The Elder Scrolls® Online

This game initially seems like it has a lot of promise, but it feels empty and pointless and I can't find any motivation to play it.

Big game with tons of content - great for single players and for groups.

Heavily monetised, this would be fine were it a free to play, but you buy the game, to have to buy more shit to play it, like their "optional" sub which grants you an inventory with infinite slots for mats, and you have to buy every new dlc, not to mention their horrible crown shop.
Very displeased

This is a great game that allows you to experience the storyline and play dungeons with friends. As a fan of the Skyrim series, I am more suitable for it

Account banned for no reason. Didnt bought ingame items or money. Didnt use any bots, software, hardware. I didnt even talked to anyone (i mean alive humans).
P.s. Account restored by support.

Fun game with an expansive world. Not as good as Skyrim but enjoying it.

Played on and off since Beta, you can either play solo or in a group it does not matter. Your adventure is how you make it. I've enjoyed all 6k hours of my play time, majority of getting Trifectas and achivements or hanging out doing community and guild events. Thanks to everyone who I met along the way and if you're considering investing your time into this game I would highly recomend joining the adventure.

The game is unequivocally awesome in terms of the IP it is created from, but like Runescape i reluctantly shelve it due to the sheer amount of time it would take to keep up with it. It does however, look like if i was crazy enough to pick up one again, it'd be between this and Runescape.

I figure this review despite not being made of much substance is a better endorsement than no review at all. I would recommend to the right individual.

I like build crafting, very good about flexible building for low levels, idk how variable high level play is

Awesome game, I had a Skyrim craving but played until I was bored to tears. Bought this gem and voilla, back to having fun with a new game that will last me for some time. Best game money ever spent!

Fantastic questing experience with every single quest voice acted. Questlines are gripping and interesting.

This game claims to support Mac OS but does not support Apple Silicon Macs, and fails to start properly on them.

This game is very fun and there are a lot of quests and things to do. you re not bound to just doing a single story zone quest at any time

This is the first MMORPG with made me feel like a real Rogue and Thief and that's impressive. Loved the stealth system and how it worked in PvE. Also, they translated the levelling system of usual TES games to this format very well - I recommend!

Met some great people on this game and there is so much to do, and you can play the game however you want and do alright

I love everything about the game. The extensive story. The battles. The players. The wide ranging map. It is overall the best mmorpg out there.

The questing is amazing. Probably most fun part of the game for me, alongside pvp.

Never been a fan of mmorpgs. However I have always been an Elder Scrolls fan. This is the game that got me to try an mmo for the first time and it does not disappoint. Many people will tell you this doesn't play like a traditional mmo like WoW or Dota. This is an Elder Scrolls game through and through with hundreds of hours of lore and singleplayer content to delve into. Would highly recommend if you love the Elder Scrolls for the lore and not just the gameplay. I say that because this game plays NOTHING like Skyrim, Oblivion, or Morrowind. But it is definitely a whole nother beast of a game by itself. You can explore every bit of Tamriel and even places from the mainline games like Skyrim and Cyrodil. Morrowind is my favorite place in ESO just for the atmosphere alone and the wildlife. This game is fun to find a group and get into but it takes some learning and a few tweaked settings to really optimize the experience. Thank God Bethesda hasn't messed this one up.

If you want to play a game solo that's fun, this is it.

If you take some time off and play other games, and try to come back to play it again and want to update your user ID to match your current one on other games, good luck.

Been waiting nearly all day now on an email with my code.

A bit old UI and graphics but well fleshed out. Good group play as well as solo availability.

This game is fun but jesus christ, this shit crashes more than drunk drivers do

I started to play this game but now I have to stop and uninstall it. To ZeniMax and Bethesda you want to put real world politics your video games, then I will not support you. I will never buy another product form you. I play video games to get away for the real world, to place myself into a different one for a while. It seems that you need to current day everyone, so I'm done with you. One more nail in the coffin of the games industry. I have a good amount of games in my backlog, I will be playing them instead of yours, maybe i will start supporting indie-games.

I love the game world, even though it is such a mess sometimes and content locking (Kinda pushing you to buy a subscription after a certain point, whether its for new DLC zones or Crafting bag...) is awful.

I think there are things that should just be universal like upgrading mounts. If you upgrade a mount type or that specific mount it should be accountwide. PERIOD. I don't see why you should be forced at a ultimatum of 60+ days to upgrade one single stat to max for mounts, or pay 6k (I believe) to get to 60 on one stat. It's incredibly predatory, though they have given away smaller DLCs and other content I still abhor that stance, using a slow mount vs your fast mount on your main for example is incredibly jarring and honestly downright awful.

