There's a new Elder Scrolls game out. (Huh, that usually goes down with a bit more fanfare...) So I don't even know if I have to say this, I've already said so much about myself in this blog, but The Elder Scrolls is literally my fantasy game of choice. I love fantasy and the plethora of interesting and exciting worlds they confer upon us, but TES has always had a special place in my heart as my literal second home. I've played just about every single game I can get my hands on, (I never got to play the mobile version of Oblivion, unfortunately) and as such it was inevitable that, once it was announced, I would pick up Blades, even if it would be a mobile offering. And why not, afterall the game would have an intuitive 'swing with the character' system which the games hadn't seen since Daggerfall, a town building system and be completely free to play. A dream come true, right?
Well several excruciating months after it's 2018 announcement, 'The Elder Scrolls: Blades' hit it's beta period and thus landed directly in my hands, (There was no way I wasn't going to be part of the early access folk.) and things seemed pretty decent at first. The story takes place after the events of Skyrim and the reawakening of the Dragons, the influence of the Thalmor is practically absolute and as such anyone who doesn't vibe with the Elven regime is in for a rough time. That means bad days for those that worship Talos, those who respect autonomy, Redgaurds in general and, of course, the ancient order of Dragon-hunting monks; The Blades. The player is, therefore, thrust in the shoes of a runaway Blade who happens upon a recently ravaged town in the middle of Cyrodiil and through vague reasoning comes to the conclusion that they must landlord this town until the end of time. (So this isn't exactly the most driven Elder Scrolls plot, but that ain't the worst thing in the world, I guess.)
The meat of the game was formed into a 'dungeon-crawling' experience wherein players would explore randomly generated battle arenas for items. And when I say 'The meat of the game', I literally mean every single active second of playtime. (The rest is just busywork.) Now the way that dungeon crawling is handled by Blades is actually rather accessible and rewarding. As mentioned before the controls are a simple 'pull and swing' mechanic which makes use of touch screens and there's a smattering of helpful skills and spells that the player can learn as they level up. Around these generated sections you'll find limited resource nodes, secret areas and chests that reward players with cool loot, money and resources, further encouraging the crawling of dungeons. However from here arises the first problem.
It's clear that the gameplay loop of Blades is basically the same to that of a looter game; you go on quests with your gear, loot new gear, then pursue harder quests with that gear. Basically it's a cycle that encourages gathering chests on missions and opening them, but Bethesda had a sneaky idea about how they could monetise on that game easily. Basically, they ended up time-gating the opening of these chests to several hours (the more rare the chest, the longer you'd have to wait) unless you bought their premium currency in order to open it immediately. For a mobile game that didn't have an 'energy system', this shaped up as a pretty contrived way to limit player game time and ended up severely hurting this title's early reputation, likely explaining why you probably haven't heard basically anything about the game despite the fact it launched in March last year! That's right, everything I've been talking about is one-year-old news!
"But what gives? You started this blog by announcing that a new game was out!" And that I absolutely did, and that's because after all this time the title has finally left Beta and thus landed on a platform that does it's graphics and playstyle justice; the Nintendo Switch. (And that's the version that today's review will be based on) Now I stopped playing the game after a few weeks of being reminded that the beta was about as well tuned and optimised as a thirty year old dumper truck, so this was music to my ears. And I was ready to see if that year worth of tuning, fixing and hearing feedback had done anything to shape up the final product. And you know what, it absolutely has! (Although perhaps not as much as it should have.)
The first thing that's gone is the timer for opening up chests, that was removed just before I stopped playing so I remember it. That change alone makes it one of the few 'mobile' games that you can play practically indefinitely, level-cap willing, so that's pretty nice off-the-bat. (Although you could argue how that feature should never have existed in the first place.) Secondly the game has released it's arena PVP mode alongside a PVE arena themed questline. And that's it. In an entire year worth of content 'improvements' and the like; one was a walkback and the other was a polishing off from a teased launch feature. (To be fair; apparently there's also some high rank questline involving a dragon or something but I don't have the patience to grind for that.)
And that's the biggest setback for 'The Elder Scrolls: Blades'; it's natural essence as a grindy mobile game just eventually starts to wear on any potential enjoyment the game might have. Once you start hitting the levels around the twenties and randomly generated daily quests start spawning 4 levels above you (great algorithm, guys!) You start to realise that you can't play quiet as freely as you wish you could and must rely on that pity 'Same-level' quests that RNJesus grants you every day or so. Even the main quest takes odd difficulty spikes in order to lock itself off from being completed too quickly. However, you'll start finding every dungeon getting increasingly drawn out as the game whittles down your sanity more and more. But that's why the loot aspect is in the game, right?
