People that actually read these little reviews of mine will remember that earlier on in the year, I took a look at Bethesda’s upcoming game, Elder Scrolls Online. Since then, the game has come out, and I finally got a chance to play it. My reaction: slightly let down. You know, that’s the most disappointing thing, that the game is only a slight let-down. It’s insulting how almost good it is! So, where to begin?

I guess I should first ask the audience to keep in mind that due to the nature of this game (That being an MMORPG), I haven’t been able to play the game all the way through to the end, so take that for whatever it’s worth to you. On the whole it’s a fairly solid role-playing game, the problem is it’s inadvertently compared to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, which isn’t really fair. Elder Scrolls Online ends up looking shallow because Warcraft has had more time to develop and update itself. It’s an even harder hit when it’s also compared to the previous game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim.  The game tries to build its own new kind of game-play style by taking elements from Skyrim and setting them loose in an MMO type world, which is like unleashing fresh water fish into the open sea, or letting the Boston strangler open a nylon stockings shop.

See, in Skyrim the system worked like this: There weren’t any particular classes to choose from in Skyrim. All you picked was a race, an appearance, and the rest was up to you. Whatever particular skills you used was what got leveled up, and whatever skills weren’t used were still an available option albeit less effective. Now in Elder Scrolls Online, specific abilities are upgradeable. That, combined with a phenomenally small action bar leads to the player having about five abilities that will get leveled up while the rest of the abilities get left in the dust… never to be heard from again…cause you’ll never use them again! Back in Skyrim (be prepared to hear that a lot in this review), the magic users had a telekinesis spell, a transmutation spell, paralysis, lightning, frost, light, summoning, at least nine ways to light things on fire, and a spell to send everyone in the local zip code into a rage-fueled frenzy. It just seems like a bit of  a downgrade now.

Crafting got screwed up as well. Once again, back in Skyrim it was all very simple for blacksmithing, enchanting, and alchemy. Smithing was just a matter of finding the right materials and putting them together, but now in Elder Scrolls Online the process has been overcomplicated as if in direct contrast to the character abilities. For the sake of this review, I won’t go into too much detail. I’ll just say that you’re better off picking up weapons off of monsters and quests, and leaving crafting behind.

In the end, the game just feels like it’s lacking so much content and character that make both Skyrim and World of Warcraft two of my favorite RPGs. However, this issue can be fixed easily with the progression of updates and add-ons, especially on the computer desktop version; so until then, can’t recommend.