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I recently wrote about loving Skyrim's icy fantasy world, and it made me yearn to return to Tamriel, the continent where the Elder Scrolls games are set. But with The Elder Scrolls 6 still in development and likely years away, I wondered where I could get a Scrolls fix without replaying one of the old games for probably the dozenth time. Then it hit me like a Skyrim giant's overpowered club: what about The Elder Scrolls Online? I admit I haven't paid much attention to Bethesda's MMO over the years. I have no interest in the stuff people typically play these games for. I don't want to join guilds or go on raids. I'm antisocial like that. But surely I could just ignore everyone and pretend it's a single-player RPG?
Not long after creating my character, I found myself in a room circled with portals leading to every corner of Tamriel. This is your chance to decide where you want to start your adventure. Naturally, I headed straight for my beloved Skyrim—but noticed magical chains blocking the way. Turns out I didn't own the Greymoor DLC, so I subscribed to ESO Plus, which unlocks everything in the game for about $10 a month. I logged out and back in again, and the spectral chains were gone—dispelled by the most powerful magic of all: money. I skipped through the newly opened portal and found myself in West Skyrim, near the grand city of Solitude, and I'll be honest, it was pretty exciting. Skyrim! I'm back, baby!
The terrain and atmosphere will be instantly familiar to anyone who's spent a significant amount of time in The Elder Scrolls 5—particularly the image of Solitude perched precariously on that big arch of rock. This game is set a thousand years before the events of Skyrim, so there are some differences—although maybe not as many as there should be considering there's an entire millennium separating them. But the most exciting thing for someone like me who has bled Skyrim dry is that it's loaded with new quests, stories, and characters. There's probably some good multiplayer stuff too, but I'll never know.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a good-looking video game, especially when the sun sinks below the horizon and casts a dreamy golden haze over the landscape. But it's clearly not as pretty as Skyrim, and I had to do some adjusting to the fact that everything is just a little harsher on the eye. Also, being an MMO, the environment feels much more static. The simulation of the world doesn't run as deep, and the NPCs are like robots compared to the radiant AI-powered weirdos from the single-player games. That's fair enough: I wasn't expecting it to be exactly like Skyrim. In general, Bethesda has done a great job translating the experience to an MMO.
The quests are fun too, which is rare for an MMO, and I'm surprised by how authentically Elder Scrollsy they feel. It's not just running back and forth between waypoints killing monsters and collecting arbitrary objects: there are interesting (and voiced) characters, nicely staged set-pieces, and a good sense of mystery to pull you through. I mean, it's hardly The Witcher 3, but solo questing in ESO is a lot more fun than in most MMOs. Also, shout out to Lyris Titanborn, an incredibly tall Nord warrior who joined me on my adventure and is played brilliantly by veteran voice actor Jennfier Hale. When I stand next to her, she makes my ugly big orc, with his maxed out height slider, look like a tiny child, which is never not funny.
Playing The Elder Scrolls Online doesn't feel exactly like playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, or any of Bethesda's other big single-player RPGs—but it's a very decent approximation of the experience. It's also a great Tamriel tourism simulator. If you aren't bothered about questing, combat, or any of that other adventurer stuff, it's worth signing up to ESO Plus for a month just to explore the world and soak up the Elder Scrolls atmosphere. I don't know when The Elder Scrolls 6 will show its face. If some rumours are to be believed, we might not see it till 2024. But if you can't wait to get back to Tamriel, and you've squeezed every ounce of joy out of the single-player games, The Elder Scrolls Online is a fine substitute.