Zenimax Plays It Safe With Elder Scrolls Online, And Drops The Ball In The Process

We've all heard the news by now. The Elder Scrolls Online is a real thing, being produced not by Bethesda but by Zenimax Online, an offshoot of Bethesda's parent company.  There had been whispers of this news for a few months, and I would argue that the churning of those voices began even sooner, back when Skyrim was finally shown for the first time to the world. Among the top five questions people had was, "will there be multiplayer?"

Bethesda, of course, is anything but a multiplayer studio. Instead, their gift is creating a singleplayer game within a world filled with such life that it feels like you're in the world with real people. Or, at the very least, in a world where there is so much to do that you have no need of other people anyway.

Still it's hard to get that perfect, and I'll admit that the Uncanny Valley runs pretty deep the 105th time your companion blocks a doorway. Or the 200th time the shopkeeper tells you that his junk are really treasures. So an online component in Elder Scrolls has always been something that many gamers have been open to, provided it was done right.  For an online Elder Scrolls game to be successful, ironically, it wouldn't need to do much changing of the formula at all. They could have given us Skyrim, added network play, increased the size and scope of the dungeons, expanded the crafting, added many more items and provide a way to trade them. Done. The perfect Elder Scrolls game.

By doing this, Zenimax would have been making a masterful play. In keeping with the current formula of Bethesda's games, they would have also been eschewing the standard formula of  MMO's. That World of Warcraft formula that has proven in the past to be both successful, and breathlessly replicated by developers and publishers trying desperately to cash in on it.

A formula, I would argue, that has far passed its zenith, and is starting to feel the sunset at its back.  A formula that Zenimax has decided to go with for The Elder Scrolls Online.

When the first details of what Elder Scrolls Online actually was came to light, you could actually hear the internet doing a unified sigh of disappointment.  Stamina based, turn combat with cool downs and a hot bar?  Visuals that could have easily been copy and pasted upon any game with a fantasy setting? And though definitive classes have not yet been announced, it's looking like that's the direction they are going. The same old, and the tired. But now called The Elder Scrolls for effect.

And possibly sales.

There is still much learn about this game, and -if recent reports that stealth has not been quite worked out yet are true- it's even sounding like there is still a lot of development to be had. Screens can be produced out of game, and we've haven't even seen the inkling of a HUD.

One can hope, and even dream, that when Zenimax takes the temperature of the fans it will release that changes need to be made. And, strangely enough, hardly needed to be made at all.