Review: The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited

Morrowind was a success, Oblivion was a huge hit and Skyrim has pretty much gone down in history at this point. Bethesda have always seemed to improve on each and every successive title they release. However, these are all singleplayer titles; this is about to change with the release of Elder Scrolls Online, a massively multiplayer game set in the heart of their universe. Will Zenimax Studio’s new release garner as much of a devout following as its predecessors, or will its very purpose stand to put many of its faithful fans off?

I, like many others around me, have been an enormous fan of the Elder Scrolls games in the past. The sprawling lands, the seemingly never ending amount of things to do and see, the inescapable lore, looting, levelling and so much more besides. In fact the only thing I’m not a fan of is the frankly archaic combat system. It’s a shame then that Elder Scrolls Online pretty much undeviatingly follows the previous games’ structures.

The formula has changed so little as it turns out, that upon first starting the game you’ll notice only a few things that set it apart from its singleplayer brethren. Firstly, that it’s certainly not the prettiest of games, with a level of detail that certainly doesn’t exactly blow (the now quite ancient) Skyrim out of the water. And secondly, the oddly named NPC’s that jump on the spot and hiss static at you.

Of course, these aren’t NPC’s, they are presumably, the main draw of Elder Scrolls Online, your online compatriots. I always assumed that one of the greater strengths of Bethesda’s hallmark series, was the ability to completely and utterly immerse the player. To let them escape reality and form an unspoken bond with their created character. Instead of this, playing ESO often feels more like arriving late to a party, of which when you do turn up, you know almost nobody there.

With the frankly incredible amount of quests on offer, it’s understandable (and probably intentional) that most quests will overlap with other players. Whilst this should encourage people to form up and regale stories of old adventures and accomplishments on the way to the objective, instead, it simply turns into a mad bum rush. In quests where someone, or something, needs to be killed, the chances of actually contributing to the fight seemed to be slim to none for the first few hours. Turning up, out of breath, ready to slay an epic beast, quickly transforms into turning up, out of breath, ready to loot the corpse of said beast due to it not having chance to respawn from its last death at the hands of another player. It’s difficult to remain positive during the first several hours due to the only enemies you actually kill, are seen visibly respawning mere seconds afterwards.

Skyrim didn’t need much of a tutorial due to its clever structuring, you were guided through the first few quests and locations before being let loose on the world. Elder Scrolls Online changes things up a little. In an attempt to make the world feel more populated and dense, the ‘hubs’ instead come across as a bit of a mess. It’s difficult to learn where certain vendors reside, the map group’s icons together and things altogether feel clumsy and claustrophobic. At, what should have been, an early point in the game, I was tasked with the inevitable, craft things out of other things tutorial quest. This involved picking some flowers, and taking them to a table to make a lovely pair of gloves. This turned out to be a decent enough tutorial for the majority of the missions on the game however, as all you ever need to do, is go to the area that has many congregated players clipping in and out of each other and press the appropriate button.

There are good things about the game too however, the amount of missions available ensures you’re never left without anything to do, and in good Bethesda style, the map is enormous. Levelling up works in the same regard as Skyrim in that the more you use an ability or skill, the more it will increase and contribute to your overall level. The skill trees themselves can lack a little imagination, what with generic power upgrades for spells or being able to use more materials in crafting, but it’s extensive enough to keep you striving forwards. The class abilities aren’t too important so I wouldn’t stress too much over those. I opted to create a support role character focusing on healing myself and others and generally keeping people alive. I quickly learnt that this was largely useless due to the difficulty balancing of enemies.

In a one on one scenario, the difficulty hovers around the normal setting on Skyrim, yet introduce even one fellow player into the mix, and enemies quickly become a joke; in a game where many people are beside you in fights, my healing spells became obsolete. The one thing that would help, would be a revive spell however, as at the minute, it takes a (fairly rare) soul gem to pick up another player from their downed state. Meaning simply that, nobody does it.

Despite having to pay the initial outlay for the game, there are still many micro-transactions available left over from the subscription based days of before. If you want anything other than the basic few pets, you’ll have to shell out. It’s not overly intrusive or forced, but it does still sting and feels unnecessary.

For those after some more time in and around the wonderful world of Elder Scrolls, it can be a fun time so long as you realise that it won’t feel the same as Skyrim. On top of the lack of structure, the underdeveloped tutorials, the aged graphics and the decadent melee combat, losing yourself in one’s own company can only last so long before you get distracted by the legions of other players jumping around doing 360 no-spells on dogs. It’s not particularly a bad game by any means; it’s just that the most fun I had was when I was left to my own devices. Plundering caves, levelling up and taking down enemies is where many peoples draw for these games comes from; I think adding random strangers into the mix won’t quite be to everyone’s taste.