

This was not the case with The Elder Scrolls Online, which I wanted to stop playing almost immediately a feeling that only intensified. Skyrim, for all its repetitiveness and various limitations, is a game I never get sick of. In his own reflections on the press beta weekend, Dave said that he felt like he was playing Skyrim with some optional multiplayer components. The reason for this is that The Elder Scrolls Online has rather failed in what I assume was its mission: to bring that ineffable, inimitable Bethesda quality to a very crowded market, in order to differentiate a game from its many competitors.

I particularly wanted to be playing a different game in the franchise - Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind - or a different MMORPG. The whole time I was playing The Elder Scrolls Online during a press beta over the past few weeks, I desperately wanted to be doing something - anything! else. Having said all that, I'm perfectly prepared to judge the heck out of The Elder Scrolls Online, because that franchise is something I do know and love. I'm not in a position to make sweeping generalisations regarding the genre as a whole. I've tried quite a few, from the big, obvious titles to more obscure Korean efforts, but the only one I've ever put any serious amount of time into is The Secret World, which is, by all accounts, a bit of an odd duck. I am not an expert in MMORPGs - or much of a fan of them. The Elder Scrolls Online should be a heck of a gateway drug, luring the franchise's single-player fanbase to the world of MMORPGs, but Brenna comes away unmoved.
