If the Elder Scrolls community can be called anything, it is passionate. So with the details that the Elder Scrolls MMO will, for better or for worse, share very minimal game features with its single player brethren, response has understandably been mixed. In an interview with Eurogamer, Game Director Matt Firor wants it known that the same style of epic storytelling will be present in the MMO, albeit in an instanced form. Firor likened the technique to killing Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion:
The last thing you want to do is have the final confrontation with Mehrunes Dagon as he’s stomping across the Imperial City, and you see like 15 guys behind you waiting to kill him because they’re on the same quest.
The Elder Scrolls Online story will be 100% instanced and solo, according to Zenimax. You will be the one true hero. You and everybody else.
Unlikely allies are always my least favorite. The trailer for Elder Scrolls Online lays the foundation for Elder Scrolls Online: The dragonfires are unlit (similar to Oblivion) and enemies are once again poised to strike on Tamriel. It will take more than one warrior to fight off this threat.
Elder Scrolls Online is set for release in 2013, it is being developed by Zenimax Studios.
Well, it is here. I’ve been talking about an Elder Scrolls MMO for at least a year here at MMO Fallout, from why I don’t think such a game would be a great idea rolling back to when we first got wind Zenimax was working on a secret project. Next month’s Game Informer has been revealed, and the cover story is Elder Scrolls Online.
Players will discover an entirely new chapter of Elder Scrolls history in this ambitious world, set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm.
Players are no doubt enticed by the promise of three-faction player vs player combat, and is set for release in 2013.
Zenimax Media is just one of the Area 51’s of the MMO world. Zenimax owns Bethesda, id Software, and several other studios. The studio has since become the MMO branch of Bethesda, and according to past rumors has been working on an upcoming title since at least 2007. Rumors had it that the MMO was going to be the oft-rumored Fallout MMO that Interplay had started but never gave information on.
In court documents recently discovered during the Bethesda Interplay lawsuit, details have come forward related to this secret MMO that Zenimax has been working on. Bethesda has funneled tens of millions of dollars into this project, that has been under development since 2006 (So the rumors were not far off). A team of approximately one hundred people are working on the game, and according to VG247, should have been announced last year.
In the legal documents, Bethesda has described the title as a “World of Warcraft” style MMO, and may be set 200 years after Oblivion (as revealed by the Elder Scrolls novel, that accidentally leaked the next game in the series). It is not currently clear what Bethesda means by a WoW-like MMO, in the creative sense or the mechanic sense (It’s an MMO).
So what does VG247’s source say about this MMO? It is based on the Elder Scrolls series. Even better, the title was supposed to be announced late 2009, but the announcement was somehow missed, potentially relating to the lawsuit between Bethesda and Interplay. VG247 appears to be very confident in their source.
There does seem to be some legitimacy in the claims, as Bethesda has reportedly moved to have any revealing legal documents censored to the public domain, even though the old analogy fits of closing the fence door once the horses have escaped. It is possible but unlikely that Zenimax is working on a Fallout MMO in expectation that Interplay will lose the lawsuit, and for all intense and purpose, they do know a lot more than we do as to how well the court case is going.
More on Bethesda’s MMO as it becomes apparent, and more on Fallout (The MMO) as it appears as well.
MMO Fallout 