The Elder Scrolls Online is officially beating The Elder Scrolls 6 to the punch with unique combat gameplay never seen before in the series. The Elder Scrolls Online, The Elder Scrolls 6, and Bethesda as a whole have been dealing with the consequences of Xbox’s restructuring, which cut thousands of jobs across multiple studios and Xbox itself. According to Bethesda officials, the timeline of The Elder Scrolls 6‘s development and release is unaffected by the job cuts in July this year, though the team was hit and lost key members.
The same goes for ZeniMax Online Studios, which shared an official update on The Elder Scrolls Online development with a letter from Game Director Nick Giacomini, stating that the live-service game is still being worked on following the layoffs. Almost three months ago, The Elder Scrolls Online released Update 50 with a rework of the Dragonknight class and the Werewolf, as well as an official return of The Elder Scrolls‘ Thieves Guild with a new storyline in the region of Glenumbra. Later in September, the game will launch yet another big update, this time including new gameplay for the series.
The Elder Scrolls Online Update 51, launching on September 28, will include the High Seas of Tamriel event, which features fully fleshed-out underwater combat for the first time in the whole series. Players could fight some enemies underwater in Daggerfall, such as slaughterfish, by swinging their weapons. Similarly, fans could use touch-based spells and swing their weapons against underwater creatures in Morrowind, with Oblivion slightly improving weapon and magic usage in water, but heavily limiting bows and arrows. Both Oblivion and Oblivion Remastered feature the Fin Gleam helm for underwater breathing, which is kind of a testament to the fact that TES 4 meant for underwater areas to be more about exploration than combat. Skyrim cut underwater combat entirely, which can only be achieved via mods. Instead, The Elder Scrolls Online‘s underwater combat will allow players to use all of their abilities, move freely, create combos, and, more importantly, fight more than basic fish enemies, including bosses and humanoid creatures.
Mods for underwater combat exist, alongside a Skyrim mod with an underwater city, but the vanilla experience cut this feature. Since The Elder Scrolls 6 is still at least another year or two away, ESO‘s Update 51 is going to be the first time in the series when underwater combat is smooth, dynamic, and allows fans to fight more interesting enemies than slaughterfish. Players will be able to engage in seafloor combat against enemies with the usual, unaltered combat flow of the game, with the only caveat that they have to look for air bubbles to stay underwater. This way, fans can also find treasure and obtain daily Deep Plunder Boxes that guarantee Trade Bars and may drop cosmetics, a ghost ship, tradable antiquity leads, and a special Ornaug mount. The High Seas of Tamriel event runs from September 30 to October 14.
Recently, The Elder Scrolls Online added the first-ever 4-person mount ahead of mounted combat, which will also be a first in a way, since the only game to support combat on horseback via melee weapons and bows is Skyrim, though magic and other attacks are disabled. It’s unclear whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will feature fully functional underwater or mounted combat at this stage, but considering what ESO is achieving as an MMO, it seems plausible.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma stated that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a beautiful game, but didn’t make additional comments about exclusivity or features. Fans will have to wait and see for themselves what the game will offer, but ESO makes a strong case for some series-first features not to skip TES 6.
- Released
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April 4, 2014
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