Some stories are better than others but thats to be expected. Just be aware of the marketing I guess, Since this was a monthly sub it sorta makes sense but it still suffers alot when something like SWTOR hands you old content for your sub and maintains a quite large playerbase, or other mmos which are making mounts universal or speed something that you can get ahold of a bit easier (case in point for WoW, which has lowered its cap for mounts by a INSANE amount and flight aswell to some degree.) I understand there isn't flying in ESO and thats fine I just wish getting around didnt feel so sluggish.

I only say I'd recommend this because you can seriously get lost in it, after all I do have quite a lot of hours and am returning after a few years to once again get lost in it.

Parts of this game are fun, had some good times with other players but all in all this is a just a huge time sink, money pit that never ends. Off and on for almost 10 years, this is my second account.
There are thousands of horrible players for every one good player you meet in the game who destroy any hope of having a consistently fun time.
MMO's are not fun anymore.
Buy a deck of cards and invite some people over or fire up the BBQ grill. You will have a much better time with less stress, plus you can borrow their lawn mower later.

Reviewing negatively because the changes to Battlegrounds, and the fact you can't play anything but the new BGs, pisses me off.

The change from 4vs4vs4 in a Big Area to a 4vs4 in a Tiny Area turned BGs into a first-person shooter. This is not to mention the awful 8vs8 mode which is also played in an area the same size a World of Warcraft 2v2 Arenas are played. Absolute insanity.

There's no point in playing anything but a glass-cannon build, because whatever you build, you are going to die withing 1-2 seconds. The only way to prevent yourself from dying is to kill the enemy faster.
There's barely any room to maneuver since the area is so small that there's always an enemy nearby.

This review stays negative until battlegrounds are playable again.

The game used to be really fun back when I played years ago. Now the game is just EASY mode with the whole game scaling to your level. I do not find ANYTHING outside of dungeons to be challenging at all. Even world bosses can be solo. But the worst part is, they added LGTBQ BS agenda to the game. Now conversations confuse tf out of me with incorrect grammar and English. For example (It wont be 100% accurate but it goes like) "I'll meet you at Toothmaul Gully, I can't wait for you to meet them" Who is them? One fucking person, I thought it was her crew. Who is her? It's a they, I was told they fawn over new people like me..... Can we just keep the English normal? I really don't care of you are gay, at all. My issue is the language and gender.... Stop it.... Since I bought the fucking game and DLC I will finish it BUT I will not be buying new DLC nor support this game any longer after Gold Road is finished.

Played for YEARS on xbox, sank A LOT of money into it, then started over again after moving to pc... and I have a terrible hate/love relationship with ESO, and with all things good and bad considered, overall I would not recommend ESO.

It's almost impossible to play without ESO Plus and the extra storage space/crafting bag, some things are pretty much pay2win (such as pvp), everything has become a monotonous copy-paste-change-skins-and-colors mess, a new class will come out then be totally nerfed in later patches/updates, the in game economy is simply atrocious and coming by large amounts of gold is not so easy, zone chat is constantly FLOODED with Guild 'advertisements', new armor sets are pumped out and constantly replaced with new ones that make the older ones almost obsolete and they try to drain your pockets as much as they can...but if you can get past all of that and other shit, and can manage without ESO Plus, it is still an Elder Scrolls game and can be pretty enjoyable for a few hours at a time.

Its fun if you have ppl to play with but they try and squeeze money out of you at every turn. Not quite pay to win but if you dont fork over for eso plus your not going to have a great time. Its cool being able to explore most of tamriel but gotta give it a negative over all for the scummy micros

Closing in on 9000 hours of play. I seriously am not able to explain how much I have loved this mmorpg and I have been playing them for 24 years.

Its in this weird limbo state of it trying to do both: be a good single player RPG like youd expect out of an Elder Scrolls, but also be a good MMORPG, and i think it falls short of doing both. ESO's worth trying, but it left me just feeling like i wish there was something better.

So after 405 hours in this game on pc.. plus the 1000 hours i spent on console.. This game feels like a chore more than a fun game, logging in every day to collect daily rewards and doing daily crafting writs.. and on top of that the devs center the game around armor sets, on set might be really good for a few months then they nerf it into oblivion and the journey to find another good set starts again.. crafting in the game is garbage and require way too much time investment to level it up. and its extremely difficult to make gold in this game.. overall not a FUN experience.. if the devs would listen to their playerbase this game would be a million times better!!!

This is a very fun game I highly recommend this game if you are looking to play with a group of friends or if you want to meet new people to play with online. The choice is yours.

Highly recommend! Tons of content to the point where it seams a little overwhelming but in a good way! i will say the interface is a little wonky and takes a little getting used to. I would definitely advise getting some Ad-ons if your are playing on PC.

