The Elder Scrolls® Online Reviews

I hope those responsible for balance and changes in update 47 are fired. They treat players who spent a lot of time leveling up scribing so carelessly. They only make the game worse and kill all interest in the game. Are you having fun, players? Here's a nerf!!!

Where to start with eso. Pros. 1. The world is big 2. Every province has a main quest 3. Every province has side quests long & short 4. Lot's to learn blacksmithing alchemy provisioning & so on 5. Antiquities to dig up & sell for gold & for you home 6. Buy homes ( i buy the inn rooms at 3000 gold as it a great way to fast travel for free) 7. You can join a guild 8. Lot's of mats about the world ( Now some mats are a bit more rare to find or get but you could always buy what you need) 9. Lot's of style pages to learn & food & drink Recipes as well 10. You can be a Werewolf or Vampire ( just for fun ) Cons. 1. Inventory is only 200 ( Now you can get eso + for the Craft Bag that lets you have as many mats as you like. What i did when playing on ps4 was get eso + for 1 month and get as much as i could as once your month is up you can take stuff out but not put in. As for now i really don't have a prob with space at all) 2. Some places on the map are locked out & you will need DLC to open them up ( Like the Thieves Guild ) 3. Some places need to be done as a group ( Like City of Ash or Dragonstar Arena or Halls of Fabrication. i like to play solo so this is not something i can do but i could join a guild that dose a lot of group stuff ) 4. Some stuff like weapons & clothing are locked behind DLC ( But i think you could buy this stuff if you like from Guild Traders all over the world ) 5.Some times the game can be a grind but that is no different from any other game like eso 6. Some times the game will not start or i will log in play for 10 or 20 mins then get kicked as some thing has gone wrong but at the end of the day i have got to long back in about 5 to 10 mins later and played for about 4 to 6 hours that day Now is ESO ok to play in 2025 i would say yes. Now with 330 hours in game i have finished the main story & done about 8 or 9 province quests along with some side quests but still have so much more to do & that is without all the locked DLC that i do not have. Now if you are looking at getting this game buy it on sale you don't need eso+ or the DLC right off the bat only get it at a later date if you like the game & will keep playing. Now this is to long now as i could go on & on but this is it it's down to you so good luck & i might see you soon. PS. any questions just ask. 8/10

Deceptive marketing The "Eso Subscription" does not give you access to the latest dlc the wording of it is deceptive and is clearly against European law i cant support a game that does this shit. "Misleading practices: The UCPD prohibits misleading actions and omissions, which involve providing false information or presenting information in a way that deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer. This includes misleading advertising, false claims about products or services, and other deceptive tactics."

The combat system is really good but the inventory hell without premium is unplayable to me and the game is way too old for me to be spending all this monthly. Maybe would play if subscription was not mandatory. I paid for one month but gave up halfway.

I'm just really tired of giving this team of people a chance after every single intentional disgustingly greedy move they make just to annoy and frustrate their players throughout the years. After a year of quitting the game, i decided to come back and the moment i got logged in, guess what happens? all the reasons why i quit this "garb" i mean game at the first place just got shoved right into my face. - Don't get me wrong i once loved this game. as you can see, i have spent a lot of time on it. - Oh, hey! Welcome back! here's some cool stuff for you since you've been gone for so long! but wait, your subscription is expired? well too bad because now your bank is 200 slots over its limit. wanna take them out? well your bag is also full. and why is that? all because of the billions of trash items in this game that actually each of them have a use of their own but can't keep them unless you are subs and have infinite crafting bag. Next you see yourself trying to pick up items manually because otherwise you'll have to stop every 10 seconds just to clear out your inventory for more stuff to come in while others are already at the next 2 bosses ahead waiting for you to decide which items to throw away. I can't recall the amount of times i was so frustrated with inventory management that i just closed the game and left. Putting the gathering bag and extra bank slot behind a subscription after paying over 200 bucks already for the game pack and subs is just a spit on my players face. Listen, i absolutely do not mind paying a subscription fee to play a FULL game with all its features and stuff. or give us an option for the ones who already have previous chapters to pay less monthly just for inventory slots because i don't want to pay twice for things i already own. But to say you can play a game if you pay for this pack or that pack and each not being the full game so you have to pay another full subscription fee again on top of that is just making me lose respect as you have absolutely no respect for your supporters just to milk from us left and right. On top of that, with every new chapter, we are seeing less and less work being put into this game and more the milking which is just absurd considering now i got to pay full chapter for a clumsy half cooked stuff. Please, do yourself a favor and have some respect for yourself, people. support a team that actually care for your time and piece of mind. one that doesn't intentionally want to see you annoyed with every move just so they can put a paywall to have it go away. and no, i'm not talking about these people for sure...

