The Elder Scrolls Online and ZeniMax Online Studios announced a leadership shakeup at Gamescom 2025. I was on the ground and managed to speak with ESO’s new game director, Nick Giacomini, and the former game director, now studio director at ZeniMax Online Studios, Rich Lambert, as they transition into their new roles.
CGM has spoken to Lambert in the past, usually ahead of major game changes or events. This time, we got to chat about his 18-year-long career with Elder Scrolls Online, moving onto a new role while letting go of his current position, and about welcoming Giacomini into his current role.
Giacomini shared his passion for The Elder Scrolls Online as a player first, moving to a developer role in 2019, and the shock of being offered the role of ESO Game Director. I wanted to start at the beginning and learn what got both men where they are today, and what they have in store for the future of Elder Scrolls Online.
I’m curious about the dynamic you two have had up until this point at ZeniMax Online Studios and on The Elder Scrolls Online? Have you worked closely together?
Rich Lambert: No, we like each other, mostly [laughs].
Nick Giacomini: We like each other a lot.
Rich Lambert: Nick has been a part of the team for six years now. He started in 2019, so I’ve had the opportunity to work with Nick very closely over the years. This transition is something that’s been planned for quite a long time. I mean, it’s been a secret to the public, but internally we’ve had this road mapped out and planned for quite a while.
It wasn’t sprung on the team. They know, they understand, and they know who Nick is. We talk all the time, almost daily.
Nick Giacomini: Yeah, we’ve worked together a lot, really from the get-go. We’ve worked on many features, and especially since this has become official, we’ve been interacting even more. And exactly what he said — we talk to each other pretty much daily because we want to ensure the transition is smooth, both internally and for our players.
We appreciate that!
Nick Giacomini: Good!
That’s awesome. I’m going to start with you, Rich. I read the community letter, and you said that it’s been a great 18 years. So, what did those 18 years look like for you at ZeniMax and Elder Scrolls Online?
Rich Lambert: I was originally a producer, and then I went from production into design, and I was the lead content designer, building all the zones and the quests and the stories and all that other stuff with the team. And then right around launch [of Elder Scrolls Online], I became creative/game director. I’ve been that since 2014. It’s been a long time, right? 11 years.
It’s been really, really cool watching the game [ESO] grow, watching it go from here’s an idea in your head to now it’s on paper to there’s something tangible you can actually play to it’s out in the wild, and you’re playing with other players and taking feedback and iterating. It’s been really, really fun.
“As long as players want to keep playing, we’re going to keep building and supporting.” – Rich Lambert
Just a fun fact about me. I have a ten-year-old, so he was born in 2015. I had my first gaming PC built for me while I was pregnant so I could play Elder Scrolls Online at launch.
Nick Giacomini: Me too! Me too! That’s cool!
Rich Lambert: Oh, that’s cool.
Now, I’ll be honest, since I now have two children playing like an online game…
Rich Lambert: It’s harder.
It’s a struggle, but The Elder Scrolls Online still has my heart. I just want you to know that this is a good place for you both. That being said, how does it feel? You know, you’re letting go in some ways, but you’re also starting this whole new journey. How does it feel to kind of let go of something that’s been your baby for that long?
Rich Lambert: It’s been hard. It’s been harder than I thought it was going to be. Eighteen years is a long time.
A grown adult!
Rich Lambert: And as a parent, you kind of understand. You watch your kids go through these milestones — their first steps, the first time you don’t have to carry a diaper bag with you. And it’s 18 years old now at this point, and it’s really hard.
Stepping back from the day-to-day, from the “that’s my only focus” mindset, has been a challenge and something I’ve struggled with for sure. But on the flip side, being able to take a step back and look at more studio-level initiatives and the future planning of the studio, [ZeniMax] and whatnot, that’s really exciting and new and different. And I’m really, really excited.
And then what can we expect from you in your new world?
Rich Lambert: A lot of things.
That you’re allowed to tell me.
Rich Lambert: A lot of things that I’m not allowed to tell you [laughs]. It’s focusing on our future. And how can we be successful as a studio, and how can we set Nick up to be as successful as he can be, and the ESO team can be going forward.
So, I should hold my tongue and not ask, “So what is the future?” [laughs]. From either of you, have you passed on any words of wisdom to Nick for this job, or has he said anything to you, Nick, that you’re particularly thinking about?
Nick Giacomini: A lot!
Rich Lambert: I mean, he was like, “What?!” initially.