I played this when it came out on xbox, played for 5 years then re-bought it on pc when it was on sale. Its changed a whole lot mostly for good but when it comes to the pvp its pay to win. paywalls for the best antiquities, the dungeon sets also paywalled. Theres still some decent sets out there but no contest when it comes to the new stuff. Impossible builds with no sacrifices will beat you. On top of that the macros people are using are insane. I also dont care for the add ons. Dont get me wrong I loved this game but in its current state and what its become I wouldnt recommend it for anyone interested in pvp mmos.

I really liked this game, i really did, i had lots of fun met fun people so on so forth. but holy fuhhhhhk is zos a horribly dumb company that doesnt know jack squat about making their game even remotely better.

I recently revisited The Elder Scrolls Online after a long break, and it quickly became clear why I stopped playing at Champion Point level 650. While you can technically engage in the core gameplay after reaching Champion Point 160, it’s still far from satisfying. The game simply doesn’t reward the time or money players invest, even as subscribers. Instead of fixing core gameplay issues, the developers have opted to overwhelm players with a massive grind—thousands of Champion Points that need to be earned before reaching a competitive level for endgame content. On top of that, new mechanics are added that can be leveled up much faster if you’re willing to pay.

One particularly frustrating example is the mount leveling system. You can only add one point per day to one of three traits: speed, stamina, or carrying capacity. Each point requires in-game currency and essentially puts a timer on your progress. To fully level up your mount, you’ll need a total of 90 days. And if you’re thinking this progress is account-wide—think again. Each character has to go through the process individually.

If you're a new player considering this game, I’d honestly recommend against it. The grind to endgame is not only long—it’s frustrating. I truly wanted to enjoy ESO, but seeing so many essential features locked behind the in-game shop, which should be included in the subscription, left me feeling disillusioned.

The final straw for me was when I was working on maxing out crafting, only to find out that researching a new trait would take 30 days. The only way to speed it up? Buying scrolls. For a subscriber, this feels completely unreasonable.

While I’d give the game’s story a solid 10/10, the systems themselves drag the overall experience down to a disappointing 2/10. In my opinion, The Elder Scrolls Online has become just as frustrating as gacha games and pay-to-win models games.

One last thing, the players are great, its just sad the company isnt.

There are elements of this game that are great, but unfortunately the developers keep ramming home the fact, time and again, that they don't play their own game, don't understand the desires of the playerbase, cannot properly stabilise their servers, and have frankly exhausted whatever goodwill I had left.

It's abundantly clear that the majority of the Zenimax team have been shifted to other projects, naught but a skeleton crew remains, and that ESO is in "managed decline" mode; i.e. they're dragging as much profit out of loyal players and new suckers as possible, while spending as little time & resources on new content & fixing endemic issues as they can get away with.

We are not treated as discerning customers by this developer, merely cash cows who will "take whatever crud we deign to give them, and keep stumping up the cash". Thus my time & money - and that of anyone reading this review when considering ESO - is better spent elsewhere on games with developers who know what they're doing and actually listen to the desires & concerns of their community.

A voice-acted and engaging high-fantasy, story-driven action MMORPG that bucks traditional tab-targeting for an active aiming system; Elder Scrolls Online takes what's great about their single-player experiences and makes a several repulsive compromises to bring their IP into the modern massively-multiplayer realm. Chose your class, complete story-based main and side quests, build your abilities and gear around your preferred fantasy game-play strategy, craft weapons, armor, and housing materials, and take on various dungeons (and PvP content) in ever-so-slightly-aged, triple-A studio style . Then, to enjoy even a smidgen of it, subscribe to their monthly service, purchase a variety DLCs, peruse their extremely overpriced cash shop, sign in every-single-day to get rewards, and get ready to open your bank accounts further in order to try to enjoy hearth, home, backpack and bank storage, and cosmetic alterations to your hard-earned gear (and to greatly assist with survival and progression, of course).

Sure, it almost sounds like a promotional review, but any accolades earned also drag a wretched carcass along behind them. The FOMO cash shop + sub + DLC + cosmetics + advancement + loot crate monetization strategy takes what could have been an epic and incredible adventure and drowns it in the same loathsome, predatory, FOMO monetization mechanics leveraged by what most would otherwise deem less-than-prestigious studios. Players may experience much of the game for free, very true, but crafting (storage), housing, and fanciful fun is mostly gated behind a player's real-world purchasing-power...or, yes, grant it, a metric ton of not-so-fun playtime dedicated to those very things. While I do appreciate that the best player-crafted potions and food are better than their cash shop counterparts (at the time of this writing), the difference is negligible enough to punish to those who'd previously earned their way. As a one-time max-level, all-craft player with sub and all DLC purchases (up to a point), I've seen it all from all factions/sides... but, as always, the cash-shop sickened the experience like a festering wound, an inescapable cancer, and it caught up to me. In the end, I had thousands upon thousands of harvested resources, but not enough to craft furniture to decorate a home (and certainly not well). Ignore my listed Steam play time, I have hundreds of hours in this MMO elsewhere - and it burdens me to leave a negative review, but if the pauldron fits...

