Games
An online sequel to Skyrim is coming, and it just might be the game to take on World Of Warcraft.
Skyrim fans get excited: the epic Elder Scrolls series is getting a new instalment this spring, on 4 April to be precise.
It’s not just another mammoth single player adventure however. The Elder Scrolls Online is the first massively multiplayer roleplaying game (MMORPG) in the the franchise’s history, which means you’ll be able to play it for longer and for the first time, with friends.
The switch to MMO also means it has a new rival however: the mighty behemoth that is World Of Warcraft, which still boasts more than 7.5 million subscribers, who shell out every month to quest and loot together in the world of Azeroth.
It’s been almost a decade since Blizzard’s mighty, stunningly addictive online RPG first launched, and even though subscription numbers are slowly falling, there's still no pretender to World of Warcraft's throne. All the other blockbuster games that have come at the king, like Final Fantasy XIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic, have failed, with the developers retreating to reboot the game or convert it into a free-to-play game.
Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls Online however might be the game that unseats WoW, the one that gets people to fork out each month for a different experience for the first time. Here’s why.
No more grinding
Everyone knows grinding - slaying weak monsters over and over again to get more experience and ‘level up’ in strength - is a complete chore. In WoW, it’s even a cottage industry, with teams of low paid ‘gold farmers’ in the Far East paid to grind full time for other players.
Whether you’re a seasoned World of Warcraft vet or just jumping into MMORPGs for the first time, constantly fighting the same monsters and enemies over and over for tiny little bits of experience points just amounts to sheer boredom. Bethesda has a chance to break the cycle with The Elder Scrolls Online.
The series is known for its comprehensive levelling system which never forces you to rehash dungeons for dungeons’ sake. In ESO, your combat skills will even be temporarily boosted when you take on higher level characters so you stand a chance.
It’ll bridge the PC class divide
You can’t play World of Warcraft on consoles or phones, and you likely won’t ever in the future either. That’s just how it is. Despite a few games breaking through to relative MMO success on consoles in the past, such a s Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Online, MMORPGs are known for being distinctly PC only affairs.
Bethesda might be able to break down the barrier though, and gain the critical mass it needs in the living room: it’s due out on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 just two months after the launch of the PC version. If it can’t sway PC gamers from World of Warcraft, it’ll have a much easier time wooing console fans, who are still lacking for online questing options on next-gen.
Tell a better story
It’s fair to say that Blizzard may be running out of ideas at this point: one of its most recent expansion packs features a race of kung-fu pandas. No, really. Bethesda is known for its intricate storylines and sprawling sidequests, so we’re confident it’ll be able to bring its crafty narrative webs to the Elder Scrolls Online. The studio says that the game’s storyline will weave in between all the other games in the series: it’s set a millennium before the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and a whole 800 years before The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, meaning there’s plenty of untold sagas to unravel with friends and foes alike.
There are even three different factions to join and extend your gameplay time: the Daggerfall Covenant, the Ebonheart Pact, and the Aldmeri Dominion, each with their own characters and storylines. That means it’s not just a simple case of Horde vs Alliance, like with World of Warcraft - you’ll have two other massive alliances to take down if you want to make it to the top of the greasy pole, and with plenty of different territories to fight over, you could be there a while. You’re in for a treat if you’re a PvP fan, as Bethesda promises you’ll be able to take on hundreds of players at once in epic pitched battles. This might just be the closest we get to Game Of Thrones Online.
Slay the boring side quests
Let’s be honest, lumbering through a dungeon and slaying an expectedly large boss for some coin in WoW can get a tad repetitive.
You can bet Bethesda’s trying its hardest to avoid the same trap: it’s known for its inventive and extensive sidequests (One Skyrim sidequest actually sees you transforming permanently into a werewolf) as well as its quirky non-player characters (One Skyrim guard’s quip that he used to be an adventurer until he took an “arrow in the knee” became arguably the most popular internet meme of 2011), and you can be sure it’ll work its magic once more here.
Certainly what Bethesda’s revealed so far suggests ESO will meet fans’ expectations. As you explore Tamriel you’ll stumble across everything from a Daedric prince to necromancers and even armies of the undead - it’s everything you love about the Elder Scrolls games, just bigger, better and you can play it with friends.
Say goodbye to the multiple servers
Gone are the days of picking a single server out of several to join with your friends: ESO makes use of clever ‘Megaserver’ tech to ensure you’ll be all connected in one massive game world, and it’s all automatic too. The game will place you straight into the middle of the action with your friends, guildmates, players you’ve encountered before and even other like-minded players - so you won’t ever be separated from your friends, even if you have several groups of them. It’s a smart move - by comparison, Blizzard’s back-end for Wow is positively ancient, and unable to make use of the same cloud smarts. Bring it on.
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