With the Gold Road expansion, ESO is the next best thing to Elder Scrolls 6

12 and a half years since the last mainline release, and six years since we were teased of a sequel, it’s fair to say that Elder Scrolls fans are on their knees waiting for a new instalment in the series. Especially with Fallout fever at an all-time high following the Amazon TV series, it’s hard not to fantasise about the latest fantasy world Bethesda is currently cooking up.

'Skyrim in space' might not have cut the mustard for many (although the upcoming DLC may rekindle some love there), but if you’re hankering for more Tamriel, the answer might be right under your nose. With the release of the Gold Road expansion, Elder Scrolls Online celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2024. Jumping in as a lapsed player to find over a decade’s worth of content, this game might just be what tides me over until Elder Scrolls 6 finally shows itself.

Good as Gold

The Gold Road DLC takes place in the West Weald, a region of Tamriel that sits just in the southwest of Cyrodil - an area that hasn’t been explored since Oblivion in 2006. Upon completing the Prologue Quest and diving into what the questline has to offer, it quickly becomes clear that it’s a continuation of last year’s expansion, Necrom.

Within a few minutes, I’m already diving deep into forgotten Deadric Temples, dabbling with Gods and conversing with the likes of Hermaeus Mora, the ethereal, tentacle-clad lad you might remember from Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC. 

As a huge fan of Bethesda’s mainline RPGs, it feels wild to me that there’s a whole Elder Scrolls universe, complete with explorable Daedric realms, that I’d previously written off due to genre. That said, my inexperience with the game wasn’t for lack of trying in the past.

Times have changed

I remember being there when ESO first launched in 2014. Hot off the heels of Skyrim, I was sure this would be the game I poured most of my life into. Much of the emphasis around launch was put into diving into delves and raiding dungeons with like-minded mates, but when we finally got to give it a go for the first time, it all fell a little short. That’s mostly due to the realisation of how different the combat style felt to traditional Elder Scrolls games, how little of Tamriel was actually covered at the time, and how much further behind other MMOs it felt.

As far as combat goes, that hasn’t changed all that much to an amateur's eye. I won’t lie, it’s still a far cry from anything you’ll find in Skyrim or Oblivion. That said, there are far more classes to choose from now, and further scope in how you can spec them out. Gold Road even adds a new Scribing mechanic, which lets you combine skills together in unique combinations. There are also helpful tooltips to keep you on the right track if you’re unfamiliar with traditional MMO levelling systems, letting you focus your attention on other, more traditional elements of the game - like questing.

It’s not just exploring Deadric realms that excited me during my short introduction to Gold Road - it was the quieter moments, too. Upon travelling to the main questline around the new playspace, I encountered plenty of NPCs going about their daily lives, and most of them had a side quest for me to dive into.

One such quest saw me uncover a mystery surrounding a nearby goblin clan, which had become aggressive towards the villagers, seemingly unprovoked. What unravelled was a framing plot that dealt with the relationships of each of the villagers, while exploring some of the lore behind goblin culture in that era of Tamriel.

Reflecting on completing this quest alone, I realised that I didn’t feel as though I was playing this huge MMO. Other players might have wandered by in the world, but in that moment I was doing what an Elder Scrolls game usually does best - I was solo questing and getting enthralled by the world presented to me. It was the closest I felt like I’d gotten to playing Skyrim since Skyrim, and god knows we’ve all played that enough by now.

Content galore

With bright orange-leafed trees lining its paths, the Gold Road adds a stunning recreation of Cyrodil’s West Weald, and is a feather in the cap of what ESO does best - provide an almost 1:1 recreation of the entirety of Tamriel. While I mentioned that the combat hasn’t evolved all that much beyond its roots in class-based abilities, what has changed considerably is the sheer amount of content that’s on offer in ESO today.

Gold Road brings the total number of expansions up to eight, and you can get access to all the previous releases with a ‘Collection’ package if you’re jumping in for the first time. For not much more than you’re paying for the expansion itself, that gets you access to roughly 75% of the entire map of Tamriel, spanning from the far reaches of High Rock down to the bottom corner of Black Marsh.

Out of curiosity, I had dabbled with the Greymoor expansion from 2020, which added the far western reaches of Skyrim. Turning up to an incredibly well-recreated version of Solitude gave me a direct hit of nostalgia, and I was greeted with an entire new questline to play through at my leisure.

That’s not to mention the main questline of the base game, which I’ve still yet to complete fully. With a fantastic cast of British icons such as Michael Gambon, John Cleese, and Bill Nighy all lending their voices to the world, it feels equally comforting to explore a world I thought I knew so well, accompanied by voices that sound right out of a new Fable game.

All of this is to say that it doesn’t seem like The Elder Scrolls 6 is coming any time soon. Bethesda Softworks no doubt still has its focus on Starfield, and given the reception of that game, it wouldn’t surprise me if it doubles down on taking the time to make TES 6 the absolute best it can be.

If you’re like me and are getting a little tired of booting up Skyrim and Oblivion on the Steam Deck for the umpteenth time, I reckon you owe it to ourself to give ESO another try. You might be surprised at how close it comes to satiating that craving.