#THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE REVIEW FULL#
#THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE REVIEW FREE#

Stepping off the boat at the start of the chapter in Seyda Neen in full high texture quality, contemporary-o-vision is a powerful thing for those that were there 15 years ago. It’s very easy to find yourself gasping, laughing and generally going along for the ride with them. You really do get a sense that the writers are having an outrageous amount of fun, despite being under pressure to offer fans a location that delivers on 15 year-old treasured memories of their first excursion to Vvardenfell in The Elder Scrolls III. One such tale sees me chase after a bumbling archeologist dark elf at the behest of his fawning downtrodden assistant, Elfbetta. These tales are great, threaded, winding and frequently unpredictable. There are stories involving magicians with cat allergies, or Nords having their pants stolen while drunkenly running away from goblins, or literal cowl-wearing vigilantes in need of aid as they bid for local justice (that last one comes complete with ESO’s equivalent of a Commissioner Gordon). Part of the reason the stories in Morrowind are so moreish is that they are not of the typically fusty sort you might expect from a high fantasy setting. There are stories involving magicians with cat allergies, or Nords having their pants stolen while drunkenly running away from goblins. There’s a deep seeded racism in the council chamber, with one character in particular seeming to hold a meaty grudge against Sun-in-Shadow’s lizard-folk.

#THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE REVIEW FREE#

There’s Eoki, a love-spurned fellow slave waiting for his one-time partner to free him.

As I jog about the town, chatting to other wizards and councilors on her behalf, smoothing her possible path to a higher rank, little nuggets of exposition are expertly planted all adding extra spice to proceedings. I have spent the better part of two hours in Sadrith Mora, entangled in the plight of Sun-in-Shadow, an Argonian slave with untapped magical abilities and an enthusiasm for the local mage community’s propensity for political intrigue.

I’m fairly late into a particularly long session of playing when the effectiveness of ESO’s new storytelling potential hits me. And that place is as a teller of great stories. Morrowind, ESO’s first additional ‘Chapter’ (the developer is weirdly reluctant to use the word ‘expansion’), is a fresh mark in the sand for the game, a point from which fans will be able to say it really found its place in the wider pantheon of MMOs. Since then it’s been added to, revamped and revitalised, with One Tamriel, which opened up the world via a level scaling system, and Zenimax Online’s forays into more flavoursome RPG storytelling with its Orsinium DLC (among others).

The elder scrolls online review