Nick Giacomini: I was pretty surprised. I think Rich doesn’t realize how much I’ve learned from him over the years. Honestly, as I’ve watched and worked with him. But in terms of recently, two things come to mind. Like one is to trust yourself, which I’ve appreciated, because it’s challenging being put into this new leadership position, and there’s a lot of uncertainty stepping into it. So that’s been one thing that has helped Ime.
The other thing has been to trust the team, which is totally true. We have such passionate, incredible, talented people at ZOS [ZeniMax Online Studios] who work on this game. It’s made my job a lot easier because they’re so good at what they do. Those two are probably the things that stand out the most. We’re talking often.
“The game is nothing without the players… it’s their game as much as it is our game.” – Nick Giacomini
Rich Lambert: For me, the one thing that still sticks out — and I still remember your face when we were talking to you about the position and all that other stuff, right? I could see he was weighted down by, “Holy crap. This is a thing!” You could just see that weight and pressure pushing on his shoulders.
And I was like, “Dude, just be you. Trust in yourself. You are a very different person than I am. You’re going to make different decisions than I would. That’s fine, right? Do it. I did the exact same thing when I… Paul was a very different person than I was.” Paul Sage was a former creative director.
“You just have to own it. And yeah, you’re probably going to make decisions that I wouldn’t have, and I wouldn’t like, but just go with it. Trust yourself and just know that the studio is there to support you and to do that kind of stuff.”
As soon as I said that, you could start to see that stress and pressure leave him. He wasn’t quite so much the deer in the headlights. He was just like, “Thank you. Awesome. Now I can focus on being me and moving forward.”
For both of you, I know you said the new positions with Elder Scrolls Online and ZeniMax have been in the works for a while, but when it all started, were you surprised, or was this something you had already been working toward?
Rich Lambert: Well, I think it was probably more of a surprise for Nick.
Nick Giacomini: Yes.
Rich Lambert: But over the years, I’ve been pushing to try something different to move forward. 18 years is a long time, and I have so many ideas of things that I want to do and games that I want to do and play with.
ESO is always going to be special, right? It’s always going to be the thing, I’ve always wanted to make that. But I was also ready to try something new and do something different, and we finally got that opportunity to happen. Unfortunately, it happened right around the same time that all the other shenanigans went on. But this is something that has been planned for a while.
“ESO has been my home since day one, 2014.” – Nick Giacomini
Nick Giacomini: I was very surprised. Like you, it’s funny you said that because I did the exact same thing. I built my PC in advance of the [Elder Scrolls Online] launch because my computer couldn’t handle it. I was very excited about ESO, so that was my first custom-built one as well, so that I could play Elder Scrolls Online. I actually just retired it pretty recently, and it was a little bittersweet to let that go.
Just put it in a museum somewhere!
Nick Giacomini: That’s right! Yes! ESO has been…I mean, I’ve been an MMORPG player for two decades. I can count the number of days on my two hands that I haven’t logged into an MMORPG. I’ve put thousands of hours into multiple MMOs, including ESO, and ESO has been my home since day one, 2014. I remember when I got the original job back in 2019, I was just so excited and happy just jumping for joy. I remember that moment with my wife, telling her, and it was just incredible.
And I’ve gotten to be a part of this journey for the last six years. So, it was such an honour to be asked to step into this leadership position. It was certainly surprising, but I’m excited to get to continue to contribute to this home, to this world that I love, and work with and continue to work with the very passionate and incredible people at ZOS to make it a home for others and continue to have it be a home for others.
Yeah, I think my next question was more to kind of put you on the spot and make you interview for this a bit, like, what makes you the right guy for Game Director for Elder Scrolls Online, but I think you just sold us on it. It’s in your heart, right?
Nick Giacomini: Absolutely.
It’s a privilege to get to work on things you love, so that’s really awesome to hear from you, especially as a fellow Elder Scrolls Online fan. Now, what were you doing before they brought you on as Game Director of ESO? You said in 2019 that you started at ZeniMax?
Nick Giacomini: I started in 2019 as a senior product manager. Over the years, I became the director of product management for Elder Scrolls Online. The role involves wearing a lot of different hats — working across multiple teams, trying to provide some unifying vision and goals for us, listening to players, looking at data and things like that, to help inform our decision-making.
Player feedback, especially, is such a pivotal part of our development process. Achieving that balance and working with teams was very much a part of what I was doing. It’s actually been really helpful stepping into this role, because a lot of it is coordinating with different teams. We have so many incredibly passionate, talented developers, but turning that into something cohesive is actually really challenging.
There are a lot of different groups, disciplines, and people with different ideas. That experience has helped me quite a bit, getting to work across so many teams, as I step into this role. It’s that same challenge, but times ten, trying to bring it all together.
