“The Elder Scrolls” is one of the best-known franchises in gaming, and one of the oldest ones too. With every installment, Bethesda manage to use modern technology to create a truly immersive world that just sucks the player in and doesn’t let go until the very end, and it seems that they’re getting better and better at accomplishing that task without requiring multiple patches to fix their bugs post-release.
We don’t know when “The Elder Scrolls 6” is coming, and judging by the latest rumors about the studio, it might actually be a while until we get the new game. However, various gamers and even some critics have been making interesting comments regarding the next installment in the series, discussing what Bethesda could learn from “Skyrim” and the games before it in order to make this the best “Elder Scrolls” to date.
In the end, as fun as the series may be, it’s not without its problems. One of the things critics have noted that could use an improvement is the third-party animation system. Despite running on a state-of-the-art engine (for its release date, anyway), “Skyrim” felt quite clunky in its design at a few points, and this also reflected on the player’s movement system, which felt all but natural in most cases. Considering that immersion is one of the main features of the franchise, it can definitely benefit from better animations.
Difficulty scaling is also something that has become quite controversial in the game’s communities recently. It was intended to make the game more fun by adjusting its balance on the go, ensuring that the world is always on par with the player’s progress. However, in the end, it made the whole experience monotonous and repetitive in some cases, as the player never truly felt like they were moving up – there was always a stronger monster right around the corner, with stats just perfectly adjusted for the player’s current level and situation.
And with that in mind, the overall combat system of the game could use some improvement too. It has various flaws, and it’s not rare for even serious fans of the series to comment that the game should be played for its immersion and the quality of its world design, but its combat is not a feature to look out for. Apart from the balance issues we mentioned above, it also tends to feel boring and uneventful most of the time, with the exception of some fights that are usually pre-scripted to make them more exciting. If Bethesda pay attention to all those aspects of their new game’s design, it could very well be one of the best RPGs to date, not just the best “Elder Scrolls”.