The Elder Scrolls franchise has captured the imagination of gamers for almost twenty years. From The Elder Scrolls: Arena to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim; players have been immersing themselves in the fantastical world of Tamriel whilst smiting ancient evils and having philosophical conversations with dragons. With the critical and commercial success of Bethesda’s 2011 Masterpiece Skyrim, the Elder Scrolls Online will undoubtedly entice gamers who are new to the MMO genre. Console gamers. I touched on this in my previous article, but I’d like to take a deeper look and really try to understand the obstacles one who strictly games on consoles may have to overcome.

Troll TESO’s facebook or twitter and you will see numerous versions of the same question. “Will this game be for Xbox?“, “Will this game be for PS3?“. These questions which are deemed inane by the trolls are then followed with “No dummy! It’s PC. DUH!” Now if you continue to troll those console questions, you’ll see a variety of them respond with something like “I guess I have to get a computer!” These gamers who fell in love with The Elder Scrolls series on consoles are no different than the PC gamer with one exception. They don’t play MMOs. This isn’t just an Elder Scrolls game; it’s an Elder Scrolls game that’s a MMO with a style of play that is completely foreign to someone who just plays on a console. As if the world of Tamriel isn’t behemoth enough, let’s throw thousands of players into it as well. Now let’s throw thousands of players who think they are better than you at every aspect of game play. So, with many of the buddies I have that strictly play console games I began to ask myself, “What’s it going to be like for them?”