“It’s been really, really cool watching the game grow, watching it go from here’s an idea in your head to now it’s on paper to there’s something tangible you can actually play.” – Rich Lambert
In the same way, Rich, what did the ZeniMax team see that made them the one for this role?
Rich Lambert: So, one of Nick’s superpowers is that he has this ability to take numbers and data and turn them into actual insights and things that people can understand. A really good example, when we were looking at new player stuff, like new player experience and whatnot, Nick pointed out he was like, “Hey, look, when we changed the tutorial of this, we started to see retention numbers going down. It was clearly in the data.” And we’d see it, and it kind of goes up and down.
But he’s like, “No, no, no. Look, there’s a step here that it’s gone down.” And that was when we had The Gates of Adamant, where you finished the tutorial, and there were like 19 portals, and you can choose whatever story you want to go to. Well, we thought it was cool, right? Because we’re like experienced. But as a new player, you’re paralyzed from like “Which portal do I click on. What if I don’t get to come back here?” He pointed that out. And then he was able to be like, “Hey, this is causing a paralysis thing. How do we solve this problem?”
And we’re like, “Okay, well maybe we go back and we try something different.” And you know, he was like, “Hey, retention is really good here. What was here?” And we’re like, “Oh, that’s this, this, this and this. So, let’s do more of that.” That’s kind of his superpowers. He can take all of this stuff and then turn it into these actionable things. That’s just one of several, but that’s a good one.
Now this interview is serving to introduce both of your new roles at ZeniMax and Elder Scrolls Online to the community, but also to congratulate you, and let you congratulate each other a little bit. With that said, is there anything that either of you wants to get across to the Elder Scrolls Online community now that you are stepping into these roles? I know you were able to put that community letter out, but is there anything that you want to make sure they hear?
Nick Giacomini: Absolutely.
Rich Lambert: My biggest thing is this is not the end of ESO. This isn’t mothballing or going on life support or anything like that. We’re making all of these changes because we want to continue to support the game. And as long as players want to keep playing, we’re going to keep building and supporting and whatnot.
Joe Burba, who is the new studio head, one of the things he did with the team when he sat us down and started talking about this stuff, he’s like, “I want this [Elder Scrolls Online] to be a 30-year MMO.” And I was like, “Sold!” I love that, right? We’re almost halfway, which is crazy. That really set the tone, like “No, this isn’t life support. This is how we get us to a point where we can start to grow and go forward and continue to support it?”
And that was a really good message for the team, I think. And so that’s, I think, the big thing for just the community. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the community. And we want to be here for the community.
Nick Giacomini: It’s hard to choose single things, but I agree that that’s one…We can talk about how great ESO the game itself is, but the game is nothing without the players. That’s the single most important thing for me, and as somebody, like I said, this is one, this is a home for me. It’s a home for many players, and listening to player feedback has always been a really critical part of our development process.
We want to do more of that, listen more to our players, communicate more with our players, share more of our plans and have more of that because it’s their game as much as it is our game. If I were to get across one thing, it’s that. And that’s how I approach things generally, with that player-first mindset of, “What can we do that’s going to be best for our players?” because our players, they’re devoting one of their most precious things, their free time.
It’s one of the most precious things that they have. And there are so many options like why should they play our game? So listening to them, showing them that we care – we do care tremendously – we have always cared. We do always care, but it’s something that we’re doubling down on in the future. That’s the thing that I want to get across most, because I want ESO to continue to be a home for players. And so that means sticking, staying true to our roots. Certainly, 11 years is a pretty incredible accomplishment. And it’s for good reason that so many players do call this game a home.
But we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that the game has become too predictable, too similar, etc. so there’s a lot of conversations and development that is taking place right now, which is centered around how do we stay true to our roots while also evolving in really meaningful ways for our players, so that this continues to be exciting for them? Because, again, with that free time, we want to make sure that every minute that they spend in our game is time well spent, that they feel is valuable.
And that’s tricky given you’re drawing from the Elder Scrolls world.
Rich Lambert: Yep!
Nick Giacomini: Yes, yes. Very true, very true.
Just for fun, with both of you being as involved in Elder Scrolls Online as you are, both as players and developers, up until this point, what has been your favourite part of ESO, whether that’s an expansion or just a little Easter egg somewhere?
Rich Lambert: You’re asking me to pick my favourite child?
And if you think of the size of Elder Scrolls Online, that’s like…a lot. So good luck!
