Summary
- Each Elder Scrolls game builds on the previous one, improving gameplay and features to create the best experience for players.
- Daggerfall introduced class customization, Morrowind brought 3D worlds, Oblivion added voice acting, and Skyrim revamped RPG elements.
- Skyrim's enemy scaling adds challenge without sacrificing realism, setting a new standard for open-world gameplay in the series.
The massively popular game series, The Elder Scrolls, began in 1994 with The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and the first game in the series bares a striking resemblance to many of the sequels that followed. Players enter a fantasy world and roleplay a character of their choosing, attempting to save the realm from evil by using melee attacks, archery, or magic. In essence, the system and game aesthetic was very similar to other medieval fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. However, this first game was a randomly generated series of infinite encounters that took place across the entire region of Tamriel, rather than selecting just one part of the region to explore, like the later games did.
Every Elder Scrolls Game Ranked By Map Size
The Elder Scrolls series is known for its breathtaking open worlds that players can lose themselves in. Here are all of them, ranked.
While there are still a lot of similarities between Arena and the later Elder Scrolls games, much has changed over the years. Though Arena initially debuted on MS-DOS, every subsequent game in the franchise has done something to improve on the core concept of the series, taking the lessons learned from its previous entries to consistently make the best Elder Scrolls game yet.
4 The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall
Improved On The Elder Scrolls: Arena By Adding Classes To Character Creation
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall came out just two years after the series' first game, and was once again an exclusive for the MS-DOS. In many ways, the gameplay in this version is largely the same as what came before. Daggerfall is a large open world fantasy RPG with randomly generated cities and dungeons. However, this game takes place in Lilac Bay instead of all of Tamriel. As players will see, Bethesda Software were already expanding the lore of this fictional world in this sequel.
That isn't all that changed between the first two Elder Scrolls games, though, as Daggerfall massively improved the character creation model for the franchise in this entry. The player still got to pick between eight playable races, and gender still provided bonuses in this early model. For instance, a Nord male would receive +10 to Strength, while a Nord female would gain +10 to Luck. However, rather than being assigned a set class, players could now create their own class by picking from a list of skills that matches their desired play style. Of course, this addition greatly improved character customization, and is a feature that stayed with the series until the fourth installment.
3 Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind
Improved On The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall By Bringing The Series Into The 3D World
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Released
- May 1, 2002
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox (Original)
- Genre(s)
- RPG
The third game in the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind, was a risky endeavor for Bethesda at the time of release. Coming out eight years after its predecessor, they struggled to bring The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind into fruition due to financial difficulties. However, the studio decided to put everything they had into their next game, and let their hard work decide the fate of the series. Once again , Morrowind is a fantasy RPG that takes place in the fictional realm of Tamriel, only this time, a lot of the themes and world design lean into more steampunk tropes to highlight the unique region of Morrowind, where players will spend all their time in this game. As players probably already know, this is when Bethesda started to begin solidifying their idea of what future The Elder Scrolls games would look like.
However, the biggest change in this game is that the world is no longer a randomly generated set of pixels. Instead, Morrowind is a fully-rendered 3D setting, allowing Morrowind to be released on Xbox shortly after its initial PC launch in 2002. This 3D world also loosened the games' focus on the main plot. This game offers many more side quests and options for players in its open world. As a result, Morrowind leaned more into the freedom that an open-world video game can provide, and influenced many other future games as a result.
2 The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Improved On The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind By Giving The Franchise A Voice
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls series had reached a new high with The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, with this game selling upward of 200,000 copies in its first year. Bethesda weren't ready to rest on their laurels though, and they quickly got to work on the next game in the franchise. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is instantly recognized as looking graphically better than all of its predecessors, as it was released with the intention of reaching a more mainstream audience in 2006 by launching on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 simultaneously.
The new graphics engine wasn't the only huge improvement over the previous game, however. Oblivion was also the first game in The Elder Scrolls series to include voice acting in the game. Now, players could listen and respond to NPCs in the open world, rather than scrolling through several silent text boxes. Such an addition added more life to this series, and that was only improved with the addition of Radiant AI. This new AI system was developed by Bethesda, and it allowed NPCs to make decisions on their own and interact with objects in the open world in a way that the player character would. This innovation did lead to some odd conversations and behaviors, but it wouldn't feel like Oblivion without these erratic NPC decisions.
1 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Improved On The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion By Overhauling Most Of The RPG's Elements
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Released
- November 11, 2011
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
With the success of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion being released on consoles, Bethesda were ready to take the series into the mainstream with their next Elder Scrolls game. That is why The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is such a departure from what the other games had done before. Taking place exclusively in the northern region of Skyrim, this fifth game is still an open-world fantasy RPG. However, Skyrim leaned more into the action-adventure genre, rather than being a cut-and-dry RPG. This is because players do not pick a skill tree or class structure to follow during character creation. Instead, they level up their skills and abilities by performing certain related actions in the game. Using one-handed weapons would improve their One-Handed skills, for example. Plus, the open world offered more freedom than ever before.
Skyrim: 25 Most Powerful Bosses, Ranked
With all the DLCs included, Skyrim has tons of different bosses that are either surprisingly easy to defeat or annoyingly difficult to deal with.
While most players would assume the addition of dragons is the biggest improvement that Skyrim brought to the series, it cannot be understated how vital the enemy scaling is in this game. Rather than leveling up enemies in the game alongside the player to maintain the game's difficulty, the enemies in Skyrim will always stay at the same level. For example, the bandits in the cave outside Whiterun will remain at Level 2 no matter how strong the player gets. However, these types of enemies are less likely to spawn as a random encounter, and higher level enemies will take their place in the open world. As a result, this world feels more realistic, while also still providing a challenge for long-term players. Let's hope this system stays when The Elder Scrolls 6 finally releases.
Elder Scrolls Protagonists Ranked From Weakest To Strongest
The Elder Scrolls franchise has different protagonists for each, but not all of them are equal. Some are much more powerful than others.