The Elder Scrolls: Blades Reviews

The Elder Scrolls is a franchise that I have grown to adore over the years, with Oblivion and Skyrim being two of my favorite games of all time. Yet while playi

I actually do not hate what Bethesda has attempted to do with The Elder Scrolls: Blades. What we have here is many of the base elements you know from the core Elder Scrolls series, boiled down to the basics. Dungeon exploring, talking to NPCs in a town, beating down a variety of monsters, collecting weapons, gold, and materials… It's all here, and it all works as you would expect. This is an Elder Scrolls game in every way, except the iconic open-world. Well, that makes sense for mobile. So why does The Elder Scrolls: Blades still feel so lacking, even with version 1.0?

While totally different from Elder Scrolls on your console or PC, The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a lot of fun and feels like it belongs… I was mystified by the energy and joy that Elder Scrolls games bring, despite not being able to explore an open world. The Elder Scrolls: Blades has a little something for everyone, even if you’re looking to just past the time.

The Elder Scrolls: Blades uses its nature as a mobile-first title as a thin excuse for being a boring, mundane, monotonous experience. It may be free, so there's no point asking if this is worth your money- but is it worth your time? Absolutely not.

The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a visually impressive mobile game, and its satisfying combat provides just enough variety to at least partially salvage an otherwise repetitive and lackluster adventure. While technically an Elder Scrolls game, this watered-down version of Tamriel has very little to do with the RPGs it’s based on, and the fun that is here suffers from intrusive microtransactions that bog things down.