When The Elder Scrolls Online released on PC over a year ago, it was beset by bugs and flaws that Zenimax spent the last year patching out. They’ve repaired broken quests and removed exploits, while also supporting the game with new content and moving to a business model without monthly subscriptions earlier this year. Unfortunately, whilst the edition that has arrived on Xbox One and PS4 clearly sees the benefit of some of these improvements, there are undoubtedly still flaws.
It started with the excessively long waiting times, as the number of people trying to play the game outstrips server capacity for the game.  Once you’re fifteen minutes into starting the loading process and having got no further than creating an Elder Scrolls Online account worries begin to surface. The game has been in full release on PC for well over a year, and with the console iteration having gone through an extended beta period, you would have expected them to be prepared for the onslaught of new players. Such long loading times are still common a week after release.
Eventually, I was able to enter the character creation tool at the second attempt, finding it impressively detailed, easy to use, and the best such tool that you’ll find from the franchise so far. You begin with choosing your Alliance, each of which has their own starting areas and quest lines, which in turn dictates what races you have available, from the lizard-like Argonians to the haughty High Elves. However, if you buy the Imperial Edition of the game, these limitations are removed, so you can place any race within any alliance, as well as having the Imperial race available, which takes the total to ten. Finally, you then choose your character class, from the powerful Dragonknight through to the swift Nightblade, each of which has its own skill trees and abilities.
Having created my Argonian of the Ebonheart Pact, the tutorial quickly introduced the basics of combat as I tried to escape a prison in the region of Coldharbour. As in previous Elder Scrolls titles the first-person viewpoint is the standard option, and though you can play in third person if you wish, the stilted animation and extremely offset viewpoint you’ll be subjected to makes it clear that this is not really the way the developers envisioned people experiencing the game. Combat sits within the same framework as previous titles in the franchise, with right and left hands mapped to each of the controller’s triggers, with the ability to map various other special abilities to the remaining buttons on the controller a welcome addition.
Unfortunately it was here that I then experienced my first game breaking bug, as the NPC character I had to speak to in order to advance the tutorial failed to appear in front of me. The option to press A, and her name, appeared but not the character. Logging out and back in didn’t fix the problem, and after looking up the problem online, the fix is to unplug the Xbox One for twenty seconds and start the game again. As a known bug that existed in the PC version, it’s frankly ridiculous that it has carried over to the console release.
Starting a second character to try out a different class revealed that I hand’t been awarded an achievement for completing the opening section. This could be an Xbox One system problem, mind you, as such things seem quite common, and I was able to grab it the second time through, but combined with various server errors that booted me back out to the title screen, it made me wonder how wisely the extra development time on consoles has been spent. Joining a party only seems to amplify the problems, and connection issues became even more prevalent, assuming that you can find each other in the first place. It seemingly locks other players out from joining you on various quests, causing them to be invisible to you, despite being in the same area.
In a two hour period, I was booted from the game a total of eleven times, repeatedly failed to log in and had to unplug my console once more, in order to rectify a second occurrence of the NPC bug. In that same period I managed to complete just three quests, which probably took a total of twenty minutes. On early impressions at least, the game can be borderline unplayable on Xbox One, and is in my experience likely to boil your blood. It added insult to injury by losing ten precious minutes of progress the last time I was kicked from the servers.
Yet the base game itself is fun, if a relatively unrefined Elder Scrolls experience. There are annoyances to some of the mission structures, which are often quite simple, and the broad spectrum of quests lack the recognition of your own character class, which detracts from the fiction’s impact– having someone thank your Argonian character whilst also saying how much they dislike your race is poorly conceived. When the game worked, I found a great deal to like, from interesting quests that often amplified the humanity of the residents of Tamriel, to a rewarding and enjoyable combat system.
However, Elder Scrolls Online is not a handsome game. It sometimes sits between the Xbox 360 versions of Oblivion and Skyrim, though there are more attractive areas such as the volcano at Stonefalls or the Prophet’s home of The Harborage. Aurally things are a lot better, with stirring choral pieces and orchestrated themes alongside high-quality voice-acting from what is an incredible cast of luminaries including Michael Gambon, Bill Nighy and Kate Beckinsale.
