Why I’m Excited For: Elder Scrolls: Blades

Bethesda’s conference for E3 2018 was pretty spectacular. A new Rage and Doom is great, and Fallout Shelter is a nice addition to the Switch. I’m feeling better about Fallout 76 now that more information has been brought to light, and the hype train is massive for Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. While the latter two probably won’t come for quite a while, they have been confirmed! It’s hard to be upset about that.

Then, Bethesda announced the newest game in the world of Elder Scrolls, titled Elder Scrolls: Blades, which is releasing to PC and mobile later this year. Todd Howard more or less said that they plan to give it the Skyrim treatment also, meaning it will be released on every console possible. That, of course, means that it is likely coming to Switch at some point in the future.

Now, some of you may be disappointed by it being a mobile game, and I’m not overly thrilled by thought either. But Bethesda has mentioned on several occasions that they were working on a new title for the mobile platform, so it should really not be a surprise. Admittedly, if they had announced this game and not mentioned ES6 at all, people would probably already have their pitchforks and torches out in preparation to storm their headquarters. But it is a mobile title whether we like it or not. Remember that, fortunately for us non-mobile gamers, it is being adapted to other consoles as well.

So, what is Elder Scrolls: Blades? In a nutshell, it is a first-person RPG that features dungeon diving, town-building and player-vs-player arena fighting. You play as a member of the Blades, the right hand protectors of the Emperor himself. Anyone who is familiar with the Elder Scrolls universe will know of their significance already. You return to your hometown to find it in ruins, kickstarting the whole need of the town-rebuilding process itself.

Arenas will offer a chance to go at it against other players, and the Abyss will pit you in a roguelike endless dungeon scenario. Of course, staples of Elder Scrolls games are also present, such as gear progression, leveling up and committing mass murder to rats in a first person perspective.

On mobile, you actually have the ability to play the entire game in either portrait or landscape mode, which I thought was a really nifty feature. On top of that, they stated that it will be entirely cross platform, meaning you could have an Arena match with someone playing on PC in VR while you are on your phone.

The game looks absolutely beautiful as well. And if it were any other company than Bethesda, I might be a little worried about just seeing nice graphics on a mobile game, as that typically doesn’t equate to good gameplay. But Bethesda has already proven capable of publishing solid mobile games with Fallout Shelter. While I would much rather play ES6, I imagine that Blades will fill that void, at least for a little while.

What did you think about Elder Scrolls: Blades?

Author

  • Ben T.

    IT professional by day, RPG enthusiast by night. Owner, webmaster, and content creator for this site. Dog dad and fan of dark beers.

Ben T.

Ben

IT professional by day, RPG enthusiast by night. Owner, webmaster, and content creator for this site. Dog dad and fan of dark beers.

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