State of Play: Where do the MMORPGs WoW, ESO, GW2, FF14, and Black Desert stand at the beginning of 2017?

The Elder Scrolls Online – Nostalgia and Casual-Friendly Ideas

Where does The Elder Scrolls Online currently stand?

The Elder Scrolls Online actually comes from a weak 9-month period. But it doesn’t feel like that.

In the first half of 2016, Zenimax delivered two major DLCs that closed gaps in the world. Then they went into a slowdown, bringing little new content and instead focusing on features like “One Tamriel” and housing.

Because many console players only discovered the game for themselves and it became so “casual-friendly” through the new features, the last nine months did not feel like a weak phase.

ESO is consistently moving away from the “endgame” idea pursued by Final Fantasy XIV and WoW and shifting towards a “sandbox experience” similar to the Elder Scrolls series.

This brings a new twist to the genre and attracts people who previously had nothing to do with MMORPGs but are now checking out ESO.

Zenimax is doing everything to eliminate typical “This is an MMORPG, it’s too hardcore for me” entry barriers. The success justifies their approach.

However, many problems that the game has structurally as MMORPG are not very concerning: Cyrodiil still doesn’t work properly. Animation canceling is strange. Where is the Champion Points grind going? Is the item system really okay? Somehow, all of this seems not so important.

What happens next for The Elder Scrolls Online?

Zenimax will release ESO Morrowind as a stand-alone expansion. They would prefer to sell it as a new game with its own story and quest areas – something that sells much better to people who are not MMORPG-affine than “just a new expansion,” for which MMORPG fans are waiting.

Morrowind brings a new class and the long-announced instanced battlefields.

They plan to continue with quarterly DLCs – and perhaps in 2018, the next “big expansion” if everything goes as planned.

What is the perspective of The Elder Scrolls Online?

The perspective is remarkably good. Zenimax has now developed a completely different game than was initially developed.

ESO has a different target audience, a different direction, a different philosophy. It is no longer an MMORPG that capitalizes on The Elder Scrolls to take advantage of the license, while the developers pursue entirely different ideas. Instead, Zenimax is trying to develop an accessible game that is suitable for people who are fans of The Elder Scrolls.

This can be viewed critically from the perspective of an MMORPG purist. Ultimately, however, MMORPG fans are not the target audience for ESO. Now that Zenimax has brought the Skyrim fans on board, they want to grab the Morrowind veterans. And it looks like they are succeeding.

The Elder Scrolls Online: One Tamriel in review – Is ESO worth it in 2017?