The Elder Scrolls as a series has been incredibly consistent over the past few years, if not ever since its inception, and beginning with Morrowind up until now, when Skyrim is the last game to have been released in the series (so far), the games have been of an unbelievably high quality. Which of the last three The Elder Scrolls games is the best is still a fierce discussion amongst fans of the series, so obviously there’s a lot to love in all of them.
Which means that there is a lot that the inevitable The Elder Scrolls 6 can learn from Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Morrowind and Skyrim are both games with incredible focus on exploration, though both go about that focus in very different ways, and both the regions have an incredible atmospheric feel to them, as if they are actual places with their distinct personalities, cultures and identities, and that is something that fans definitely expect and hope to see in any future instalments in the series.
The kind of emergent gameplay that the series has developed so well over the last three instalments is also something that definitely should make a comeback in the sequel, and something that Bethesda should make sure grows even further. Memorable moments that aren’t scripted but rather ones of the players’ own making – like the random, epic dragon battles in Skyrim – have always been a hallmark of the Elder Scrolls games.
In terms of what the game could learn from Oblivion, while Skyrim takes most of the game’s weaknesses and improves upon them further, there is one particular aspect that degraded with the fifth installment. The amount of freedom and flexibility provided to players in Oblivion in terms of character progression, classes and skills was sorely missed by several players in Skyrim, and to see something similar to what we saw earlier in the franchise’s history would definitely be a welcome addition.
Recently, we also talked about what The Elder Scrolls can learn from Bethesda’s other major RPG series, Fallout, and vice versa. You can read all about that here.