Elder Scrolls if it was published by Molag Bal, developed by Mannimarco, and monetized by Sheogorath. Previously, one of my favorite of all MMORPGs, it is with heavy heart that I bid it farewell.

Currently the worst Elder Scrolls game I have ever played, and I've played almost all of them. This is what happens when game developers only care about squeezing you for every dime in your pocket and have no respect at all for the fans of the franchise their project is a part of. ZOS and Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves, but they are not. And I have begun to doubt we will ever see a good Elder Scrolls game again...

After years of not playing this finally decided to play again however I couldn't get the game to boot despite around 15 hours of trouble shooting so Im just going to give up and hopefully get my refund truly unfortunate

If you don't mind game devs taking all your hard work, dedication, and time learning the game's semi complex mechanics and turning it into a game where you are forced to play a class that has a 3 to 5 second channeled ability that plays for you then this is for you. But for real the devs cater to the player base that uses their wallet more than light attacks.

other than continuously running into paywalls and having like a 30 item list of daily chores i feel obligated to do or else i feel i fall behind, the incredibly laggy servers, the pay to win whenever a new set or mythic or skill group is released, this game is pretty fun. all this aside, i do genuinely enjoy this game as my hours played can tell, so long as it doesnt die i will sink another 3500 hours in it.

This is currently one of the best MMORPGs in the market right now. The community is quite friendly, especially to newcomers, and the game itself is fairly casual, for better or worse. You can breeze through the main quests, although some might admittedly find that boring. There's plenty of daily activities to do and I enjoy the acquirable skill lines system, with its similar approach to Skyrim in that you have to use or equip skills in order to level them up. You don't necessarily have to be a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and lore to enjoy this game, but it would definitely help.

However, I can't say that I'm a fan of the monetization approach with ESO+ not giving you access to the latest DLC. As someone who's played a lot of SWTOR and DCUO in the past, they're more generous with their monetization and premium subscriptions. So far, I have encountered two gamebreaking bugs in my 90+ hours of gameplay, both of which took place during a dungeon run and rendered each dungeon incompleteable. The main storyline isn't very impressive but not super boring either (the Morrowind DLC on the other hand is much more enjoyable in terms of storytelling and environment).

Overall, I think this game is worth trying and is very accessible for new players in its current state.

Day 4 of trying to play.
Got in the game, played it for a bit, bought a membership.
game crashed and i had to reboot.
Did that... logged in, need a code sent to my email, logged into email and no code, told to try again in 24 hours.
contacted support and they don't reply.
found out i was banned within the 30 minutes of playing because my name was extremely offensive to the point i had to be instantly and permanently banned without a warning or a ticket to change my name, MIND YOU THEY MONITOR NAMES AND APPROVE THEM PRIOR TO CREATION... SO HOW DID I GO THROUGH THEIR SO CALLED BREACHED TERMS AND CONDITIONS...
My name was "Drunkenelf"
If thats so offensive then why have alcohol in the game? there are literally NPC's stumbling around with ale... bruh

Don't purchase if you are from the SEA and Oceania region. This game has no servers besides NA and EU, and is relatively unplayable from other regions. You have been warned.

After Over 2100 hours I've decided to stop playing. Even if the game is good there's no point if I can't access it. I've consistently had start up crashes and, even when I log out and close correctly, constant game corruption that the repair function cannot fix.
I did have mods, but I completely removed them and completely uninstalled and reinstalled. Crash on start up and corruption. I'm so disappointed.

bad f2p experience locks you out of a large section of the game, even subscribed you are microtransactioned to death. Wait for a good MMO or play WOW f2p or runescape, much better experience

A very bad gimmick of Elder scrolls games. Nothing in the game is interesting enough to keep you playing for long. The world map is huge in Elder Scrolls Online , but it's literally blueprint copy paste regions everywhere, if you fully completed at least 1 region, then you can count it as if you played the whole game. The combat also is very bad im suprised it managed to be worse than skyrim's combat. Oh and also be ready to spend money for basic simple thing such as inventory space, oh and the houses have only limited amout of space for furnishings so if you buy a large house you reallly can't style it fully. Also , the PVP is utter garbage i mean its the worst i have ever seen honestly and the developer dosen't give a damn about it , they are busy locking all good cosmetics behind "Crown crates" aka CLOWNCRATES also , releasing same old formulaic dlc for the Nth time .

IT IS THE MOST BORING GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED.
Do not buy this.
I regret buying this.

If you really enjoy a solo player mmo, this is the game for you. Sometimes things can get a little monotonous, but finding things in the game (like treasure hunting, housing, or just exploring the unique landscapes can help break it up).

It's hard to put my finger on why this game is boring. It has kind of cool abilities, but somehow it all feels kinda pointless. However, my 9 year old likes it, so I play with her.