The Elder Scrolls Online -- Beta Preview

As with most major single-player gaming franchises, the notion of The Elder Scrolls going online is not one that most in this medium would be surprised at. However, after the failures of BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and even an effort donning The Lord of the Rings license, would it be any surprise to see The Elder Scrolls Online going free to play within a few months of its launch?

Fat Orc.

The beta seemed fairly robust during my early adventures – first impressions certainly count in MMORPGS, so it is good to see ZeniMax laying their cards on the table already. (The tones of John Cleese, heard within 5 minutes of your adventures, attests to ZeniMax’s desperation to make you immediately *want* to like their game: ‘Look! We have John Cleese! He’s funny and he’s voicing this humorous character! Isn’t this brilliant?!’) Character creation is pretty good. The options provided are, at the very most, akin to those available in Skyrim and, at the very least, an improvement over the laughable selection offered in the biggest MMORPG of them all, World of Warcraft. I was able to create a character fairly close to the one in my imagination – a fat and old Orc warrior; overweight, but experienced and strong as an ox. Perhaps this is false praise: a fat Orc is hardly on the precipice of imaginary aestheticism. Even so, the creation tools available appeared at least satisfactory compared to other contemporary MMORPGs.

As is Elder Scrolls canon, you begin in a prison. This time you’re not on Tamriel, though. Michael Gambon appears, disguised as some frail-but-powerful old prophet, and tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you need to escape this twilight landscape and return to the regions with which we are most familiar. The narrative appears fairly routine from these early impressions, though full voice-acting is appreciated, even if it is, by now, an expected feature.

Dumbledore turns up to offer advice. He's seen it all before, you know?

It is apparent, almost upon immediate gameplay, that this doesn’t feel like a Bethesda game. The movement is a bit off; the combat a bit stiff. Of course, Skyrim was never the pinnacle of fluidity and pacey movement, but The Elder Scrolls Online feels like a different beast. As a warrior-type, the controls were largely similar to Skyrim: left-click to attack, right-click to block. Variations of that basic concept exist (such as holding left-click for heavy attacks), but are expanded later with the introduction of that MMORPG staple: cooldown abilities. By the time I had earned my first cooldown I was hoping that it would add some more spark and zest to the combat. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Even before escaping the aforementioned prison-area, the swinging of swords and maces began to grate. The weight of combat felt too light, too ‘float-y’, if you will. Sometimes I would block an attack, but the enemy would still hit me. The hit-detection is a little wonky. The cool thing is, at least, you can mix it up and try different variations of weapons and armour until you find something favourable; the game doesn't overtly restrict your play-style, though you still must pick a basic ‘class’ upon character creation.

Combat is a bit iffy.

This isn't Skyrim. You don’t leave prison and have ‘that’ moment. You know, the one where the whole expanse of Skyrim becomes clear: that you can do whatever the heck you want; go wherever the heck you want. In this game, The Elder Scrolls Online, you’re hemmed in by MMORPG laws. If you venture too far, a high-level monster will paste you into mush. If you jump on a table of assorted plates and pint-mugs, and run around like a loon, those assorted items of cutlery and mugs will remain static. If you pull out your blade and swing it at an NPC, they won't flinch. Guards won't be alerted to your terror and strive to save their city. The world doesn't respond to you; you don’t matter. Players run around with daft names, and jump about like kangaroos on heat. This isn't really what the Elder Scrolls is about.

As a game, an MMORPG game, The Elder Scrolls Online is functional. But it is unremarkable. The quests are what you would expect: go here, kill that. Sometimes it varies, but the core concept remains the same. You level up, you spend attribute points, you get new armour, etc. This would be fine had we not already endured a slew of wannabe MMORPGs of the same ilk. Aion, Rift, and The Old Republic have all tried and failed to emulate on the formula of World of Warcraft. How can they? Blizzard’s behemoth has had a decade’s head-start. Unless you improve the formula, radically reshape the concept and make it better, then you’re wasting your time. The Elder Scrolls Online is destined for the same fate as Aion, Rift, and all the others. A life of free to play mediocrity.

The game can look majestic at times, however, it lacks the technical mastery of Skyrim. In fact, it lacks technical clout in general, unfortunately.

Any signs of hope? Well, this is, after all, only a beta. Perhaps mid-to-end game is a vast improvement. The combat is, at least, semi-different than the usual World of Warcraft concept, but it’s too unpolished, too sketchy. It could be improved before release, but this beta strikes me as being fairly close to what the released product will ship like. At least there is expanse in terms of combat freedom. The visuals are serviceable, and look nice in areas. The artistic style and tone of the Elder Scrolls is present within environmental design and enemy-types, and the music has a similar riff to Jeremy Soule’s output (but that’s probably because it uses his tracks and merely adds further instruments over the top?). This isn't a graphics engine that will stand the test of time, though. Even beefed up – which wasn't a possibility in the graphical options for the beta – I cannot imagine The Elder Scrolls Online competing with Xbox One, PS4, and PC titles for long. It already has an aura of ‘last-gen’ about it.

Any MMORPG enthusiast will probably find enough to like about The Elder Scrolls Online to warrant a month or two’s play, but by and large, based on the beta, the game is disappointing. Take away the license, and all we have is another generic-MMORPG designed to siphon subscribers away from World of Warcraft. If even a BioWare-backed Star Wars game cannot effectively compete, then what chance does The Elder Scrolls Online have? Not much, I’ll wager.