New expansion for Elder Scrolls Online and review of the game

A new expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online has been announced, which is titled Necrom, and its theme will be focused on cultists of demonic prince Hermeus Mora.

I myself have been playing this game for some time, so I decided to review it for you.

This production is created by Zenimax studio and released by Bethesda studio on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One platforms. It belongs to the mmoRPG genre, and its action takes place in the world of The Elder Scrolls several hundred years before the events presented in the last part of this series.

In the review of this game, I will focus first on the elements that make it stand out from other games in this genre, because I myself bounced off several mmoRPG titles due to their time-consuming, high price, necessary micro-transactions or toxic community.

In this case, most of these problems do not occur, because the game is based on the Pay to Play model, i.e. you need to buy a game that is not too expensive (about PLN 40 with the Morrowind expansion), after which you can play without any additional fees. Micro-transactions and the store occur, however, the use of them is fully optional, and there are no items or enhancements affecting the strength of our character, mainly they are appearance changes such as costumes, mounts, etc. There is also a fully optional subscription in the game giving some bonuses , however, they are not significant and do not help in the fight, and the creators sometimes allow everyone to use the subscription for free for a week. From time to time, developers add to the game expansions and DLC that offer new content that you can buy, but they are not required for comfortable playing, because the maximum level of the character is constant and does not increase with new additions, as in other games of this genre, thanks why the characters of players without any additions are just as strong as players with all. The main function of add-ons and DLC is the introduction of new single-player story campaigns and new activities to perform in groups, e.g. in the Elsweyr expansion a campaign about this land has been added, new dungeons and the possibility of joint hunting for dragons. The necessity to buy the game is, despite appearances, its advantage, because thanks to this players are more engaged and determined, which positively affects the community, in contrast to Free to Play games in which everyone can start playing for free and many people only test the game for a short time.

ESO is not a competitive game, which makes the community less toxic than, for example, MOBA games. The big advantage of the game is also that it does not require long playing, because the strength of characters, enemies and items scales with the level, so even at the first level we have access to all regions and we can defeat most opponents when completing story tasks. Each region has its own campaign consisting of many tasks, during which we learn interesting stories and often make difficult decisions affecting the entire region. These campaigns are intended for single people, which is why single players have something to do here. With e.g. 30 minutes you can complete several tasks, go to the battlefield or dungeon with other players, because these activities do not last long and the level of the character is not important, although the battlefields and dungeons are available from level 10. Maximum character level is level 50, but once you reach it, you continue to train collecting champion points, which are currently 810, but the best items in the game are at level 160, and the bonuses for these levels are not very important.

As I have already described, the game is very friendly to the so-called casual players, however, this does not mean that you will not find there very difficult and time-consuming challenges, because there are demanding PVE raids, called trials, and an extensive PVP system in which the entire grand region of Cyrodil stands out, where there is a constant war of three factions, during which is besieged by strongholds using war machines, and the battles are really spectacular and give a lot of satisfaction.

What I think most distinguishes this production is very large freedom in building our character. We have a choice of 10 races known from other games in this universe (imperial people can be unlocked by buying the imperial edition of the game or from the in-game store), then we choose one of several character classes which is basically 4, there are two additional ones but to play them you have to own Morrowind expansion for the Warden or Elsweyr for the Necromancer. Each class has a set of 18 unique abilities, but we don't have to use them because each weapon, guild armor and many more has its own unique set of abilities, from which we can choose a total of 12 and use them. Each ability can also be improved in two ways, so there are two times more in total. Abilities can be freely mixed according to your preferences and create unique sets. It helps that every class can use any weapon and armor available in the game and fulfill any role (dealing damage, tank, healing). Thanks to this, you can create very unusual characters, e.g. a character who has the class of an sorcerer (equivalent to the magician in other games) can fight with a two-handed sword and wear medium-weight armor or shoot a bow and wear the heaviest armor. So, the possibilities of matching characters to your own preferences are almost limitless, and very unusual characters can be very effective. The combat system itself is very dexterity and allows many moves, e.g. blocking, dodging, interrupting the opponent's ability to use.

At the end I will come to the disadvantages that the game has, in my opinion they are not big, but everyone has different preferences and not every production is suitable for every person. The first thing to pay attention to is that the game is very complicated, many things need to be learned and understood, and there are many unusual mechanics in it, so you have to have some patience for it. What is an advantage for me, i.e. the extensive character building system that I described earlier, may be inaccessible and too complicated for many people, because in addition to abilities you also need to choose items and passive talents, and many of them interact. For many people, the fight with other players can be frustrating at first, because if you do not know the game mechanic well, you can die very quickly, e.g. in less than a second and not even know why. There is also a system of arranging your own home, base or castle in the game, but it is not very well done and it is quite difficult to use it if you want to build something complicated. The game also sometimes has technical problems such as disconnecting from the server or blocking characters in textures.


To sum up, Elder Scrolls Online is a really great game and I honestly recommend it to you, but you have to have a lot of patience with it. In addition, I also place a link to the latest expansion cinematic, because it is really cool, and even if someone does not play a specific game, it is worth watching animations of this type, because they are very atmospheric and give a lot of pleasure, I also recommend watching other cinematics from this game.

Źródło grafiki: www.youtube.com, kanał: Bethesda Softworks (screen z filmu)