The MMO understands the series' lore but combat is still weak

Jun 13, 2013 06:04 GMT  ·  By

The Elder Scrolls Online is a hugely ambitious project that aims to bring the entire universe of the series to gamers in one big MMO package and the E3 2013 hands-on time that I had with the game seems to suggest that ZeniMax Online and Bethesda might have a big hit on their hands.

The two companies allowed gamers to spend close to one full hour with the game, in the city of Dagerfall, choosing what quests to play through and how to customize their character.

I chose to be an Orc that was capable of powerful close quarters attacks and I ventured to first explore the city, meeting the most important quest givers and traders.

The Elder Scrolls Online is certainly a classic MMO when it comes to core design, but ZeniMax Online certainly manages to infuse it with the unique lore of the series, even going so far as to add the books that are so familiar from Skyrim.

I completed three full quests and fought a lot of enemies, saving King Casimir and finding the source of weird phenomena in a quiet little village.

The story seems solid and even the voice acting was passable, although ZeniMax clearly has more work to do here.

The combat was by far the weakest aspect of the game, even if it tries to come as close as possible to what fans know from Skyrim, with stamina and blocking important to overall success.

The Elder Scrolls Online looks good at the moment, nine months before launch, and the team will take full advantage of the power of next-gen consoles to increase the graphics quality.

ZeniMax Online also says that first-person view is now fully implemented in the MMO but the build that was playable did not offer this option.

The Elder Scrolls Online will be launched on the PC, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony in the spring of 2014.

The MMO will also get a beta phase later during the summer.