Let me tell you something about the loot; it all sucks. Coming from a franchise borne from traditional RPG roots apparently had a bad knock-on effect for 'Blades' as they tried to turn it into a looter-title; because the laws of the TES universe won't abide by whacky crazy stat rolls. Sure, you can have an enchanted weapon but by Elder Scrolls rules it can only really hit an elemental effect or buff your resource pools. (There aren't even base stats to buff.) This is a world wherein we can't scatter in cool pieces of loot like a weapon which grants a damage shield with every hit, or one that buffs resistances when wielded, severely limiting the allure of chasing the RNG boxes. (This could have been solved by adopting TESO's approach to loot, but Bethesda like to pretend Zenimax don't exist for some reason.) Whatsmore, all of the items that you can loot in the game can be crafted using the ingame town building system, which is great for a traditional RPG but for a looter-wannabe it's so dumb I cannot even fathom it. The literal only reason to farm chests is to scrap armour for the raw materials to make your perfect set at home, there's no endgame in that gameplay loop.
Speaking of the town system, I'm going to be straight with you; I don't get it. Once more, from a role playing perspective I can understand it's pretty cool to manage the rebuilding of a town. (That's probably why the first big quest mod for every Bethesda game usually invokes rebuilding a town. 'Kvatch Rebuilt' 'Helgen Reborn' 'Nipton Rebuilt') But when the ebb and flow of your core metagame relies on the town building mechanic you need a little more than RPG 'goodfeels' to keep the player hooked. As the system works right now you can use the lots of the burnt town as the bedrock for your new buildings, whether they be a brand new house or a utility station. Of utilities you have Blacksmiths, which allow you to repair equipment and forge new stuff, Alchemists, who let you brew potions, Enchanters, who enchant, and workshops, who let you build cosmetic items if you care about that for some reason. As for the houses, they're just there. (They fill in the gaps, I guess.) The idea is that the town will become more livery as you build more houses and people start to move in, but the random NPCs that dot the town are so uninteresting that I'm not sure what's the point of even bothering. (Animal Crossing, this is not) Wait, that's a lie, I do know the point. It's in order to provide points to the town's overall 'prestige' which will allow you to upgrade your utility shops to the same level, thus expanding their usefulness. (I.e. the town must be at level 7 before you can upgrade the blacksmith to level 7. And every level the blacksmith increases allows you to craft a new tier of tools.) On paper this doesn't seem to bad, and in practise it isn't too bad either, but I can't really say it's the be-all end-all of gameplay experiences either. It basically makes the building of houses entirely perfunctory and draws out progress to such a point where it becomes a chore; again, this game is grind city.
Of course, if you're like me then there is one key question that you'll be wondering around about now. "This was a mobile title, wasn't it? So where does the monetisation come in?" And the answer is actually really confusing to me. There's this premium currency called gems that you can buy within the in-game store that'll allow you to purchase stuff, but nothing is really worth buying. All that I've seen in the weekly rotation is cosmetic decorations for the town and emotes. (which can only be used when you win an arena match against another player.) I mean, I'm sure this stuff ropes in a few sales but there's no way it's enough to make this free-to-play title profitable. (maybe that's why it seems so sparse in content) Another purchasable are the lootboxes that you can find in the game, but the purchase price is so ridiculous that you're better off just playing the game for them. Besides, those chests will give you a random pick off lame loot anyway, so what's the point of paying for that? And the icing on top of the cake? You get gems for playing the game too. It's not enough to get any of the cosmetics, unless you live and breath this game, but it's enough to pay the blood money toll to insta-revive whenever you die. (Yeah, that's another typical use for gems. As well as quick completing town construction tasks.) So that in mind, what exactly is the premium currency worth? I just do not understand this business model for a game.
I've seen a few reviews from outlets out there that label this game as 'pay to win' but honestly I do not see that at all. It's more 'pay to grind' and with the amount of artificial progression walls that'll be thrust in your face, you'll be dishing out a whole lot if you're that kind of person. Of course, I've been leaning at a slightly negative stance this entire review but there are some positives too. When you're not being level-gated the dungeons are pretty fun to go through and if you want a long-form experience that'll keep you coming back for a while then I suppose the level walls might not be too much for you. (It's certainly better than a lot of other artificial walls that mobile games usually pull.) At the end of the day, however, I do not recommend The Elder Scrolls Blades for the casual fan or someone looking to kill time. This is the sort of thing that the obsessive fan might play in order to sate their Elder Scrolls lust until news about the next title drops, (I.E. Exactly me.) but it's just too much of a staggered and drawn-out overall experience with little ultimate payoff to appeal to really anyone else. (Oh and the story sucks. That too.)
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