Bethesda took the risk in 2014, will this years instalment of Elder Scrolls be a hit?
Bethesda – The US based game developer dropped an absolute curveball in their follow up to the hugely successful Skyrim (2012), by releasing an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) – a single game universe inhabited by a number of players. A potentially huge money-sink, MMOs are notoriously difficult to get right. In 2014 Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) mirrored other MMOs in requiring the user to pay a monthly subscription fee in order to play. A £30 initial purchase fee (most MMOs are considerably cheaper, or free) and a subscription of £10 per month, meant the game dropped from sales charts in no time.
Fast forward 12 months, Bethesda and The Elder Scrolls are back with a revised version that hopes to make up for its lukewarm reception last year. Finally seeing a release for PS4 and Xbox One, Bethesda are touting a new approach that could see the game finally take off. Will it work?
First off, the subscription fee is no more! It’s a tactic that’s fairly groundbreaking for a game of its kind, and it’s also an eminently sensible one.
Pick your destiny in Elder Scrolls Online
The single player story is fairly anaemic and the usual MMO tropes of fetch quests and jobs are found throughout. Teaming up with friends or other online players is central to the MMO experience, and will be a much more important factor to your enjoyment of the experience than the menial tasks presented by the singular game.
Another area in which MMOs have struggled (on console only) is in the method of control. Most MMO players will opt for a keyboard and mouse setup when playing on a PC due to the large amount of commands available, not to mention the ease of input in the chat-box used for communicating with fellow players. Bethesda have taken the approach that less is more, scaling back the amount of controls and options that are available, this proves to be both a gift and a curse. Action commands are mapped to the face buttons on your controller, and additional commands are registered to the d-pad and shoulder buttons, meaning the game will feel similar to a normal, single player RPG.
Text chat between players has been sadly sacrificed, with Bethesda obviously feeling that a controller is a less than ideal way to type out commands. The game instead places communication entirely in the hands of voice chat, so a headset is essential to get the most out of the game.
Graphically the game isn’t anything to shout about, and in places it can look really quite poor. Towns and villages up the ante somewhat, harking back to the immersive world that made Skyrim such a joy to play, but outside of this Elder Scrolls Online struggles to feel alive.
On the plus side, the soundtrack is very good, with music and dialogue fitting the game’s setting well. Also the voice talent (including Michael Gambon and John Cleese) do a fine job of injecting a bit of big-budget feeling back into the game.
So has Bethesda’s return to the drawing board reaped benefits? For me, it’s a no. Elder Scrolls Online struggles to clearly define itself as either an endearing MMO or a strong single player pursuit. Graphically it’s a step backward for next-generation consoles, and even with no monthly subscription, it just lacks a certain spark.
Author – Chris, Liverpool Store
Check out the trailer for The Elder Scrolls, which is available in the UK now.
