. Within a megaserver, players are split into server "shards", or "channels", each running a separate copy of a zone or dungeon. Because of this, even within your alliance you will not see every player who is online and in the same zone as you at any one time. There is no way to manually change between server shards, but if you are in a group you will be able to travel to the same shard as the group leader. Logging out of the game and back in again may put you into a different shard, but there is no guarantee of this.

Certain locations within a zone may also be subject to "phasing". If a quest drastically changes a location (for example, by liberating that location from an enemy faction), advancing the quest may put you in a different phase or "layer" within the server shard for that specific location. Different phases have different NPC and structure configurations to each other. During quest progress, you may find yourself in a different phase to your group-mates. This is unavoidable, and will be rectified as each group member progresses to the same stage of the quest. If you complete the quest, you will not usually be able to re-enter location phases that you have left, even if you are grouped with a player who has not yet completed that quest, meaning you will not be able to help that player while they are in a different phase.

Megaservers

PC/Mac

NA — The North American realm, originally used for the beta

EU — The European realm, introduced late in the beta

PTS — The Public Test Server, used to test major content patches

Xbox One

NA — The North American realm

EU — The European realm

PS4

NA — The North American realm

EU — The European realm