I was going to write a long-winded, vicious novel about the state of the game, the utter incompetence of its "devs", the deteriorating state of its servers, the ridiculous new monetization scheme on top of its original ridiculous monetization scheme, etc. But instead, I'll TL;DR the whole thing: Don't waste your time here. This is the "golden cow" of a soulless corporation, staffed by degenerates - a shameless moneygrab, wearing Tamriel as a skin-suit. My playtime is a reflection of the occasional fun offered over the course of many years, when (and only when) playing with friends - on the off-chance that connectivity can be maintained to their "servers", or if you can manage to avoid the AI bot currently tempbanning users with the precision of a bull in a china shop. Dear Steam user - your time is precious. It is better off spent elsewhere. This game, this company, is beneath you. Vote with your wallet.

I hate to not recommend this game, I really do, but I just can't - ZeniMax is just too scummy. They faithfully follow every single terrible stereotype there is for a exploitative profit-obsessed company: Quantities of in-game currency for sale that don't divide evenly into anything on the store? Check. Loot boxes with random rewards and intentionally addictive gambling mechanics? Check. Quality-Of-Life features like extra inventory space and automatic item sorting locked behind paywalls? Check. In-game accessory crafting skill that you can't train without paying real money? Check. World regions that you can see on your map and walk right up to in game but cannot enter without paying? Check. Paid DLC content trickled out slowly over time in individual updates? Check. Season Passes that bundle the same? Check. The only furry race in the game locked behind a paywall? Check. (Note: This is only partially true. You can select a khajiit at character creation so you'll see them around, it's their HOMELAND you're locked out of. It's still another case of 'we know the Furries will pay us more for this' just like the Caitians in Star Trek Online.) Paid Cosmetics to try and make your character's appearance a bit more unique? Check. Vanity Mounts? Check. For God's sake, they even do little things like making the icon for the Cash Shop glimmer from time to time. Not constantly, so you get used to it but at intervals. Just enough to draw the eye. You know, in case you forgot it was there. Every single psychological hook, every underhanded manipulation, every single dirty trick they can possibly use, they do it without a moment's care given for the obsessive and addictive behaviors they're promoting and the harm those cause. I understand they're a business. They need to make money to pay the bills and keep the lights on. And individually, I wouldn't take issue with any of these things. You try to draw customers into your cash shop. You try to tempt them with bundles, sales, deals. That's fine! It's when you pay attention to the scale of it all, when you take in all of these things together that you see just how heavily they prioritize profit over player experience. Look, I love Tamriel and the lore-rich world of the Elder Scrolls. Bethesda created something truly amazing and I still play heavily-modded Skyrim to this very day! But ZeniMax and their business practices make me ill.

Huge world, lots to do. Fun. Friendly people. The only thing that irritates me is the devs keep messing with the classes. I spent 6 months getting all my characters into the best builds, then they nerf something or tweak something or add something (like sub-classes), which breaks all my builds...

