The New Life Festival is about to make its merry return to Elder Scrolls Online this week, bringing with it bonus experience points and unique rewards that should spread some additional holiday cheer during these trying times.
If you’re unfamiliar with the event, it’s basically the ESO equivalent of World of Warcraft’s Winter Veil or Final Fantasy XIV’s Starlight Celebration. Even if you’re not into aesthetic rewards, there’s one great part of this event you shouldn’t ignore. Throughout the duration of the New Life Festival, you get access to a special (infinitely reusable) item called Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug, which gives you a 100 percent XP bonus.
When Does the 2021 ESO New Life Festival Begin?
Starting on Thursday, December 16 at 10 a.m. ET, the New Life event will be run by Herald Breda in the outskirts south of Windhelm in the Eastmarch zone. If you don’t want to travel all the way down there right away, you’ll be able to pick up the quest to start the festivities from the Crown Store.
How does the New Life Festival work, you ask? As with ESO’s other major events, you’ll participate in various daily activities to earn special rewards like motif chapters, recipes, costumes, and mementos. These are all essentially cosmetic items you can use to spruce up your ESO character or craft new and interesting flavor items that adhere to a specific style, but that also aren’t necessary for any kind of progression.
After you’ve gotten the opening procedures out of the way with Herald Breda in Windhelm, you’ll be able to participate in the event and hopefully grab some rewards for yourself. But you should move quickly since you’ll get just a few weeks before the festival ends on January 4 at 10 a.m. ET. After that, you’ll be singing holiday carols to Tamriel’s denizens by your lonesome, I’m afraid.
Completing the intro quest unlocks Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug if you don’t already have it. At the very least, it’ll reactivate that 100 percent experience boost if it doesn’t automatically switch back on for those who obtained the mug in a previous year. Either way, you’ll need to finish that first quest before ESO allows you to begin completing your New Life daily quests. There are about ten special daily activities, and you can grab them from various event NPCs at the New Life Festival location in Windhelm.
ESO New Life Festival 2021 Rewards
All of these repeatable daily quests dole out a New Life Festival Gift Box upon completion. Each gift box will randomly reward you one of the following, according to Zenimax:
- Skinchanger Motif chapters
- New Life recipes
- New Life collectibles (packaged in Runeboxes and tradeable):
- Sword-Swallower’s Blade memento
- Juggler’s Knives memento
- Fire-Breather’s Torches memento
- Mud Ball Pouch memento
- Nordic Bather’s Towel costume
- Colovian Filigreed Hood hat
- Colovian Fur Hood hat
- Snowball Buddy pet
- New Powderwhite Coney pet
- New random page for the Nord Carved Armor style
Quite a few of these items have been made available in New Life Festivals from years past, so you won’t miss out on too much if you haven’t already earned most mementos for yourself. That being said, you can now earn the Powderwhite Coney pet and some new Nord Carved Armor, which were not featured previously. It may not seem like much, but that’s no ordinary rabbit; that’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you have ever set eyes on.
But hey, at least there are two new Charity Writs to look out for, as well. You can randomly find them in the aforementioned festival gift boxes as you open those up and reap their rewards. If you need a refresher on what Writs are: they’re basically repeatable quests that boast huge inspiration (crafting experience) and crafting material rewards, but they can also give you other things like fresh outfit styles to show off your character’s sense of style. Charity Writs are extra special because not only are they unique to the New Life Festival each year, but they also tend to come with unique outfit styles.
This year’s 2021 New Life Festival adds the Deep Winter Charity Writs and Imperial Charity Writs, which unlock the Skaal Explorer outfit style and Rkindaleft Dwarven weapon style, respectively. If you complete 12 of either one, you get the “Newly Charitable” achievement, and with it the Crystalfrost skin that can be equipped in the Collections menu (under Appearance and then Skins).
New Life 2021 Event Ticket Rewards
ESO’s New Life Festival also includes yet another run-in with the fabled Impresario, the seasonal events NPC who will gladly accept your event tickets in return for different rewards at different parts of the year. Of course, you’ll need a means to get those event tickets somehow. Luckily, completing each of your regular New Life daily quests for the first time will also earn you three event tickets per daily quest. However, you can only earn these tickets the first time you complete each quest — meaning there are only 60 total to earn here according to Zenimax.
If you’re not sure where to find the Impresario, they’re in their booth outside of each of the three major faction strongholds. The Impresario can be found in Davon’s Watch in Stonefalls, Vulkhel Guard in Auridon, and Daggerfall in Glenumbra. The following items are available from the Impresario during ESO’s 2021 New Life Festival:
- All three Unstable Morpholith pet fragments
- Deadlands Flint, Rune-Etched Striker, and Smoldering Bloodgrass Tinder
- All Deadlands Scorcher skin fragments
- Rune-Scribed Daedra Hide, Rune-Scribed Daedra Sleeve, and Rune-Scribed Daedra Veil
- All Deadlands Firewalker personality fragments
- Vial of Bubbling Daedric Brew, Vial of Scalding Daedric Brew, and Vial of Simmering Daedric Brew
- All Dagonic Quasigriff mount fragments
- Smoke-Wreathed Gryphon Feather, Black Iron Bit and Bridle, and Black Iron Stirrups
- All Doomchar Plateau house fragments
- Scorching Pillar, Searing Column, Molten Key, Profane Pedestal, and Unholy Tablet
- Bound style pages for the Nord Carved Armor outfit style
- The Powderwhite Coney pet
- Group Repair Kits
As mentioned on the official website listing for the New Life event, each of the quarterly fragments from throughout 2021 have made their return. But the fragments for the Doomchar Plateau house will not be returning after this event. As a result, it’s pertinent to grab those during the event if that particular house piques your fancy. After all, it’s cold outside, and who wouldn’t want to spend their holiday break somewhere nice and toasty, like a vacation house in the pit of Molag Bal’s domain?
