The Elder Scrolls Online: Review in Progress (Part 1)

As a fan of the Elder Scrolls series, this game gives a lot of references to things that have been mentioned in a lot of other The Elder Scrolls games. If you have been playing a lot of the games in the series, expect to see and hear a lot of familiar names being mentioned in the game. For those who love the Daedric Prince of Madness, Sheograth, they will be pleased to see him in this game once again with his weird antics. Ever heard of Shalidor? He will make an appearance in this game finally. If you love the lore of The Elder Scrolls games, expect this game to entice you.

Your journey to level 50 will be hard and time consuming. Reaching level 15 took me a lot of time and while it may sound tedious, the journey has been fantastic and memorable. Questing in this game has its ups and downs. Some are tedious, but for the most part, they are enjoyable. Each quest in this game has voice overs, just like in an Elder Scrolls game, and you will never have to worry about reading conversations unless you have a book in hand. The quality of quests that you do varies from killing these enemies or doing favors from people around the Tamriel. Don’t worry though, they aren’t as tedious as other MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Each of the quests that you do has a story that will keep you hooked up and wondering how the quest will end.

There are three dungeons available at the time of this writing but I only managed to play one and that’s the Fungal Grotto. Before doing a dungeon, my expectations were quite high and I’m glad the game met it. Doing a dungeon in this game can really push people into working as a team. It’s not the same as other MMOs where you will feel its a push over. Thanks to the combat system and the way the game executes it, trekking through dungeons will be challenging but rewarding when you clear it. Unlike other MMOs where it pushes you to have certain roles in order to participate in an instanced dungeon, this game will not require you that – any classes and roles are free to do the dungeon. Feel free to experiment and see if the combination of roles when doing a dungeon will work best.

The Elder Scrolls Online will not be an Elder Scrolls game without bugs. From the time that I have spent in this game, I can say that the bugs aren’t as big as the ones present in Skyrim and Oblivion before. The bugs are there and there are quests that are not working but the amount of them are very little. It can get quite annoying doing a quests that allows you to not complete it due to being buggy but for the most part, the game works. Hopefully that continues and Zenimax will fix the present bugs in quests as it can get quite annoying. So far, I’ve encountered three quests that I cannot complete.

So far, The Elder Scrolls Online surpassed my expectations. If you are a fan of The Elder Scrolls series and love everything about it, The Elder Scrolls Online will please you as it has everything that you love in an ES game. It may not be your traditional MMO that you are accustomed to, but what Zenimax did in this game makes it stand out from the rest of the competition. Let’s wait until I hit the end-game for the final verdict but as it stands right now, the game is enjoyable and I can see myself playing this game for a long time coming.

[Editor’s Note: Publisher provided us with a review copy of the Imperial Edition w/ Early Access.]