Here at E3 this week we had a chance to pop in to speak with the developers of Bethesda and Zenimax Online’s Elder Scrolls Online. We’d had a chance to play the game at a recent pre-E3 media event and with the announcement of ESO’s migration to console we had a couple quick questions for them.
When you play ESO on PC you have a hot bar that you can map your skills to that you’re able to use on the fly. As with every PC based MMO hot keys are the key to being able to using things like abilities, spells and potions on the go and with ease. We were very curious how well this would translate into the console world. For example, if you’re involved in heated battle with an online opponent you can’t pause the fight to bring up a radial map or anything to use abilities. It just wouldn’t work. According to the dev team, while they can’t release specifics yet, they’ve figured out a very smooth and intuitive way to allow access to all the hot bar abilities to a console controller. As someone who has almost always been a console gamer it’s very exciting to see this jump being made but I must admit that I’m skeptical as to how smooth this will all work.
Check out the E3 2013 Gameplay Trailer:
The dev team is clearly excited too. They’ve known right from the start that getting people who have always been solo gamers (ie: every Elder Scroll’s fan ever) interested in a multiplayer experience would be hard work. Keeping this thought in mind I was told that the entire main campaign could be completed on your own without any forced interaction with other players. That’s great if you’re antisocial but if you truly want to get the most out of your ESO experience it’ll be best with friends. Certain dungeons and areas will be far too difficult to go alone so partying up will be a necessity. You can rest assured that all the best loot and treasure will be in these areas too so I’m sure I’ll get over my fear of social interaction very quickly! Keep in mind of course that if you want to play with friends they will have to own the game on the same platform as you as there will be no cross-platform interaction. That would seem like a given but I heard more than one journalist ask the question of the dev team so I want to make that clear.
It’ll be extremely interesting to see what ESO has in store for the console gamer. It’s an ambitious jump to take this style of experience away from the mouse and keyboard crowd and thrust it into the paws of gamepad gamers on the PS4 and Xbox One. While there’s no details yet of a release date keep checking back here at Canadian Online Gamers for information as we get it. Are you excited to see ESO come to console or will you go with the tried and tested PC experience for this MMO? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
For more information on the game, click here to read our Pre-E3 Elder Scrolls Online Preview:
https://cogconnected.com/preview/the-elder-scrolls-online-hands-on-preview/
