STACK NZ June 2015 Issue 63

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The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited proved to be a success when it released on PC. It’s finally coming
to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this month – and you don’t have to caught up with ZeniMax Online
Studios’ Game Director Matt Firor to pick his brains about Tamriel’s reinvigoration.
The
Elder Scrolls:
W e’ve seen Tamriel before – the Elder
Scrolls games have been around since
The Elder Scrolls: Arena in 1994 – but
we’ve never seen it on this scale. The previous
game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, received
multiple Game of the Year awards, as well as
topping many a “best games ever” list; The
Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited (ESO:
TU) has big boots to fill.
Tamriel Unlimited offers the entirety of
Tamriel for players to explore, and we will “see
parts of Tamriel that have not been in an Elder
Scrolls game since Arena”. Game director
Matt Firor confirmed what most of us already
assumed: “The sheer scope of the playable
area of ESO: TU is massive... We need many
different art biomes – from desert to swamp
to the soaring snowy mountains of Skyrim.
It’s all explorable in the game, so we had to
create it all”.
Set 1,000 years prior to the events of
Skyrim, ESO: TU will pay its respects to series
veterans. According to Firor, “you’ll find Daedric
Princes, cultures, and places that you’ll
remember from past Elder Scrolls games,
especially Oblivion and Skyrim”, as many
of them are immortal or near-immortal.
“Careful reading of in-game books and
paying attention to quest dialogue will
show you how some of the stories and
situations in future Elder Scrolls
games got their start”.
Given that this is the first of
the Elder Scrolls series to feature
online multiplayer, there were of
course questions as to how far this
extended. “This is a multiplayer
game from the ground up”, Firor
explains. “You can talk to [other players], group,
form guilds, trade, and much more. And of
course if you are in Cyrodiil, the war zone in
ESO: TU, you’ll be able to kill them”. Firor also
outlined a voice chat system for the console
version of ESO: TU that will “allow quick and
easy communication” and feel “familiar” to
XBO/PS4 players.
When The Elder Scrolls Online was first
released, it required a paid subscription service
to play. Now, however, the fees have been
waived, and the game rechristened Tamriel
Unlimited. “This change has been very popular
with our players so far, and we hope to see
the same reaction from our new console
community”, notes Firor. However, there is a
paid service you can opt into known as ESO
Plus. “DLC will be available for free for ESO
Plus members”, so perhaps that’s persuasive
enough to get players to cough up some gold.
While Firor recognises “it’s always more
fun to play games like this with others”, he did
confirm that the main quest, as well as fighters
and mages guild quest lines, will be done solo.
“Most quests in ESO: TU can be completed
with friends, but we do reserve a couple... so
you can ‘be the hero’ by not having other players
interfere”. Good news for those hoping to tackle
Tamriel with their mates.
With events in ESO: TU leading up to the later
games of Oblivion and Skyrim, the lore of The
Elder Scrolls must be carefully adhered to. “We
have a dedicated Loremaster (Lawrence Schick)
here at ZeniMax Online Studios, who makes
sure that everything that happens in the game is
consistent with Elder Scrolls lore”, Firor explains.
“He communicates regularly and often with his
counterparts at Bethesda Game Studios to make
sure that everyone is always on the same page”.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited
is ZeniMax Online Studios’ first game, and it’s
an ambitious one at that. The game director is
looking forward to seeing the impact ESO: TU
will have on the console community, following
its rampant success in the PC market.
“Putting this together and making it fun
and awesome was (and continues to be)
a huge task and I couldn’t be prouder
of the team”, says Firor. “Making
games isn’t easy, and games of this
type are among the hardest to pull off.
We’re very happy to
finally reach launch
on consoles so
the rest of the
audience can see
what we’ve been
up to”.
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JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi