![]() The saving grace is that Summerset includes some of the most personable characters in an Elder Scrolls game and its world is alive with conversing NPCs and player characters, but it’s not enough to rescue itself from the doldrums. Individual voice actors are way overused as well. Quests are dialogue heavy in order to avoid tired MMO fetch tropes and the writing is laden with exposition – designed to shovel Elder Scrolls lore onto the player’s lap at every chance. Issues with writing don’t stop there, though the rest of its quirks would be instantly recognisable to any familiar with Bethesda’s original work. The end result is an RPG that forces its own story onto you rather than granting the ability to naturally form your own. The cognitive dissonance is too much to ignore when an MMO’s writing makes no sense if played with friends because it focuses solely on the individual instead of a group. Its most pronounced failure its inability to capatalise on what makes ESO an intriguing experience: the online element. In addition, ESO’s quest writing has steadily grown more compelling from the base game through to this expansion and its tale of Elven intrigue is largely worth telling. It’s a far less long-winded and laborious approach than the typical Elder Scrolls introductory dungeon crawl and a welcomed kick start in a genre that lives to be replayed and restarted repeatedly. Its introduction wastes little time thrusting the player into combat and out into the world. The campaign does a good job of touring the player through its best new spots though to say this ride is short-lived would be an understatement.Īfter multiple playthroughs, it is safe to say that the body of Summerset’s story content can be completed in around two to three hours. ![]() Nor can it really manage the minutiae of a superior open world game. And so it fails to replicate or improve on its predecessors’ sense of scale despite its now colossal size. The game lacks in detail and bland graphics bog down the more desolate areas considerably. These stretches inspire at first, but their restrictions are soon apparent. Much of Summerset, including cities, is mountainous region and provides some of ESO’s most impressive draw distance. ![]() Where it does bring more significant change to its world is in its range of verticality. While there are notes of genuine magic here and there, nothing quite lives up to the outlandish and fantastically alien fungal planes in Morrowind, for instance, though the colour palette is considerably more profuse. These stretches of land are vast and lush notwithstanding their cookie-cutter nature. Elven architecture and generic forests abound. Visually, it is directly reminiscent of Oblivion’s world and comes across as something of a ‘greatest hits’ from that game. Summerset, not seen since The Elder Scrolls: Arena, plays home to the High Elves – a snarky, secretive people who see it fit to open their home to the world for the first time presumably just for the chance to project their general disdain for the lower races who will surely be walking mud through the streets and sucking up air. The most glaring new addition is the setting itself. But with new content on the rise and an ocean to absorb in the meanwhile, it’s worth looking into the current state of The Elder Scrolls Online experience and what its last expansion brought to the table. Its latest expansion, Summerset, took it one step closer to that Elder Scrolls with Mates ideal, but the undergoing is still impaired by the extreme lack of polish that permeates this series and a general sense of tedium. It has all the makings of a household titan and overtime become a content rich experience (with a price tag to boot). Developer ZeniMax has made strides in the series formula, however: including multiplayer and innovating on the franchises’ staple quest design. The Elder Scrolls Online has, despite this, never quite captured the sense of wonder that the mainline titles exuded to so many. On the other hand, the ubiquity of a game like Skyrim as both a defining role-playing experience and dankish meme are a testament to the quality of Bethesda’s worlds, stories and personal quirks. The epic merging of world design, multiplayer tactics, customisation and deep wells of lore – at a grand scale – a gargantuan task. The MMORPG is a notoriously hard nut to crack.
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