The Next Elder Scrolls Game (discussion)

Like many, many people, I’ve played a lot of Skyrim. And then watched as it got repackaged and released for various new consoles (next gen consoles, the Switch etc). And waited for the next Elder Scrolls game. And waited.

Skyrim came out in 2011 and there’s seemingly no prospect of the next Elder Scrolls game coming out this year, so it’ll probably be an eight year gap at best. Oblivion, the previous entry, came out in 2006/7 (latter year for the PS3).

I enjoyed both Oblivion and Skyrim a lot, but must admit I’m wondering if the next Elder Scrolls game will stand up against the competition. Videogame franchises can decline either due to making poor changes, or standing still whilst the industry moves past them.

Plenty of new RPGs have come out since Skyrim. Many of them have had a strong focus on your choices making significant changes to the world (in Skyrim, the only real choice is in the civil war, with the Dawnguard expansion choice of good/evil, although both choices have similar paths).

The Witcher 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance are particularly good in this regard, as is Pillars of Eternity. When we look at the most recent Bethesda RPG (Fallout 4) I think it surprised on the upside when it came to companions, but there was, again, a lack of significant choice. Most quests were simply run on train tracks rather than presenting serious options that changed things in-game.

It is worth pointing out that there is no single way to make a good RPG. Games might emphasise realism/survival heavily, as per KCD, but The Witcher 3 takes a more traditional/softer/easier approach to this aspect. Both styles work perfectly well. However, the old style of quests, where almost all of them (including major storyline quests) have one outcome and no player input beyond jumping through hoops is beginning to feel as outdated as fetch quests.

A good example of how this could’ve been different in Skyrim would be the Thieves Guild. At no point can you destroy this, or report it to the authorities. You *can* do this with the Dark Brotherhood, although that isn’t flagged up so most people were never aware it was even a possibility. And the same opportunity (reporting werewolves to the authorities, for example) isn’t possible elsewhere either. You can’t side with the Thalmor, even if you’re a high elf.

Now, it might sound like I’m having a go at Skyrim. I have sunk a lot of time into it and really like the game. But if the next entry doesn’t make some changes it’ll suffer by way of comparison with recent RPG entries, many of which are really rather good.

I do have some optimism. The settlement system is overdone in Fallout 4, but the bones of the idea are sound. And imagine it in Elder Scrolls VI. It’d be building your own castles, and that sounds fantastic, if they take the good ideas from Fallout 4 and remove the repetition, giving us fewer but larger sites.

Likewise, the companions improved substantially from Skyrim to Fallout 4, from a huge number of people with little character to a smaller number who were much more individual and had more depth. Continuing that pattern for the next Elder Scrolls would be another good, and obvious, step.

However, the key for me is choice in quests. And not just X or Y which alters nothing (yes, Redguard woman in Whiterun, I’m talking about you), but a choice that makes a meaningful impact upon the world and/or my character. If I piss off a local lord, that should have consequences beyond a line of dialogue.

The next Elder Scrolls game will sell like hotcakes regardless of whether this change comes about. But in the long term, Bethesda can’t just rely on churning out the same game when we’re seeing others make more interesting RPGs that actually allow the player to make choices that affect their game.

Thaddeus

The Mass Effect of social media

We do things to ourselves we would never tolerate being imposed on us by others.

In 1984, the famous dystopian sci-fi novel, the Party has a television in every home. It’s two way, recording everything that is said, watching everything that is done. It’s always connected to some far off, unseen Party official, and able to chastise a citizen who is not keeping up with the Party’s official fitness programme (for example). But it doesn’t laugh like a witch, to be fair.

[Spoilers for the first three Mass Effect games follow].

The Mass Effect Trilogy* is a fantastic set of sci-fi games set a few hundred years in the future. Humanity has risen to the stars, and encountered numerous alien races. In this galaxy, the equivalent of a Galactic UN resides upon the Citadel, a space station discovered long ago (having been mysteriously abandoned). The Citadel sits at the heart of a Mass relay network, each Mass relay enabling immensely fast travel between two points.

It’s a trap. The discovery of the Mass relay network dissuades advanced races from developing their own faster than light capabilities, because they already have a system that works perfectly well. The Citadel space station being at the centre of the network, as well as being very sizeable and perfect for settlement, naturally makes it the seat of an inter-governmental organisation.

Advanced races are unwittingly funnelled into a pre-determined course of action. They’re surrendering their freedom to choose their own fate and develop in their own way because of the gifts they’ve been given, without realising there’s even a giver.

In the vast chasm between galaxies, a race of sentient machines known as the Reapers live. Once every age, they return to devastate the advanced races of the galaxy before they reach a stage where they might be a threat to the Reapers. The Citadel can be remotely controlled by the Reapers, and used to destroy the seat of galactic government. Lack of stand-alone faster-than-light travel capabilities means civilisations develop along the Mass relay network and can be readily obliterated. The path of civilisation occurs along lines laid down ages ago, in a repeated cycle of growth and destruction.

The funnelling effect (although, happily, not the mass extinction at the hands of heartless sentient machines) is something we’re seeing now in social media. The internet is becoming more and more consolidated, certainly in social media terms, in the hands of fewer and more powerful firms. Algorithms are used to massage/manipulate what stories get more coverage. Users can be shadowbanned so their messages don’t show up, without even realising it.

We’re collectively empowering these social media firms and limiting our own freedom to discover news free from the filter that such sites (must necessarily) impose. This is, perhaps, to be expected. Human history has seen a shift throughout the ages whereby the many villagers migrate to the few cities. There are advantages in scale to being a member of a large, rather than a small, community (just ask on Twitter if someone knows something, and you’ve got a decent chance of getting the answer).

But with social media there is also a significant downside. Such sites must have the right and ability to expel those who are troublesome. They are not free from laws forbidding, for example, the sharing of state secrets. And that requires punitive action to be taken. The problem is that, because they’re social media, this can extend to silencing the troublesome who have unorthodox/challenging opinions. Deciding where to draw the line in such cases is not easy. But drawing it wrong can stifle debate, even if said social media firm has no agenda of its own (and some clearly do).

You cannot like a comment if you never see it. And if the algorithm decides an unorthodox opinion is wrong and harmful, see it you shall not.

Social media is incredibly useful, and it’s here to stay. But I would strongly advocate not relying solely upon it (particularly a single firm) for news. Because doing so is to put blinkers on yourself, not even knowing what the filters are preventing you from seeing.

Thaddeus

*There is a fourth game, which I haven’t played, and the first three do form a single overarching story.