Summary
TheElder Scrollsseries is a gaming phenomenon. It is a series withincredibly deep lore, beautiful art and music, revolutionary design innovations, and a wide audience appeal. As such, the world of Nirn has the rare power to bring casual and hardcore gamers together, pleasing superfans eager to delve deep into immersion and non-gamers looking to mess around in a fantasy world.
While the series has changed drastically since its inception, there are a few traditions that each game adheres to that become obvious with even the most surface-level playthroughs. These familiar features will likely make an appearance inThe Elder Scrolls 6, which will likely be released sometime in the currentkalpa, before Alduin returns to finally eat the world as he was originally created to do.
10Becoming An Insatiable Loot Hoarder
Swiping Everything That Isn’t Nailed Down
Thanks to the ability to carry an infinite amount of gold and cart around an impossibly heavy amount of gear, most players have a tendency to pocket any valuable they see, including the clothes of any dead people they come across, leaving a trail of naked corpses in their wake.
FromArenatoSkyrim,looting and pawning is the most efficient way to make gold, and with such an abundance of unnamed bandits and unlocked treasure chests scattered around Tamriel, it’s easy to see why most players, with the exception of roleplayers and those suffering from gymnophobia, would develop hoarding tendencies.
9Multiple Playthroughs
One Character Is Never Enough
In terms of physical distance and content, eachElder Scrollsgame is enormous. With such a vast size, it might be tempting to think that one playthrough would be enough to satiate fans. However, a good RPG limits a player’s abilities and experiences depending on their character build choice.
As such, it is almost universal that players will load up a new character to see what they can do differently on a new playthrough. This might mean seeing what life as an Argonian is like inMorrowind, defying the Nine Divines andgoing down the path of evilinOblivion, or trying something other than a stealth archer run inSkyrim.
8A Library Of Readable Books And Scrolls
Tamriel’s Literacy Levels Must Be Through The Roof
It is said that fewer people than ever are reading books today. However, a huge tradition in everyElder Scrollsgame sinceDaggerfallis the appearance of readable,collectible in-game booksand scrolls. These tomes supply the player with entertaining stories, skill increases, tidbits about the lore, and quests or quest hints.
The total number of books in the series has grown to the size of a small library as many books carry over to the sequel. The Elder Scrolls themselves do not actually make an appearance in every game, and as any lorebeard worth their saltrice would know, they are not readable to mortal eyes, at least not without training, and make their readers blind besides.
7Meme-Worthy Guards
The Long Arm And Punctured Knee Of The Law
To a time-rewinding Shezarrine, Dragonborn, or prophecized hero (in other words, a player character), guards, in their attempt to uphold order and the law, would seem laughable. However, the guards in everyElder Scrollsgame have always shared an unintentionally funny quality to them.
Whether it’s the small squad of guards all yelling “Halt! Halt!” inDaggerfall,the suspicious scowls ofMorrowind’s Ordinators, orOblivion’s always-zesty, hyper-zealous Imperial guards, these upholders of the law are sure to crack a smile on the player’s face. And of course,Skyrim’s hold guards birthed the undying “arrow to the knee” meme, amongst others.
6An Immersive First-Person Perspective
Witnessing Dawn’s Beauty Through The Player Character’s Eyes
There are plenty of games that provide a first-person view, but besides a few other video game series that fell out of favor, at least in the West (Wizardry), being able to see a fantasy landscape in first-person mode was a novelty in RPGs, which would usually take a top-down view.
The Elder Scrollshas since allowed players to switch to third-person to admire their character, but each game is built with this intimate perspective in mind. While there area handful of first-person RPGstoday, few can scratch the itch likeTEScan.
5Lore Retcons And Hand-Waving
Made A Mistake? Call It A Dragon Break
In a series as large and as old asThe Elder Scrolls, it is understandable that some details in the lore will change and the occasional mistake will be made. However, Bethesda has seen fit to make some gigantic alterations across every game so far, each with its own hand-wave explanations.
For example, the Khajiit and Argonian races were originally human in appearance inArena, the nature of the Daedra princess changed forMorrowind, up untilOblivion, the lands of Cyrodiil were comprised of jungles, swamps, and rainforests, and inSkyrim, the blades became dragon hunters and most Nords left behind their hardcore warrior ways and old gods and became Talos-worshipping farmers.
4Missing Features From The Previous Game
Todd Howard’s “Less Is More” Design Philosophy
Although not every skill inDaggerfallcould be considered useful or all that interesting (the language skills especially), there were an impressive number to choose from. Since then, skills have been slowly removed, as have certain weapon types (spears), spells (levitation), andother features from previousElder Scrollsgames(i.e., layered armor, spell crafting, and transportation options).
The most drastic removal was made inSkyrimwhen skill levels were replaced with perk points and attributes were removed entirely. Todd Howard has been known to say that instead of thinking about adding new features in each game, he tends to think about what can be taken out to better streamline the game and to provide more focus on the remaining elements.
3Getting Sidetracked With Sidequests And Exploration
Just One More Dungeon Run
If theElder Scrollsgames were linear in nature, players would likely finish their playthroughs much quicker and be done with their games. However, a great tradition in everyTESgame is the having the experience of being sidetracked by miscellaneous quests,unexpectedly long dungeon crawls, or simple curiosity about what is over the next hill.
Fast travel has since become a staple, but where players know there is a breadth of unexplored space between their current position and destination, they will usually opt against taking a loading screen shortcut and take the long (and often distracting) way around.
2The Prison Break Opening
A Palate Cleanser For The Delicious Taste Of Freedom
SinceThe Elder Scrolls Chapter 1: Arena, the first thing players see inThe Elder Scrollsis the bleak sight of captivity. Either from a cell, shipwreck, prison boat, or execution cart, the player’s first task is to buy themselves freedom.
This could be a clever way to tell players with ill intentions that their avatar is already evil-natured. Alternatively, it could be to emphasize the amount of freedom the player has upon finally reaching the open world with their release.
1The Burgeoning Mod List
Spending More Time Tweaking The Game Than Playing It
Every game inThe Elder Scrollsseries is special in its own way. However, either because of specific design decisions or a limitation of game design (time and money), a huge amount of PC players have always taken to modding tools and websites to spiff up their copy of the game as they see fit.
The modding scene forSkyrim,Oblivion,Morrowind, and now, with the release ofUnity, evenDaggerfall, is thriving. The possibilities for custom games are now endless, although this does come with one significant downside: modders can unintentionally spend more time modding their beloved game worlds withamazing custom creationsthan actually experiencing them in-game.