Rich Lambert: I have a bunch over the years. Orsinium, that DLC update was super special to me because it was like the first true me. It was the first time where I got to be creative director for a thing. Vaults of Madness is one of my favourite dungeons that we ever built, because that was the first dungeon we built, and I did all the level design in these little one-by-one blocks, right? Kind of built it up.
Launch was super special, right? Yeah, it was a little rough, but just seeing that flood of people come in after seven years of working your tails off to get this thing done. One Tamriel changed the trajectory and changed kind of the genre. It was a big one. I mean, I could go on. I could go on and on and on. There’s so many.
Nick Giacomini: It’s hard to choose. Certainly, as a player, day one was really special for me. When I set foot in Arden, just a beautiful world, everything voice acted. I just parked in front of a bard for an hour and just listened to the music, watched people come and go. It was really magical. That stands out.
As a system, housing has been my favourite system. Just as an MMO player, it’s just so cool. It allows our players to be so creative.
A home inside your home.
Rich Lambert: Yeah, absolutely.
Nick Giacomini: Absolutely. And with home tours, I had seen a lot of creative homes from the community, but that really opened my eyes. I’ve seen airships. Just recently, somebody had created a slide. You walked up, and it was this huge slide that went through all these different rooms. It’s pretty incredible what our players have been able to do there. So that, and honestly, it’s just moments, right?
I remember Moon Hunter Keep, when it came out, it was hard, really hard. And we tried it out with a pickup group and no coordination or anything like that. And we were struggling, but we got onto Discord, we started talking different strategies. We brought in different alts to see if composition could make a difference. And we didn’t. We didn’t even make it through. We failed, but it was like three or four hours, and we just had a good time.
“We kind of built the building blocks of the community, and then they came in and turned it into the world.” – Rich Lambert
Rich Lambert: Pure joy.
Nick Giacomini: A lot of moments like that stand out and define a lot of the fun and what’s made it a home. And that’s the beautiful and cool thing about it. There’s so many things like that, whether it’s related to competitive or the cool, creative things that our players do. There’s just a lot. It’s hard to choose one thing, but many moments stand out.
Rich Lambert: And just to expand on the community thing. One of my favourite things is going to the various community events that we do, and seeing some of the same people over and over and over again. The Tavern, which we have done every year since 2013, there are people that met at The Tavern that are now partners and have children. We’re going to dinner later tonight with one of those groups where they met each other at The Tavern, and then last year they missed The Tavern because they were having a baby.
It’s so cool to be a part of that community. We kind of built the building blocks of the community, and then they came in and turned it into the world. So yeah. Pretty cool.
And then finally, what’s your build of choice? What’s your class? What’s your race? What’s your main?
Nick Giacomini: I mean, I play every class, but my main is a Sorcerer. Although right now with subclassing, I’ve got an Elementalist that I’m having quite a lot of fun with. It’s a fantasy that resonates pretty near and dear to me, and it’s been fun. But that’s why.
Rich Lambert: I have a lot of alts. I have alt-itis, but my main is a Stamplar, like Stamina Templar. I’ve played that for years, I love it. I have a one-bar Arcanist build that I love to do things on. I’ve got another build that I use just for infinite archive that has basically no damage on it, but once I get my focused effort, then all my dots might really kick in. I loved to Tinker. But Stamplar is the build.
Nick Giacomini: How about you?
I’m not going to lie, my children do not allow me to play live games. I don’t know the names of the classes anymore. I’m always an Elf of some sort in any game that allows me, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, World of Warcraft, I have to be an Elf. And from there, anything thieving and rogue-like. Daggers and bows.
Rich Lambert: So, you’re probably a Nightblade.
YES! I couldn’t remember! yeah. Absolutely. Cool. I got to be sneaky and stealthy. I’ve never been good at being any sort of tank. I get lost, I don’t want to lead the dungeon!
Rich Lambert: It’s a lot of responsibility to be a tank.
Nick Giacomini: It is a lot of responsibility.
I just want to sneak up and stab things.
Rich Lambert: Yep!
Anyway, thank you very much. I don’t want to keep you too long.
Rich Lambert: Thank you. This was fun.
Nick Giacomini: Pleasure to meet you.
Though the change has been in the works for a while, the excitement has not died down for Rich Lambert and Nick Giacomini. Sitting in a room with the two, it was clear that Lambert has nothing but faith that Giacomini is the perfect choice to pass down the torch to, and after seeing the true passion he has for Elder Scrolls Online, I have no doubts either. Lambert is eager to explore the future of ZeniMax Online Studios, and after 18 years with ESO, he certainly has earned his stripes. Giacomini sees a great path for Elder Scrolls Online, and a lot of that seems to lead through the community, which I am sure will welcome him with open arms.