A Second Opinion – Exploring The PS4 Edition
At first The Elder Scrolls Online appears to be almost identical to previous Elder Scrolls games; the stats are the same, the skills are the same, you can bake, fish, mine, and all the other things you can do in Skyrim. However, quite a lot of the time it looks much worse than its predecessors, the developers choosing to create a massive play area at the expense of detail and effects.
Low polygon count models and stilted animations are jarring, especially when there have been a few occasions when it has managed to look as gorgeous and atmospheric as you would expect for the PlayStation 4.
As you would expect, there is a lot of grinding to be done but the missions, of which there are hundreds, are quite varied and occasionally amusing. Most of them fall in to the “Go to A, kill B, collect C” variety but the larger ones have full voice acting and will take you through many varied landscapes and even onto other planes. It’s a little tedious not being able to carry much at the start, and you could spend all day just baking apple pies if you wanted, but a little exploration will unveil plenty of opportunities to test you sword skills.
The multiplayer dungeons are locked until you reach level ten, and they are by far the most exciting part of the game. Team play is key and it will take a number of tries before you work out the correct tactics to defeat the enemies. Even with a group of strangers and no voice chat they are really enjoyable, almost – and I say this with reverence – reaching Destiny levels of multiplayer fun.
I know my experience in the game has been far smoother than others – I have only encountered one or two NPCs not appearing during side quests – and the stuttering frame rate, low polygon count and facial animation are terrible at times, but I would be lying if I said I had not enjoyed playing The Elder Scrolls Online a hell of a lot.
Tuffcub
Hopefully the server woes that I’ve experienced with the Xbox One edition will be rectified swiftly, and indeed during my most recent evening with the game I experienced no problems at all. Perhaps it will be the case that as the numbers logging in settle down the issues that I’ve outlined will become less prevalent. I hope so, as there’s a lot to like about the Elder Scrolls Online, particularly for fans of earlier entries in the series. Whilst it may not be the most attractive, or indeed technically proficient game, it’s varied lore and enjoyable character progression would be worth experiencing, if it works.
Pitcher-T
As you made me feel bad….
I’m tempted by elder scrolls, but I’m put off by the fact that it’s called elder scrolls (if that makes sense). To me it would’ve been better if they had called it something completely different and set it in another universe.
I’ll probably just wait for elder scrolls 6 or for eso to be like a tenner. Although by then there will probably be nobody online.
hunterstryfe
I have just recently bought it, gotta say it does remind me of my skyrim days, but lack of a choice of weapon at the start of the game left me a bit disappointed, and as I could not find a bow, my friend went and created one for me, other than that not played too much into game atm as still enthralled by witcher 3
bunimomike
Just a few things to add and bring-up. The PC version didn’t have too many bugs at all and I played from day-one (with three friends) through to level 20 or so without much trouble. Maybe we were all just very lucky. However, we could most definitely see the things that needed fixing but nothing broke the game, as such.
Also, just to mention Tuffcub’s input. ALL missions are voiced (on my fourth play-through at present). Hell, even the NPCs that have almost bugger all to say and don’t give out missions, still have voice work. Also, what’s impressed me (and Hannypoppie) the most is that nearly all of the side quests are somehow linked to the world and/or main missions in some way. What’s been particularly lovely for someone who usually doesn’t invest much emotion into side-quests in games like this is how one mission spawns off of the back of another one and continues things further. It motivates you to invest a bit more feeling; motivates you to pay attention and learn about things a smidge more.
Sad for anyone who’s suffered with game/mission breaking bugs where NPCs aren’t showing up on screen, etc. Never had that and I’m probably approaching 300 hours or so of game time. :-\
frostface
I’ve been playing with little to no hiccups on PS4 so I guess I’m lucky. I do experience the stuttering when there’s too many people in the game at the same time but mostly it’s ok. Not the prettiest game for sure, certainly not next-gen. I’m trying out different characters at the moment so I’m not too leveled up in any one.
One issue though I’m having is that I got a code with the game that would allow me to pick any race within any alliance but although the code is registered in my PS Services list as active, the game hasn’t registered it and I’m restricted to picking one of three races per alliance. It’s a known issue over on the official ESO forums and apparently it’s being looked into but as of yet it has yet to be resolved.
But gameplay is king and I’m having a cracking, dare I say an addictive time, constantly telling myself just one more quest, just one more quest, oh what’s that new marker on my map, lets go look. Oh shit, it’s 2am.