Review
Final Fantasy XIV
The best story in the genre, the kindest community in online gaming, and a subscription that earns itself.
No. 28 in The Noteworthy 50 · MMORPG
The Elder Scrolls Online
The best solo MMO ever made — a single-player Elder Scrolls game that happens to have other people in it.
ESO's great success is that it does not really feel like an MMO. The One Tamriel restructure scaled the entire world to the player, which means any zone can be entered at any level in any order, and the game becomes an enormous open-ended Elder Scrolls experience with optional multiplayer. For a large part of its audience that is exactly right.
The writing carries it. ZeniMax's quest design is the best in the genre — full voice acting throughout, morally complicated questlines, and zone stories that resolve properly. The Elder Scrolls setting is used with real knowledge, and chapters like Morrowind and Summerset are genuine returns to places players care about.
The combat problem
It has never been right. Attacks lack weight, animation cancelling — weaving a light attack between abilities — is required for competitive damage output and was never an intended mechanic, and the skill ceiling ends up being about execution of a technical quirk rather than tactical decision-making. Group content at the high end is demanding and satisfying; getting there means learning to fight in a way the game does not teach.
Cyrodiil's three-faction open PvP is a genuinely distinctive offering — enormous sieges with hundreds of players — and it has performed badly under load since 2014 without ever being fixed. Buy it for the solo campaign, treat the multiplayer as a bonus, and factor the subscription into the real price.
What works
- Quest writing and voice acting are the best in the MMO genre by some distance
- One-tamriel scaling means any zone is viable at any level, in any order
- No class restrictions on weapons or armour — build whatever you want
- An enormous amount of content included in the base purchase
What doesn't
- Combat feel is floaty and animation-cancelling dominates the high end
- The inventory and crafting-bag situation is engineered to sell ESO Plus
- Chapter purchases plus subscription plus crown store is a lot of asks
- Performance in large PvP battles has been poor for a decade
The Catch — what it will cost you
ESO Plus is close to mandatory. The crafting bag — unlimited storage for materials — is subscriber-only, and playing without it means constant inventory management in a game overflowing with crafting materials. That is a deliberate design choice to convert players to a subscription in a game they already bought.
Who it's for: Elder Scrolls fans who want hundreds of hours of quests and do not care about grouping.
If you like this
Review
Guild Wars 2
The most player-friendly MMO ever designed. Buy the expansions and never pay a monthly fee again.
Review
World of Warcraft
The best raid and dungeon design in any MMO, sold on a subscription that keeps finding new things to charge for.