Today, developer ZeniMax Online Studios and publisher Bethesda revealed that Homestead, The Elder Scrolls Online's player housing system, is coming in February 2017.

Homestead will launch alongside ESO's next major game update, and will be completely free. The update includes furniture crafting, as well as robust home decoration options. Further, there will be nearly 40 unique homes to choose from and over 2,000 individual decorate and furniture options to make your home feel unique.

After completing the Homestead tutorial quest, you'll be given your first home: a modest room at a local inn. This one will be on the house. From there you can buy any house you want -- as long as you have the gold and crowns to chalk up for said house. Homes are said to be styled after the game's 10 playable races, and come in furnished or unfurnished versions. In general, you can purchase any home you like, regardless of your character's alliance or race, bar Imperial-style homes, which require that you own the Imperial Edition of ESO. All the homes that will be available at launch will only be located in base zones, and not DLC zones. Further, you can own as many homes as you want, and each home is account based, meaning you can share them across all your characters.

If you purchase a furnished home you can move and replace all furnishings as you wish, just like any other furnishing items. Later down the road, there will also be a few special properties that are exclusive to the Crown Store, including a luxurious island retreat. If you decide to buy an unfurnished home for gold, then the local residents in the zone will ask you to prove yourself via completing a specific achievement. Once done, you can earn their approval and unlock the ability to buy the associated home in that zone.

To decorate your home, you will be able to craft furniture and decorative items using the existing trade skills, or purchase via gold from merchants throughout Tamriel, or bought with crowns in the Crown Store. Most decoration items will be available both in the Crown Store and via in-game merchants for gold.

There will also be Achievement Furnishers that stock special items that you can purchase after completing associated achievements. As well as Luxury Furnishers that sell an exquisite and expensive collection of rotating premium goods for a very limited time. You'll also have the option of placing pets, mounts and other fictional items throughout your home like assistants and crafting stations. Lastly, and most importantly, you'll be able to host parties. Khajiit-only ragers at my house have been confirmed.

Remember when I said lastly above? Well, I lied. There's more -- here's everything else you need to know about Homestead

• Houses are instanced, so you don't have to worry about racing to grab the perfect spot of land
• Furniture you create via Furniture Crafting can be sold to other players
• You will be able to preview homes before you purchase, both furnished and unfurnished
• You will be able to allow friends and guildmates to visit your home; they can travel to your home via the group, friends, or guild lists while you're in it, or by selecting “Visit House" by clicking on your name in those same lists when you're offline
• You can grant trusted friends permission to decorate existing placed items in your home (they cannot add or remove items from your home)
• You can also allow those who are not on your friends list or in your guilds to visit and/or decorate your home by adding them as a “Visitor" or “Decorator" in your House Settings
• You'll be able to conveniently fast travel to your homes via the World Map, similar to how Wayshrines currently work (but cost free), as well as directly via the Collections menu
• You can allow visitors into your new home – a visiting player simply needs to teleport to you
• Homes are secure – other players are not able to break into homes and steal items. Sorry, Thieves Guild!

Homestead launches on PC/Mac, Xbox One, and PS4 sometime in February, 2017. If you play ESO on PC/Mac and would like to help test Homestead, you'll be able to join the ESO PTS (Public Test Server) in January.

Meanwhile, you can check out the new first look video for Homestead below, as well as its first screenshots: