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| Pulled from publically viewable The Elder Scrolls Facebook page. |
Before I go any further than even declaring that I downloaded and am playing The Elder Scrolls: Blades on the Nintendo Switch, the first and most important thing you need to realize is that this is a mobile game designed for the mobile game market. TES:B is not trying to be the next The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2, although I am sure that Skyrim could probably run on a lot of higher-end (higher-end that my phone anyway) phones. If you are going into TES:B expecting Skyrim 2, you are going to have a bad time. Some of the criticisms are similar to what I read when The Elder Scrolls Online first came out back in 2014, and the vitriol that came out of that first year still seems to have wedged itself in a lot of people's perception of the game. But because we live in a time where features and mechanics can be patched in and out of games, TES:B is going to be an evolving creature, as we have already seen with Bethesda eliminating the timers that used to control how often you could unlock treasure chests.
The second important thing is that this is a free game with microtransactions including loot boxes because the game is designed to make Bethesda and Zenimax Media money, although I am in no way advocating for loot box-type microtransactions in mobile games, let alone video games, especially when there is a player versus player component. Some ads occasionally pop up, but I have only experienced them happening when I first start the game, and sometimes when I return from a quest; I will also add that I have not made any in-app purchases or accidentally purchased something due to shady pop-up tactics. So if you do end up playing TES:B, just know the format that the game was designed for before starting, and recognize that there are limitations on the game engine, regardless of the system you are playing it on. I would not be surprised at the ire from either Xbox One or PS4 when they play (if they have not already) and the game is not presented in 4K at 120 fps.
Moving on.
The Elder Scrolls: Blades was originally released on mobile devices as an early access game back in 2019 and got a lot of flack for not running well, quest breaking bugs, the mechanic that has since been patched out, having a timer on unlocking chests, and in some instances, being pay to win. As of May 12th, the game left early access on mobile devices, and two days later was released on the Nintendo Switch. Since its initial release, there have been some significant updates (as in eliminating the timer on opening treasure chests) and from my own perspective, plays relatively well, despite coming across two instances where animations or characters froze.
These instances initially put a sour taste in my mouth, coupled with all of the mechanics and bugs issues I had previously read over the last year. However, once I started playing beyond the first 30 minutes, I found myself enjoying the game for what it was presenting itself as, a free-to-play mobile game on a home console.
When you begin a new game, you are greeted with the following prologue:
For centuries, the Blades protected the Dragonborn Emperors. An elite group of fighters, they command fear and respect. But the Great War against the Elves ravaged the Empire... The Emperor was forced to sign a costly peace treaty. The Blades were outlawed and disbanded. The Thalmor hunted them down throughout the Empire...
Based on this introductory text, the game takes place in the 4th Era sometime after the White-Gold Concordat is ratified, although presumably before the Civil War in Skyrim, and one of the things that excited me about this game is that it covers a part of Tamriel's history that has not been playable before. I personally love The Elder Scrolls games for the level of lore that exists, even all of the strange mythology that Michael Kirkbride wrote for Redguard, Morrowind, and a few quests in Oblivion; seriously though, go read The 36 Lessons of Vivec if you want to see what I mean. Now, only a few hours into TES:B, I cannot attest to how much lore is in the game since in-game, the Town where you came from is apparently so small/secluded that it does not exist on any maps means that naming your town whatever you want (I named mine Gobliville as an inside joke between me and Conklederp), means that Gobiliville exists within my own head-canon in The Elder Scrolls universe; and based on the lay of the land and some of the descriptions of the surrounding area, seems to be in the province of Cyordiil; which would also make sense if the Blades had congregated around the Cloud Ruler Temple during the White-Gold Concordat. I am pretty okay with this too, not having the town be already established in Tamriel's history.
Okay, enough (for now) with the discussion of Elder Scrolls lore.
