All Articles: The Elder Scrolls Online

Are you itching to get your hands on The Elder Scrolls Online? Well, you’re in luck. Today, Bethesda opened registration for the game’s beta test at ElderScrollsOnline.com.

“We’re really excited to get the game into players’ hands,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. “We receive invaluable feedback through the beta process, and that helps us ensure that the game will be one of the best online gaming experiences ever offered — one worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

The Elder Scrolls Online is scheduled to be released this year exclusively for the PC. The start date and duration of the beta test will be announced at a later date. Good luck to everyone who applies for a spot in the beta.

Game Informer‘s extensive coverage of The Elder Scolls Online continues with an in-depth interview with Game Director Matt Firor. During the chat, Firor drops a huge bombshell… even though The Elder Scolls Online is an MMO, it will include a “solo mode.” So to everyone that declared The Elder Scrolls Online “the end of the series as we know it,” you can relax.

Here’s what Firor had to say about solo mode:

“In the Elder Scrolls games you’re always the hero, whether you want to be or not. You go out there and you kill the dragons. You kill Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion. In Morrowind, you’re up there fighting the Tribunal – those are huge, global, epic things that you don’t want to stand in line to do in an MMO. The last thing you want to do is have the final confrontation with Mehrunes Dagon as he’s stomping across the Imperial City, and you see like 15 guys behind you waiting to kill him because they’re on the same quest.

We have a whole part of the game that is 100% solo, which is the main story, where the world focuses on you. You are the hero, everything you do is solo and the world reacts to you that way.”

This news certainly makes you wonder if Bethesda plans to sell a version of The Elder Scrolls Online without the “online” part.

“Salvation cannot come from one hero alone… but from many.”

Here’s the announcement trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda’s 2013 MMO re-envisioning of their massively popular RPG series. The teaser is a bit short on new information, but the game is still at least a year away.

The Internet consensus seems to believe that Michael Gambon (Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies) provides the trailer’s narration. However, to my ears it sounds like a Christopher Lee and Bill Nighy double team.

Maybe I need to get my hearing checked.

Bethesda Softworks today announced The Elder Scrolls Online, which will be the first Elder Scrolls game that allows players to explore the vast world of the Elder Scrolls with others in a massively multiplayer online setting. The game has been in development for the Mac and PC since 2007 by ZeniMax Online Studios, whose staff has worked on games like Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online, Star Wars: Galaxies, Ultima Online and The Sims Online.

Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online, states that his team has been “Working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends, something fans have long said they wanted.”

The world’s first look (including a teaser trailer and screenshots) at The Elder Scrolls Online will take place over at GameInformer.com throughout the month. As you can see to your left, the game has also been selected to grace the cover of the June issue of the mag (which will be shipped to subscribers on May 8).

Even ore information about the game will be available in the coming months, so to keep up with updates, check out the official Twitter account and Facebook page for the game, or the Bethesda forums, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Bethesda has given The Elder Scrolls Online a 2013 release date.