Review for The Elder Scrolls Online. Game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 04/04/2014 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 09/06/2015 The version for Xbox One came out on 09/06/2015
In a barren and mostly desolate land, inhabited by impertinent Kahjiit, by feline quadrupeds and disheveled bipeds ready to overwhelm you with strange events and assignments of all kinds. A threat as ancient as the roots of this same place returns to earth: dragons awaken from the long sleep and fly over the mother country of the Kahjiit terrorizing the inhabitants and all the adventurers who will walk briskly in search of a new hope against what is called "A Rage of Dragons", the fury of the purest and most frightening terror of the skies .
The Elder Scrolls Online comes with Elsweyr at his new annual chapter, which wants to re-propose, as already happened in previous years, a cycle of fresh adventures from which to start all over again or with which to enrich your character with new objects and rewards, all unpublished, to try and collect to further enhance the alter ego of the veterans of the genre. There is also a new class available for new and old players: the necromancer, one of the funniest and most varied classes in the Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG world will be available immediately and also accessible to new players.
The new formula undertaken by Zenimax Online Studios goes well with the previous chapters: from Morrowind and its swampy regions, full of nostalgia, to the lush plains full of magic and arcane plots on the island of Summerset, the famous MMORPG now moves its center of gravity towards a new expansion that seems to be taken hand in hand by the eastern lands of the known world to be ultimately transposed into a fantastic context, where the fantasy element mixes with a well-structured architectural and landscape realism, where between dry deserts of all vegetation and luxuriant cities that arise as an oasis in the midst of the scorching plains of Elsweyr, a threat as ancient as the world, which is taken directly from the universe of Elder Scrolls already established with the single player chapter Skyrim, arrives on the motherland of the Kahjiit with strength and terror. At the same time, it launches a challenge to all new players and also to veterans, proposing a difficult fight not unlike the World Bosses already present on the territory of the whole continent of Tamriel, however losing over time, the necessary bite that could renew the formula to re-propose something truly innovative in a videogame context already extrapolated and eviscerated in all its forms with the previous expansions, perhaps also falling into a repetition that too quickly loses that sense of innovation and curiosity, making the threat of dragons slip into an element easily solvable and tackled after only a few successful fights.
The threat of dragons, the winged beasts that are present on the territory of the Kahjiit without a fixed spawn location, moves throughout the region and forces players to follow the gust of death that the creatures leave behind, forcing the less prepared to arm themselves with patience and wait for groups of friends or strangers ready to face fights in company, thus transforming the single player experience into a constant need to search for new companions to be able to face the beasts that can, consequently , turn out to be mortal even after very few blows inflicted on our alter ego, thus forcing us to a sudden retreat or to a constant search for equipment that can support us in lasting battles, without inexorably falling into immediate defeat.
It will therefore be pleasant for all veterans of the genre to discover this new hierarchy of enemies that finds space as a new form of boss that moves on the map, changing zones whenever, but which quickly loses that idea of fear and terror that it should have instilled. even in the experts and the highest ranking players. At least, those who await big loot at the end of each fight will not dry up, remunerated by precious treasures, weapons and armor that will establish a perennial thirst for loot falling, at times, into more total farming in order to find, as already happens for all the adventure in the world of Elder Scrolls Online, those objects to complete the sets or to be implemented in the equipment to enrich it more and more.
However, it should be emphasized the visual importance that the land of Elsweyr plays in this latest add-on package: this is full of views very different from the verdant and multicolored plains of the Altmer islands to which we were accustomed last year, but nevertheless contextualized in an almost excellent way, which lives of its own dimension and identity, without tracing landscapes already seen but underlining the connection that relates the witty soul and the ancient roots of the Kahjiit to these barren lands furrowed by parched deserts, mountainous landscapes and green oases rich in architecture that can be traced back to ancient Byzantium and the structures of the Persian and Arab East, mixing in a really well contextualized union what we were used to seeing in the few lands that had previously been dedicated to the feline race of the Elder Scrolls world as the small island of Stros M'kai.
It is therefore appropriate to emphasize the presence of this race and its spirit as the cornerstone of this new adventure in the world of Tamriel, where we will be transported between side quests full of ideas, well characterized and exhaustive in terms of duration and connected to a main plot that does not lose originality but that leaves players with doubts and questions unresolved and floating in the air, perhaps justifying the presence of other packages expansion that will see the light after this last chapter, completing what the Zenimax developers wanted to rename "the Year of the Dragon". These contents will replenish the main questline with contents, faces already seen in the past and new adventures to fill that small but still empty present left by Elswyer, where we had fun walking around Kahjiit a little mocking, sometimes tipsy and witty and we trembled in the face of ancient arcane horrors buried in caves and deserts, mixing in the new chapter the landscape - first parched and scary and then luxuriant and rich in gold and marble - with the soul and thought of the inhabitants of the area before light and without worries and, at times, overshadowed by ancient legends that will bring back myths anchored to the past and forgotten in a dark time.
All this is finally seasoned by the presence of one new class on which to launch with open arms, which manages to be immediate and at the same time deep enough to explore to seek that familiarity for players who have been traveling in the world of Elder Scrolls for years, allowing a search for more or less effective Skills with which to face the new dragons or the already present threats of the fantasy world of Tamriel, also allowing the player to use the riddled bodies on the field as faithful battle companions or, more simply, to draw on their strength to be able to unleash the wrath of a skeletal colossus which will hit the land with massive area damage. The class is divided into three categories of selectable skills, between active and passive, which will allow a fusion of elements of necromancy and evocation that do not lose, as unfortunately happens with the new dragons, that sense of discovery and novelty, always thrilling us with visual effects of rather spectacular lights and shadows both on consoles and on PCs where that concept of visual wonder is not lost thanks to the spells present throughout the skill tree of a class that ultimately allows a rather malleable development and that manages to balance itself in the face of the needs of the players to create a powerful Tank ready to suffer and relaunch sound blows, a healer who makes the most of the skills of the necromancer by drawing on the energy of the dead nearby on the battlefield or a simpler dark summoner who wishes to create destruction and inflict astronomical damage on the enemy.
Elsweyr is ultimately a land full of growth opportunities for those already experienced and higher level characters but also for those who want to start over and become part of this increasingly well-contextualized MMORPG world, which at times reaches peaks of originality and pure fun to share between friends and strangers or, with a little more difficulty, to be enjoyed in solitude among the desert wastes of the new region, perhaps alternating fearful bosses but with banal mechanics such as the new dragons that would have needed a deepening greater and more deeply developed but which nevertheless, at first glance, manage to strike and instill the terror necessary to allow Tamriel's world travelers to open the doors of this new region and to venture definitively among the deserts and oases of home of the Kahjiit.
► The Elder Scrolls Online is an MMORPG-type game developed by Zenimax Online Studios and published by Bethesda for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 04/04/2014 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 09/06/2015 The version for Xbox One came out on 09/06/2015
