The Elder Scrolls Online Does Things No Other MMO Can

The Elder Scrolls Online might be an MMO, but the development team working on it is ready to push the limits of the genre and create experiences and mechanics that do not exist in other titles set in the same space.

Matt Firor, the game director working on The Elder Scrolls Online, told Kotaku that, “Making an MMO is making an MMO. I worked in the industry before World of Warcraft, so I can tell you that World of Warcraft had a lot of influences from a lot of games.”

The ZeniMax Online leader added, “Our priority is to make a great game and not to make a clone of anything. A lot of things have no analogue in pretty much any other MMO.

“I think the answer there is: the more information that comes out about it—and when people sit down and play it, they’ll realize it’s different. Like our whole real-time combat system of blocking and dodging is all pretty much new.”

During the E3 2012 demo for The Elder Scrolls Online, Firor showed battles where blocking was managed in real time and based around stamina management, in a system somewhat similar to that seen in Skyrim.

Gamers will have to worry about their positioning and the way they chain their attacks in the MMO, while also paying attention to the way their enemies combine their powers and abilities.

The Elder Scrolls Online takes place 1,000 years before the events of the single-player titles in the series and players will have to choose between three factions that are engaged both in a continuous battle with the Imperials who now use undead armies.

The Elder Scrolls Online will be launched on the PC at some point during 2013 and ZeniMax Online plans to deliver a beta stage for the game before release, to get feedback from players.