I've been playing the game since last year, few months last year and a few now. I had ESO Plus, because it is really tiring and a gatekeeper to other stuff in the game if you don't have it. I was most focused in PvE content, solo content. To people who likes to stay in the story side in a RPG, it is a great game, you can solo content easily, even if you're not strong, and that was my case because since the beggining I had a tank char, so I couldn't do considerable damage. But to enjoy everything plus is necessary, of course. But is a OLD GAME, and the main problem of old online games to me is the players who "live for the game", who take it like the most important thing in theirs lives, and make a hell in your life if you're not in the level, the class, the abilities, they want to. It's a TERRIBLE game with a TOXIC community when it comes to online content. ESO, like other games that have online content with roles, have sooooo few players playing tank and healer. You can wait minutes to hour in a line to play a online content. And I chosed to be a tank because of that, to join my friends in some contents (dungeons). And being a tank or a healer IN A WAY that the toxic players like, it's so demanding, and frustrating, THEY DO NOT have patience if you're a new player. I decided to stop playing the game, because i tried my best, i waited to be in a mid-higher level, +500CP, and have a FULL BUILD, that took me months to farm, so I could be useful and don't receive a bad treatment. But with few trials (12 people content), the toxic players ended all my joy to play this game. I was new to trials, I did a mistake in one, because i did not know the mechanics, and I reicived messages calling me names, threating me, telling me to end my life, in the wort ways possible. A lot of players in this game are bad with new players, and treat them like trash just because they don't know something. WHAT DON'T MAKE SENSE, because if you're new, u will not know. And the worse to me, ibeing a game YOU PAY, because without pass it's frustrating to play this game, so it's a MMORPG you pay monthy, the ZeniMax don't take actions to solve the toxicity of the comunity. I'm telling my case here, but all my friends suffered the same in some point with online content. So, if you want to play this game, be aware people there are becoming more and more toxic.

Great World, Gated Content - Edited The Elder Scrolls Online is a genuinely fun MMORPG, especially if you're a fan of the Elder Scrolls universe. The world is massive and beautifully crafted, the quests are well-written, and getting to explore iconic regions from across Tamriel is a real treat. Combat feels solid, classes are flexible, and there's no shortage of content to dive into, from dungeons to housing to crafting. Like most MMOs, ESO runs on a hybrid model of paid expansions, microtransactions, and an optional subscription (ESO Plus). That in itself isn't unusual—Neverwinter, Guild Wars 2, and Final Fantasy XIV all have their own takes on this structure. But the way ESO implements it can feel more aggressive than most. Even after buying the base game, you’ll find many fundamental quality-of-life features locked behind ESO Plus. These include essentials like the Craft Bag (for unlimited material storage), double bank space, build swap slots via the Armory, and higher housing furnishing limits. While technically optional, these features significantly impact your day-to-day experience. For example, managing inventory without a craft bag becomes a constant and frustrating chore, especially if you engage in crafting or looting—which is pretty much the core gameplay loop. Some convenience features like personal bankers, merchants, and fences are only available through the Crown Store, and useful systems like build swapping are limited unless you pay for additional slots. Even transmute crystal caps (used for gear customization) are smaller without a subscription. These limitations go beyond cosmetics or boosts—they restrict how smoothly you can engage with core systems. Compare this to a game like Neverwinter, which is free-to-play and still offers a lot of core QoL systems without locking them behind a premium pass. Guild Wars 2, though it sells expansions, gives free players access to most systems without requiring a monthly fee to avoid tedium. Even Final Fantasy XIV, which has a sub fee, includes most core systems in the base experience without carving them out for premium players. I really enjoy ESO. The storytelling, worldbuilding, and sheer volume of content are all top-tier. But I still can’t in good conscience recommend it to new players when such basic functionality is paywalled behind either an ongoing subscription or expensive Crown Store purchases. If you’re willing to invest consistently beyond the initial cost, there’s an incredible amount to enjoy—but if you’re hoping for a full-featured experience out of the box, ESO may end up feeling more frustrating than fun.