The Elder Scrolls Online “Introduction” trailer has more than nine minutes of gameplay and guys talking about how awesome it’s going to be.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a pretty big deal. It’s a high-profile, big-budget MMO based on a well-established and well-loved franchise, all of which, as Star Wars: The Old Republic so aptly demonstrated, means virtually nothing to its potential audience. That could be bad news for Bethesda, or ZeniMax Online Studios to be more precise, because if it can’t make the game stand out from the crowd it’ll likely sink quickly and quietly into oblivion.
There are two points in this video that strike me as particularly interesting. First, that the game will eschew server shards for a single “mega-server” on which everyone will play, and second, that it “really opens up” once you hit level 50. That’s a bold statement, not because there’s anything necessarily sinister to it but because it’s so open to interpretation in less-than-ideal ways. It makes sense that higher-level characters will be able to see more and do more, but do we really have to grind through 50 levels before things get interesting?
What do we think? It looks The Elder Scrolls but it also looks like an MMO. Will The Elder Scrolls Online have what it takes to square off against World of Warcraft – or at least avoid getting stomped into the ground by it?
