[STEAM] A Decade On, The Elder Scrolls Online Is Now a Brilliant Destination for Skyrim and Oblivion Fans

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This year marks the sixth anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 6’s teaser trailer. And with Skyrim turning 13 years old this November, it’s safe to say that Elder Scrolls fans have endured – and will continue to endure – a long wait for Bethesda’s next fantasy RPG. But while the famed single-player studio has been focusing its efforts on nuclear wastelands and outer space, the beloved world of Tamriel hasn’t been neglected. The Elder Scrolls Online, once much-maligned and suffering sinking player counts, is now celebrating its tenth anniversary and the launch of its eighth major expansion. And while it may be an MMO by genre, by design it’s much closer to the classic Elder Scrolls RPG format than you might expect. If you’ve spent a decade desperately searching for more stories from Tamriel, then you need look no further than Elder Scrolls Online’s ongoing saga.

Rich Lambert, game director at ZeniMax Online Studios, explains that the Elder Scrolls Online team made a “big design call to move into a more Skyrim-adjacent lane” several years ago. When TESO first launched, it was derided by many for feeling like a traditional MMO (level grind and all) wearing Elder Scrolls pajamas. Nowadays, the developers don’t even consider the game to fit the ‘MMORPG’ label.

“We decided that this was going to be more of an Elder Scrolls game and focus on Elder Scrolls things first, and be multiplayer second,” Lambert says. “Once we did that it started informing lots of things.”

Unsurprisingly, Lambert sees the core appeal of The Elder Scrolls Online as being one and the same as Skyrim and Oblivion: “One of our core pillars is freedom of exploration and freedom to be and live in the world,” he says. “That traditional Elder Scrolls feeling where you see something in the distance, you can just run to it and explore it.”

The game as it stands now straddles the divide between single-player and online RPG design, offering all the elements you’d expect of a mainline Elder Scrolls game (including a world that permanently changes based on your story decisions, via some smart instancing), but it took a couple of years to get there.

We decided to focus on Elder Scrolls things first, and be multiplayer second. Once we did that it started informing lots of things. Lambert notes that 2015’s Orsinium DLC saw the game’s storytelling “shift away from traditional MMO style to a more Elder Scrolls narrative style, focused more on the character, their beliefs and how they experience the world.” Later, in early 2016, some more traditional Elder Scrolls elements were introduced, such as Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quest-lines, which encouraged stealing from or assassinating NPCs in the shared world. But it wasn’t until late 2016 that the game truly turned itself around.

The One Tamriel update was the turning point for TESO, removing traditional level-based progression in favor of scaling player’s stats to match whatever region you’re in. Outside of dungeon matchmaking being unlocked gradually as you level up to ensure total newbies don’t frustrate more experienced players, there’s nothing stopping a new player from immediately skipping out on the main story and running straight into an ‘endgame’ dungeon. With a decent party, you might even win. Finally, you could treat the game like Skyrim, albeit with a shared world and dungeons geared for co-op.

As such, the much memed wait for a new Elder Scrolls game needn’t be as long and torturous as the seemingly endless journey towards Todd Howard’s next project. The sixth Elder Scrolls is (sort of) already here. Many fans are turning to TESO over replaying Skyrim yet again, partly because of that re-tooled gameplay, but also because of how much of the world’s previously-underexplored lore is elaborated on here. Each major expansion and piece of DLC brings a set of new environments, and the game has been around long enough to fill in many of the blanks of The Elder Scrolls’ world map.

I once wrote off The Elder Scrolls Online as a half-hearted cash-in. Now, it’s a game I’ve been playing on and off for around five years now, dipping back into and thoroughly enjoying when that Elder Scrolls ***** needs scratching. While the incredible community keeps Skyrim alive through mods, that’s a very different experience to exploring brand new, official stories and regions of Tamriel. TESO may not be The Elder Scrolls 6, but it’s a continuing Elder Scrolls game that’s successfully shifted and changed to reflect the wants of a fanbase that grew up on acclaimed single-player RPGs. And that’s a fine place to be for a ten-year-old online game.

The product of a wasted youth, wasted prime and getting into wasted middle age, Dominic Tarason is a freelance writer, occasional indie PR guy and professional techno-hermit seen in many strange corners of the internet and seldom in reality. If you're looking for something new and potentially very weird to play, feel free to poke him on

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