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| Either I caved the Bear's skull in, or the character model is malfunctioning. |
Not being one to play Elder Scrolls games in first-person, this took a little while to get used to, but the game does really deal optimized for this type of play. Exploring dungeons, ruins, wooded areas in first-person means that there is no additional character to animate beyond the enemies you encounter, which I assume means improved performance. Each quest you do is in a self-contained area that you are transported to that contains everything you need. Chests to open, materials and gold to scavenge, and enemies to fight (I did manage to talk one mercenary out of fighting and they ran away). Because battles are all one-on-one and there is no being able to move about during combat, fighting is boiled down to attacking with your weapon, blocking with your shield (if you have one equipped), using Stamina-based skills and casting Magicks. Attacking and defending comes down to equipping the right weapon for the type of enemy you are fighting (which you do kind of learn as you play: Skeletons use a blunt weapon and are weak against lighting magick, Wights are weak against axes and fire magicks, etc), and recognizing the tells your enemies give allowing you to make attacks connect, or successfully block incoming blows is equally important; presently I have not found a way to block or prevent spells and Delayed Lighting is a pain in the ass, so kill the caster as soon as possible is the only way I have found to (potentially) avoid taking a lot of damage (or just buff your Lightning Resistance). Unlike previous games in the series, there is no looting of bodies, bookshelves, or urns, only what the game allows you to loot. When you kill an enemy, they spit out materials and sometimes gear, which you can either equip, salvage into crafting materials or sell when you are back in town.
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| Gobliville Seriously Needs a Glow-Up. |
The Town, Gobliville, is the city building sim-part of the game, allowing you to rebuild your Town, customizing which buildings are rebuilt, where they are located within town, and what decorations you want to put up to build up the prestige level (a mechanic I will not get into here). As you progress through the game, you can build more varying types of structures including shops, decorations, and alter the types of materials used to further customize the look of the town. But because this was designed with a mobile platform in mind, fixing buildings involves a timer that you are able to speed up using the in-game premium currency, but for me, I will typically leave upgrades to when I am done playing so that when I come back a few real-world-hours-later, everything is already finished; I will do this too when tempering/upgrading weapons and armor too (or I guess I could just build another smithy, but I want to save up Limestone so that I can repair my main gate).
The other two features in TES:B I have not had as much experience in so I will only glance over them. First, there is The Arena (harkening back to the original The Elder Scrolls: The Arena premise) being the PvP aspect to the game, and where the pay-to-win criticism comes in. Here you fight another person of presumed similar ranking both in level and skills in the same manner that you fight everything else. When you start the match, you can see what each character is strong against, their weapon rating and their armor rating. To date, I have fought in the Arena just once and lost two of the three matches. I decided that I would need to upgrade my equipment and become more familiar with using magick and skills in the main game before going up against real-life people. The last mode is The Abyss, which looks to be a procedurally generated dungeon where you just fight enemy-after-enemy to see how far you can make it earning gold, materials, and chests.
Presently, I have played around five hours into The Elder Scrolls: Blades, most of which have been spent in short bursts. I will typically start the game, walk around town to visit the shops to see if there is anything I need to buy (potions, materials), then go up to the job board to see if there are any quests within my difficulty range. Then I will do a quest or two, typically taking 10-20 minutes, depending on if I am able to find the secret room (if there is even one) without backtracking, then I will repair my gear, upgrade a building if I have enough materials, then temper/upgrade a piece of my gear before closing down the game.
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| My armor was in the shop getting tempered, so it's regular clothes for Lilisthia for now. |
I know that I have a tendency to create developed backstories for my characters in Elder Scrolls games and I am sure that I will come up with one soon enough for Lilisthia, my Bosmer fugitive Blades member hiding out in Gobliville.
No, this is not Skyrim, nor does it play like previous entries in The Elder Scrolls series, but what it is, for me at least, after five hours, is another fun mobile game taking place in one of my favorite game worlds. And for now, that is enough.
~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian
P.S. Oh yeah, there is also something to do with joining online Guilds, but you all know me and online gaming in groups, so we will just pretend that that is not even up on the screen.
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