Friday 6 January 2023

The Elder Scrolls Online (2014-23) - Fantasy Video Game Review


I first intended to review The Elder Scrolls Online many years ago. This was the first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that I played and so far remains my favourite. My problem with reviewing this is that it isn't really possible to complete. There has to be thousands of quests and new content is always being released. Annoyingly the game never tells you exactly how many hours you have sunk into it, I estimate mine must be somewhere between a hundred to two hundred hours.

It has been literal years since I completed the main storyline in the game and so I can't really say what the story would have been. Something concerning demons and cults most likely. The way I play the game is like a roving adventurer. I go to wherever my next quest is, rather than head to an area and experience everything it has to offer. It's an irritating limitation that you can only have twenty five active quests at a time, meaning there are so many new quest givers I have to ignore and walk on by, with the hope to remember where they were so I can revisit when more convenient. My travels take me all around the game world but the haphazard way I play the game means no quest really means that much to me. One moment I can be helping a lizardman out in the swamps, swearing to retrieve a cursed object for him, the next moment I teleport myself off to Skyrim to uncover a plot concerning killing the Skald-King. My journey keeps everything always feeling fresh.

I have tried the Final Fantasy MMORPG, but despite liking that world more, the quests are far more bland, and I absolutely detest that you are forced to go into dungeons with other real people. Elder Scrolls for the most part, allows you to experience much of the game on your lonesome. There have been plenty of updates over the years, my favourite was the ability to get an A.I companion to always be by your side. There was an update some years back that made all the weapons much stronger, making playing the game so much more fun. It can be frustrating that you start some quests, only to discover three or four steps down the line it was intended as a group quest. The group dungeons are far too hard for someone to do on their own, but I have zero desire to play with real people.

The amount of quests is ridiculous, some are better than others, all feature fully voiced characters. From stopping an army of the undead, to investigating cults, travelling to the demon world and saving villages, there is always something to be doing. Best of all, and something which stopped me playing Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls has no monthly subscription requirements. Sure you have to pay for expansions, but there is no monthly cost. For many years I did pay the subscription, this gives you all minor expansions for free, as well as an unlimited inventory size and in-game currency each month. Worth doing if this is your main game, but I tend to play this in fits and bursts, whenever I have the space on my Playstation 5 hard drive to have it installed.

Graphically this isn't stunning nowadays, but at least on the newer consoles and PCs this loads really quick, and it certainly isn't an ugly game. This is one of the most popular games of its type, and if you like your straight faced fantasy then there is plenty here to appeal. It is a huge time sink however, and if you are the type of person who likes 'beating' games then this will frustrate. Overall though, I always come back to The Elder Scrolls Online, no matter how long I've been away, I love getting lost in the world.

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