The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road - Review

It has been a few months since I went hands on with The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road and between then and now, I was eager to get back to Cyrodiil, or at least a part of it. Now that I have ventured all across the West Weald, I am happy to report that it was as much fun as I wanted it to be, but there are some blemishes on the experience.

The main storyline of the Gold Road expansion picks up after the main story from Necrom, with the lost Daedric Prince Ithelia now loose in the world and you’re tasked with tracking them down. The first major clue that you have is that a forest has sprung up overnight and it is not a small one, towns and houses have been uprooted, literally, by these massive trees. While the initial investigations don’t seem to be too weird, the story will take a few turns, into a few different realities as well. I wasn’t sure where the main story would take itself, there were a few ways it could have gone and while I can’t say they stuck the landing exactly, it was still a fun ride. The characters that run around solving the mystery with you are fun, there is Beragon who is a fun companion for the adventure and a returning face. With Tribune Alea Idolus and Leramil the Wise round out the trio of compatriots, with Tribune Alea being the more useful of those two. The problem is that I don’t want to say much about the story, for fear of giving things away, but it is worth experiencing.

While there are story missions that will take place beneath the West Weald, or sometimes in other plains of existence, most of the time you will be running around the new map and its anchor city Skingrad. As someone who spent a lot of time in Skingrad in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, thanks to a certain Nirnroot buyer, I have a lot of memories of the city. Seeing the city far more alive in this game and with a slightly different layout did take some getting used to, but I quickly adapted. As far as timelines go, you have to remember that there is about 800 years between the two, so things were always going to look different. This is something that I have to give credit on, each time Elder Scrolls Online ventures back to locations that players of the Elder Scrolls games have seen before, there is enough familiarity to recognise the location, but enough of a difference so it doesn’t feel like a copy and paste job. As Skingrad is the main city, you will spend a lot of time here, but there are more locations to discover, the Wood Elves home of Vashabar has a sense of chaotic wonder, but it works. There are other cities and estates you will visit as well, each having a familiar vibe, but ultimately being their own thing, with all parts coming together, in order to help build a larger sense of what the region has to offer.

Valenwood is perhaps the biggest addition to the world, given it sprung up overnight and when you enter into those woods, it honestly feels like you are not in Kansas the West Weald anymore. Each region from Elder Scrolls Online has always had a consistent vibe to it, but this is the first where the vibe changes halfway across the map and without any loading screens. Between Skingrad and Valenwood is the blighted lands, where there are no trees, just corruption of life. It is such a hard transition from the new and vibrant forest, to the dead land that borders it, that it might stop you the first time you see it. Bordering around the map, at least to the north are the Colovian Highlands, which are full of rocks and hills. This is probably one of the most diverse lands that the series has offered, at least for me and I enjoyed exploring it.

One of the major additions to the game with this expansion is Scribing, where you can make up new spells and customise them to suit your own playstyle. This is not something you can do from level 1, there are some prerequisites to it, but for long time players, you will be able to really make the game your own. Scribing has a few set rules, the first and most important one is that each starting point requires a grimoire. This is a term used throughout many worlds of fantasy, referring to books of knowledge and that same fact is held here, you need a basis to build your scribing off and that won’t change. There are grimoires for Smash, Soul Burst, Shield Throw, Ulfsild’s Contingency and more and each of them are classed based on their use. Shield Throw for example is listed under the One hand and Shield skill line, so if you select that, then your scripts will start to tweak it from there. Scripts are things that you unlock over time and they are what modify the actual skill, so you can change your attack from a single target to multiple, then you can adjust more aspects like damage over time. Each time you make a change the cost of the use goes up, for a skill like Shield Throw, that will be stamina but for casting a spell it will be Magicka and working out what you can actually use will be something to consider. Something else to consider is that there are combinations you won’t be able to use, if you include a healing themed focus script, then you can’t include any damage effects in your signature script, as it would be counterintuitive to heal someone, then damage them.

With this system there is a lot of complexity to it, but the developers have done a solid job of providing a fairly simple interface, the combinations of things is where you can get complex. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with this system, purely because I am not a big customiser in games, I will do some, but I would rather play than worry about what my character looks like. While the scribing system is for making news spells, you can also now customise your existing ones, once they are levelled up enough and that means you can turn the colours around. Sure making all your spells yellow or purple might be cool, but it is just a colour effect change, not a change to the spells effects.

Something that is a bit of a change for me is that for this review I played on Xbox, which is not something I had done before. When the game first released, I got it on PC and I still have the original install discs. I played there for a bit, but when the One Tamriel update released, I reviewed that on PlayStation 4, as I was curious for how the console experience went. But apart from that, I have always played on PC, sometimes that was due to my experience with previews, but sometimes it was just how codes shook out. But this time I wanted to play the game on Xbox, as that is where I started my Elder Scrolls journey many years ago. I have to say that it played great, and just felt like I was playing Skyrim, but with more MMO elements on top of the action.

There were some issues though, on PC the game loads in behind the loading screens, you always see it happening along the sides of the screen. I just assumed it was a resolution thing and let it be, but it was happening with the Xbox release as well. All they would need to do is stretch the loading cover screen, and it would fix the issue, but that is just nitpicking. One issue I encountered numerous times, was that the interaction prompts were not aligned with their respective target. There were a number of times where I had to look to the side of a character to speak with them, or look above a door to open it. It wasn’t all the time, but it is something that annoyed me when it popped up, so it is something to be aware of.

I mentioned before about how visually nice the world of the West Weald was, alliteration not intentional there, but it is quite striking. The Elder Scrolls does have a look to it, no matter the game and what time it takes place in, you will be able to tell you are in that series. As I stated above, wandering through the streets of Skingrad brought back some memories, of course the city is quite different, but it still looked great. Being able to wander the streets and discover the shops felt wonderful, stepping out of the walled city and into fields and vineyards was also a delight. The newly grown forest also looks amazing, there were times when I was running around off the beaten track, only to find myself attacked by enemies, as the thickness of the brush hid them from me. The new enemy designs, more so the corrupted ones, do look great and Mirrormoor is a fun location, it may not be the best looking game around, but it is no slouch. As you might expect the game is full of music and as with all Elder Scrolls tracks, they are delightful. The voice acting is great and brings the world to life as always, but I did encounter a number of repeating lines, especially around Skingrad. It isn’t the biggest issue, but people would repeat the same lines until I cleared a story beat, then they would repeat the next and it just seems out of place.

I had a great time playing through The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, the main quest had some twists within it, which did keep me guessing and while not the strongest of endings, it was still enjoyable. The other quests you can pick up are varied and will give you more to do, but for long time fans the Scribing system is going to be the star. There is a lot of potential for it, and if you want to invest the time into it, you will surely be able to create spells that will make the game feel like its truly your adventure. For those coming in for the first time, there are some high bars to clear, if only because they don’t explain the story from Necrom in any detail, so there will be confusion around what exactly is going on. However if you are new or returning, Gold Road offers a lot to enjoy and adds another reason why you should play Elder Scrolls Online.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by Bethesda

The Pros

The West Weald feels like many different zones in one and its delightful to explore

The main story has more than enough twists that you won’t see how it shakes out…

The Cons

… It does require you to know the story of Necrom to really grasps the stakes though

There were many instances where the interact prompts were not aligned with the item or person in question