The Elder Scrolls Online: Brilliant Game, Terrible MMO

I cannot be alone in my opening experience with this game. I loaded up Elder Scrolls Online, excited by the prospect of a new entry in the Elder Scrolls Franchise. I patiently waited to connect to the servers. I patted myself on the back for buying the game while it was on sale for 60% off. And then it hit me.

How could even the most experienced MMORPG fan fail to be enthralled by the aura that surrounds this franchise? How can one fail to notice the menu and graphics, both heavily designed to invoke in us memories of Skyrim, one of the most anticipated games of its time?

Or, less subtly, it is difficult not to be reminded of previous games in the franchise when Cyrodiil, the setting in which the entire heart-pumping sequence of events of Oblivion took place in, is free to explore—and with the added bonus of trees that don’t look like paper to boot.

Yes, the point I’m trying to make is that it is incredibly easy, when one initially plays ESO, to forget that this is an MMORPG, as opposed to a bog-standard RPG. And this is a problem.

Allow me to draw your attention to two specific moments in which I found myself jolted back to reality from within my Tamrielic haze of open worlds and bizarrely expensive voice actors (why on earth is there a soulless beggar wandering around with the voice of John Cleese?).

In the first instance, I had decided— as one does in an Elder Scrolls game— to have a little wander, take in the sights, that sort of thing. Without a moment’s hesitation I conjured my trusty lizard steed from the aether, and began trundling along until my leafy surroundings had become more desert-like. My first clue was the sand.

[singlepic id=18270 w=600 h=338 float=none]

On a nearby dune I noticed a small, perfectly ordinary sort of wolf. The kind one comes across in any fantasy quest or friendly plant nursery. So, naturally, I lobbed a fireball at it—as I had with countless others before it—and found myself in a slightly embarrassing position. I had died.

Such is the nature of the trickster-gods over at Bethesda! They beguile me with their familiar music and astonishingly similar controls, then pummel me over the head with a reminder that, for no obvious reason, they’ve decided to change genres. In their usual RPG format, a mere change in geography would not alter the level of an enemy I had already faced. I would not be expected to grind and chafe merely for the privilege of defeating an enemy that I had already roundly trounced on countless occasions.

My second example concerns the more traditional matter of questing. I vividly recall some pressing need to travel into a dungeon and rescue a prisoner. I forget precisely why this person needed rescuing, but it must have been VERY important. I know this because, upon my arrival in said dungeon, I saw—just far enough in the distance to annoy me—a merry group of adventurers, without a care in the world, finishing off the last of the enemies.

I felt like an utter fool as I wandered over to that prisoner of mine and untied him. I mean, what was the point of my being there? It is not as though the local king had given the quest to that whole group of people, after all—they’ll have had to speak to him simultaneously, each one being told that they, as an individual, were the only help this poor tied-up chap could possibly have.

[singlepic id=18329 w=600 h=338 float=none]

The curious thing about ESO, however, is not that its MMO features ring discordant with the single—player RPG elements that it refuses to relinquish. The most bizarre aspect of Bethesda’s bumbling behemoth, rather, is that the single-player features of the game (provided I’m left to do them in peace) are actually sublime! I would even be prepared to state that more care and attention is paid to parts of its plotting, characterisation and general narrative than were paid to vast amounts of Skyrim.

For example:

I found myself transported back in time, sent to discover the fatal weakness of an immortal enemy that had arisen once again in the present day and aided by the ghost of a female soldier whom he had slain. During my traversal of this ancient battlefield, I came across the pre-slaying version of this soldier, and was sent to deliver a message to her young husband in the midst of battle: “I’m pregnant.”

Well, this was a bit of a game changer. I had been warned very clearly that my task was only to observe, lest I inflict some terrible damage upon the present day, but could I really allow the death of both my ghostly companion and her unborn child? On the other hand, if the woman survived, surely her apparition would no longer be able to take me back to the present.

Naturally I knew that the game would continue either way, but the subtle realisation that the woman was pregnant (which I could have missed if I’d simply skipped past the dialogue—a testament, in itself, to the rich characterization throughout the game) was a genuinely poignant and heart-wrenching moment, in which my decision to alter time itself felt as though there was real weight and meaning behind it.

[singlepic id=18278 w=600 h=338 float=none]

Upon returning to the present day, then, I found that the ghost who was giving me instructions had changed—no longer was I talking to the ghost of the woman who died, but to that of an Unnamed Soldier, who seemed unaware of any change. A similar lack of awareness was to be found in the eyes of the general who gave me the quest, who, I’m pretty sure, was the opposite gender when this particular tale began.

Now, this was a mere tangent in the epic tale woven by Bethesda in ESO, and it was a wonderful experience that was absolutely, in no way whatsoever, aided by the presence of other random players emoting at me while I fumbled with this profound moral dilemma.

In some respects, one might argue that this pedigree of storytelling and immersive narrative is what the MMO world needs more of. It’s certainly a far cry from the usual “go here and kill twenty of these things before teatime.” But I’m sure I speak for many others when I say that, if Bethesda are so committed to such well-crafted single player experiences, why aren’t they cracking on with the Elder Scrolls VI rather than this hubristic ambition?

The ultimate giveaway, though, that I may be correct to consider this game a single player RPG at heart, may be found in the announcement that there will soon be a “One Tamriel” update that scales the player’s level to match the enemies around them. This completely negates my first complaint, and takes the game a step away from the traditional MMO format, and a step towards that special, RPG-shaped space that it already occupied in our hearts.

Now, if only I could get rid of those irritating other players…