The Elder Scrolls® Online

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 82%Very Positive · 82%2017

The verdict

A huge, lore-rich Elder Scrolls MMO that plays well as a solo story RPG, but it's heavily monetized (craft bag, season pass) and its future looks uncertain after layoffs. Skip it if you hate subscriptions and cash shops.

Great for

Elder Scrolls fans who want a huge, voiced, solo-friendly story RPG with optional group play

Main risk

Aggressive monetization: inventory and craft bag pushes you toward a subscription, plus DLC, season pass and cash shop

What changed in the last 30 days

120 recent reviews

Recent negatives cite the new season content feeling rushed, huge 100GB+ updates, login/server errors and worry after layoffs. Likely drivers, though not certain.

120 recent reviews

What players love

Great quests, story and lore

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“The quest writing is genuinely good — some of the best Elder Scrolls stories are buried in here.”
Steam review · 49.4 h played ↗

“Every quest is interesting and could be a whole story for a separate game.”
Steam review · translated · 4.5 h played ↗

“the main storyline is incredible”
Steam review · 10.6 h played ↗

Huge amount of content

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“There are literally thousands of hours worth of things to do.”
Steam review · 1956.2 h played ↗

“It's got so much content and stuff to do, it's kinda nuts.”
Steam review · 1992.9 h played ↗

“There's so much content that after 500 hours I still haven't finished all the DLC.”
Steam review · translated · 502.3 h played ↗

Works well as a solo, relaxed RPG

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews

“you choose if you want to play it as an immersive single player experience with NPC companions or a sprawling dynamic multiplayer world.”
Steam review · 31.6 h played ↗

“It just doesn't rush you. You can explore the world at your own pace.”
Steam review · translated · 22 h played ↗

“Try approaching it like a single player game”
Steam review · 105.6 h played ↗

Friendly, helpful community

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“Overall has a very kind and caring player base.”
Steam review · 10116.8 h played ↗

“most of the players are very very nice especially if you join guild, helpfull even we don't asked”
Steam review · 112.6 h played ↗

“The game is terribly addictive if a guild accepts you and you find cool friends there.”
Steam review · translated · 596.5 h played ↗

Good value and playable free

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“You can play 200–400 hours with free content alone if you don't want to pay for premium content.”
Steam review · 227.5 h played ↗

“the game has years of content to go through for $10”
Steam review · 5746.7 h played ↗

Freedom in builds and playstyle

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews

“Wanna be a Sorcerer with a battle axe? Sure! A Knight with a Staff? Go for it!”
Steam review · 110.2 h played ↗

“Your character can at any time equip a different weapon and use it”
Steam review · 6071.1 h played ↗

What players complain about

Predatory monetization and paywalls

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 negative reviews

“every little thing is monetized”
Steam review · 1624.1 h played ↗

“The game currently has: a premium shop, loot boxes, a premium account, expansions, DLC, and now a battle pass.”
Steam review · 2483.7 h played ↗

“Buy the game, buy expansions; even with the deluxe edition you can't access many locations.”
Steam review · translated · 61.2 h played ↗

Login errors, crashes and unstable servers

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“Either I'm stuck on an endless loading screen and can't log in at all”
Steam review · 823.8 h played ↗

“the amount of times I've had to redownload this game due to error messages and such is just insane.”
Steam review · 96 h played ↗

“now it crashes every 5 minutes.”
Steam review · 1 h played ↗

Craft bag and inventory locked behind ESO Plus

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“You get virtually zero inventory space without a subscription and that is one of the lowest most pathetic disgusting tactics these gross devs use.”
Steam review · 1067.6 h played ↗

“Otherwise 90% of the game is managing your inventory space.”
Steam review · 500.7 h played ↗

“Buying the game on its own is a total scam. You have no inventory space without the subscription.”
Steam review · 4.8 h played ↗

Combat feels clunky and shallow

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“It feels like I'm throwing paper airplanes at enemies”
Steam review · 16.8 h played ↗

“Combat feels wooden and overloaded with animation cancels.”
Steam review · translated · 363.8 h played ↗

“literally stand there and spam on a staff to shoot things. no need to dodge.”
Steam review · 2.1 h played ↗

Unbalanced PvP, lag and subclassing complaints

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews

“Lag is especially bad when fighting PVP ball groups which is common.”
Steam review · 1308.6 h played ↗

“ZOS can't do balance; every patch you have to rebuild your character.”
Steam review · translated · 986.4 h played ↗

Huge download plus launcher update

Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews

“Download 150gb on steam, launch the game, forced to download another 100gb.”
Steam review · 71.1 h played ↗

“To return to the game you must first download 150GB on Steam, then another 100GB.”
Steam review · translated · 138.1 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Verified

Minimum

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 2300 or AMD FX4350

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsDirect X 11.0 compliant video card with 1GB RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® 560 or AMD Radeon™ 6870)

Storage150 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 2300 or AMD FX4350

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsDirect X 11.0 compliant video card with 4GB of RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970 or AMD Radeon™ RX 570) or higher

Storage150 GB available space

OSWindows 10 64-bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 2300 or AMD FX4350

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsDirect X 11.0 compliant video card with 1GB RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® 560 or AMD Radeon™ 6870)

Storage150 GB available space

More games to check

Other games we’ve read the reviews for

See all →

New World: Aeternum

Mixed · 67%

+ Beautiful world and graphics

− Servers shutting down, game unplayable

analyzed 19 h ago

STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™

Very Positive · 89%

+ Excellent voiced class stories

− Login, verification and account recovery failures

analyzed 41 min ago

Black Desert

Mostly Positive · 75%

+ Best-in-class action combat

− Endless grind that feels like a job

analyzed 1 h ago

MapleStory

Mixed · 57%

+ Nostalgia and comfort

− Nexon greed and poor communication

analyzed 2 h ago

Weekly digest

Fresh games worth a look, in your inbox

The most interesting games we’ve just analyzed, once a week.Once a week we send the most interesting games we’ve just analyzed: the verdict, top pros and cons, and what changed. No spam.

One email a week · unsubscribe in one click