The Elder Scrolls is an example of one of those rare franchises that actually improves with every installment- more or less. While there’s a case to be made for the argument that Morrowind remains the best in the series, there’s also no denying that with the subsequent Oblivion and the following Skyrim, Bethesda made some much needed changes and improvements to the series’ formula, which had already been radically improved over Daggerfall with the third game in the series.
But, of course, Skyrim wasn’t a perfect game, and there is much that the series needs to continue improving greatly with future installments. What might those things be? Well, for one, the most obvious choice would be the technical department. Bethesda games are notorious for being bug-ridden and technically backwards in many respects, and as the recent controversy regarding Mass Effect: Andromeda has shown, we no longer live in a world where game developers can get away with that sort of thing. We know expecting a completely glitch-free open world game is a bit unreasonable, but when you look at games such as the recently released Horizon: Zero Dawn, you realize that making an large, expansive game that is also technically proficient isn’t that much of an impossible task.
Another area that needs improvement in a potential sequel to Skyrim is quest structure, and the choice and consequence scenarios that come with it. Although story is a focus of The Elder Scrolls games, you play the games to get lost in their immersive game worlds and soak in all the incredible lore. But a tighter focus on a well written story would serve the game very well, and that comes only with a better quest structure rather than having a number of fetch quests or “go there and kill that” quests thrown your way. Maybe add a little more weight to the choices players make, and actually make those choices count in how the story, the game’s world and the gameplay itself unravel.
And, of course, there’s the age old issue of dungeon design in The Elder Scrolls. Admittedly, dungeons in Skyrim were significantly better than what we received in preceding games, but when you look at the bland and linear quality of dungeons in Skyrim itself, you begin to understand how low the standards in this particular area are for the series. We’re not expecting The Legend of Zelda-level dungeon design in a future Elder Scrolls installment, but maybe something that is more than just mediocre at best and bland at worst? It would really go a long way.
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