ESO: Gold Road – Byte Size Review
Welcome to the 2024 addition to Bethesda’s epic Elder Scrolls Online. ESO continues to be a game I return to on a regular basis. A solid, grindy, MMORPG. I have covered a plethora of these add-on releases for the the base game, ESO: Tamriel Unlimited since 2015. I can’t help but feel that if you haven’t got into ESO by now then you probably never will. The sheer amount of content included now is crazy! Thankfully it remains a solid single player adventure along side the MMO elements. Unfortunately the grinding/time required for some elements still fail to add to the single player engagement.
Welcome to the West Weald.
Home of the city of Skingrad, West Weald is one of the more wealthy areas in Tamriel. Inhabited by well to do Colovian Imperials, and of recent times, the return of the Daedric Prince Ithelia. As you can imagine, the return of any Daedric Prince is going to mean plenty of work for our resident heroes for hire. To be honest, Gold Road is the first time I have had a real feeling of ‘been here, done this’. Unlike the likes of Morrowind which had a very different visual look, West Weald is a fairly standard looking area of Tamriel. Not bad, by any means, but just nothing new on the visual front.
New Skill System.
As is custom with each new release from Bethesda we have a new gameplay system added. This time around it is in the form of Scribing. Scribing allows you to further customise you playstyle by allowing you to modify the effects and functionality of special skills that can be collected during you exploits in the West Weald. This is on top of the already excessive amount of cosmetic items also included for you to hunt out. But as we all know, if you are playing a MMO regularly then you NEED all of these weapons and armour styles! Just like needing dozens of exotic creatures to ride and travel along side you is an absolute necessity.
Not All Plain Sailing.
I know that ESO is at its heart a Massively Multiplayer Online game but I can’t help but feel there is some space for improvement for the single player crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great time playing solo. I have the understanding that if I want to take on a dungeon or boss then I have to hang around the area and tag on to an existing group. Nothing funnier than seeing half a dozen ‘solo’ players waiting near a boss expecting someone else to initiate the combat.
But what really bugs me is the crafting and research aspect of the game. Why on earth does it have to take actual days of real world time to complete some tasks! Thankfully, crafting and research isn’t something you have to do unless you really want to.
Closing Comments.
I’m still a big fan of ESO. It is just the time that I haven’t got to really sink in to the land of Tamriel. Ever since the Xbox Series X upgrade made massive improvements to both load times and visuals, I have found myself wanting to spend even more time exploring. What else can I say? If you play ESO, you know exactly where I am coming from. And for those who don’t or haven’t played ESO, give it a go. It will go either of two ways. Muck around for an hour or so and never return or say goodbye to your free time as you sink hour upon hour into saving the land of Tamriel.
