Tamriel Unlimited Coming Soon: What To Expect

Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
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Tamriel Unlimited Coming Soon: What To Expect

I don't know about you, but I've got a goodish portion of June lined up for the upcoming launch of "Tamriel Unlimited." Formerly known as just "The Elder Scrolls Online," and formerly just limited to PC gaming--a field of gaming I don't often get involved in thanks to a control scheme I'm not particularly happy about--"Tamriel Unlimited" is making the jump to console titles June 9, at last report. But what will we see when it hits?

First, the good news: the game will be available for a one-time fee instead of on a monthly subscription model, good news for those infuriated by the thought of paying a subscription fee to the game maker and another to the console maker for the privilege of online play. However, there are premium subscription options on hand, allowing for new benefits to be delivered in-game on a recurring basis. Additional good news comes in the fact that it looks like, for the first time on consoles, all the districts will be in play, from Skyrim to High Rock to Vvardenfell and beyond, even some places that have never been seen on console before in any depth like Khajiit homeland Elsweyr and Argonian territory Black Marsh.

A launch trailer helps provide some insight into what's coming out, with six major content updates are on tap here. There's the four-player Dragonstar Arena and changes to thieves and champions, improved protections against spam will help here, and visual improvements are also on tap. You can even go outright outlaw if you're so inclined.

This slate of new options is pretty welcome, and reports suggest the PC gamers who have already been playing the game for some time are looking forward to the new options. For the console gamers who haven't, meanwhile, this may well be the closest thing to new Elder Scrolls action we'll get for about, oh, maybe five to 10 years? Perhaps best of all, this looks like a genuine Tamriel experience, of the kind we've known for years; the ability to go rogue as we liked, or build quests our way, in addition to the standards the game itself presents.

It's hard to believe that "Skyrim"'s last bit of content landed back in December 2012 for Xbox 360, and February 2013 for PlayStation 3, and that we've been better than two years without content in that vein on consoles.

Naturally, there are plenty out there looking forward to a trip back to Tamriel featuring some unfamiliar material, but is this going to be enough to keep people interested? We know everyone's been staring at Bethesda for some time, waiting for word about "Fallout 4" with not much in the way of word to satisfy. Given that E3 this year is scheduled for June 16-18--unusually late in June, it seems--this game will already be out in stores before Bethesda's big presser hits. So chances of material about this finding its way into an E3 event a little over a week after its release is somewhat unlikely.

Still, what we're looking at in the short term is a good reason to draw the shades against the advancing summer sun, fire up the AC, get a 12-pack of something cold and spend the weekend indoors. I'm certainly looking forward to it, and hopefully, this one's going to be as good as the early word suggests it is.


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