Elder Scrolls Online is walking a treacherous tightrope between the trappings of a standard MMO and the recognisable single player experience of The Elder Scrolls franchise. Stray too far to the former and Zenimax will disenfranchise the fans of the series they hope to hook into subscribing; too far to the latter and it’ll beg the question of why make an MMO at all?
The latest video from the studio shows just how many familiar elements of the series appear in the MMO - lockpicking, cooking, gathering herbs - but also how they’re now social skills.
Bethesda have released a new video detailing how exploration and gathering will work in The Elder Scrolls Online. It all looks mighty detailed and immersive, so exactly what one would expect from the minds behind Skyrim and Morrowind.
Daedric God of Schemes Molag Bal is the chief bad in The Elder Scrolls Online: the latest video from the Bethesda Blog reveals his own little realm of Oblivion: Coldharbour. Take the tour in the video below.
Last Friday, the Polish spotted a Skyrim: Legendary edition. We’ve spent the best part of the week since practicing expressions of surprise and delight so that when Bethesda come through the door with - Oh, Bethesda! What’s that you’ve got there? For me?
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Now that Bethesda have officially drawn a developmental line under their 2011 opus, their publishing wing is ready to swoop in and play the ‘Legendary’ card, knowing that they won’t have to trump it later for a more comprehensive box-set (Super-Mythic?). The Skyrim: Legendary Edition will reportedly tie together all released DLC to date alongside its parent game.
Skyrim has been in ongoing development for seven years. For comparison's sake, that's seven FIFAs, or precisely the time it takes to forget about the horse armour thing. Today, Bethesda have finally chosen to draw a line under their opus and create anew.
The Ogrim’s rotund, scaly form and jolly, physics-enabled gut may look like the unique result of Zenimax Online’s sanded-down-and-stylised take on the Elder Scrolls monster manual, but there’s actually a good chance you’ve met him before.
The main takeaway from the 20 minutes of in-game footage below is that the MMO iteration of the Elder Scrolls franchise is going to be mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, both in terms of tropes of the game and tropes of the MMORPG genre.
We see the return of icons that are now canon for the series, such as the same open eye/closed eye stealth symbol, and the mighty mud crab, too, makes an appearance, but, except for in mods, I’ve not seen my Skyrim characters dance before.
The soundtrack for the Elder Scrolls series has been voted the fifth most popular classical work ever in a poll conducted by Classic FM. Back in February, just a day after my birthday, I was bleating excitedly about the news that it had climbed to the 238th spot. This was with the help of a campaign started by the games industry PR Mark Robins. Well, 238th is now a distant memory, and that same campaign has also helped the Final Fantasy series soundtrack climb up to third place.
If you’ve a copy of Skyrim installed on Steam, 1.9 is likely already worming its way into your hard drive, subtly changing the face of a game you thought you knew. The biggest change comes with Legendary difficulty, and the accompanying Legendary skills. They’re a new hole in the glass ceiling of character progression, say Bethesda, and that’s true. But you’ll need the patience of a mountain-monk to really take advantage of it.
This is the moment when it all clicks. I've been playing Elder Scrolls Online all day, and I like it. A lot. It's a fast paced, well thought out, friendly and impressive MMO game. An MMO game set inside the Elder Scrolls universe. But there's something missing. A spark.
Zenimax Online Studio's creative director Paul Stage is on-stage, and he wants to pull a Steve Jobs style surprise.
Even if you have never heard about Jeremy Soule, you have probably heard his captivating talent. Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria are just some of his most recent works, but he’s left his mark on our most beloved games since 1994. Now Jeremy has taken to Kickstarter to raise funds to create his Soule Symphony No. 1, “The Northerner".
Spoiler: He’s already 50% over his target at the time of writing.
A total conversion mod for Skyrim has ripped out the bitter wastes wholesale and replaced them with the best of Far Cry 3 - palm trees, baked earth and chattering birds.
Since the first MMOs sloped out of their primordial ooze the tank has existed, present in every fight, and, for all intents and purposes, standing there like a muscly-looking damage sponge. Zenimax Online are claiming they’ve managed to do away with the class, not entirely but certainly making him far from a necessary component of every team.
The news comes from a recent developer Q&A and it goes into more than just the make up of fighting teams.
In an unprecedented and MMO-like move for Bethesda, the Elder Scrolls developers have removed the 100-point limit for skill development in Skyrim and introduced a new Legendary difficulty setting to match.
Elsewhere, Skyrim’s 1.9 patch sees a slew of bugs fixed, including a “rare instance" in which couriers “would appear only dressed in a hat".
Zenimax Online will be sending out invites this month for The Elder Scrolls Online's soon-to-launch closed beta. So there's only a short time left to apply if you're wanting to be considered for this first round of selectees.
In an unprecedented and MMO-like move for Bethesda, the Elder Scrolls developers have removed the 100-point limit for skill development in Skyrim and introduced a new Legendary difficulty setting to match.
Zenimax Online will be sending out invites this month for The Elder Scrolls Online's 
Shriven commented on Elder Scrolls Online video shows 20 minutes of in-game footage