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The Elder Scrolls 6 Shouldn't Let a Big ESO Change Go to Waste

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1 minute ago

November 28, 2024

Major changes are expected to come with the arrival of The Elder Scrolls 6 after over a decade of Skyrim‘s enduring legacy, but the upcoming Bethesda RPG is likely to take influence from more than one popular entry in recent years. While it would be satisfying to see another province of Tamriel depicted in unprecedented detail alongside streamlined gameplay as the mainline series typically does, the impact of The Elder Scrolls Online practically featuring the entire continent and its deeper lore cannot be ignored. Now that ESO has found success in returning to the class-based structure of older TES titles and iterating on the system, The Elder Scrolls 6 should follow it by officially incorporating death magic as a player option.

The concept of a necromancer in the world of Tamriel is nothing new, but this has never truly been a designated option for the player to build into. Historically, what might be considered necromancy spells have been split across the likes of the Conjuration, Restoration, and Mysticism schools of magic in The Elder Scrolls, leaving it a disjointed build without much complementary synergy. After being given an entire class of its own in ESO, however, there is now a proper precedent for the strengths and weaknesses of introducing a playable necromancer into the series.

The Elder Scrolls 6 Should Be More Like TESO Than Skyrim In One Big Way

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The Elder Scrolls 6 should evolve with inspiration from TESO’s richer lore and immersive world, instead of its previous installment in this way.

How the Dynamic of a Minion-Based Playstyle Has Panned Out in ESO

Despite being promising in theory, the execution of the Necromancer class in The Elder Scrolls Online has been lackluster when it comes to the summoner archetype. With restricted durations on minions, it tends to fall short of the traditional appeal of raising an army of the dead and manipulating them from a distance. Regardless of these shortcomings, it still manages to stand out through versatility over raw effectiveness.

The Potential for Nuanced Subclasses

The biggest triumph of the class’ design in ESO is the flexible builds it can facilitate, which mainly venture outside summoning. While the Bone Tyrant skill line subverts tropes as a tanking-oriented character with defensive spells and health regeneration, Living Death revolves around healing magic in a support role. The Grave Lord Necromancer in The Elder Scrolls Online is the closest to a traditional minion focus, but even that skill line also focuses on damage-over-time in a display of how the Necromancer’s identity has room to be expanded on and refined.

Defining a Niche Among TES’ Schools of Magic

In order to be a welcome addition to the next mainline title, a Necromancer build would need to be handled with care in order to not contradict the existing classifications of magic in the series. The Mysticism school used to be related to spells like Soul Trap and Detect Life until it was eliminated and split among the other magic schools in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, leaving Conjuration as the closest label for death-related techniques as it stands. To avoid redundancy with these, necromancy spells like greater reanimation or health-draining could be used to enrich schools rather than forming a new one.

Commitment to Lore Requires Player Sacrifice

An element of the class which ESO acknowledges and is somewhat of an elephant in the room is the fact of necromancy’s taboo nature. Many of the school’s core spells are considered crimes if done out in public, and this isn’t inappropriate, given the morbid acts committed by The Elder Scrolls‘ strongest necromancers. Whether or not Bethesda wants to include a playstyle which could so easily lock the player out of being accepted by many NPCs remains unclear, but how the player’s use of magic will impact their reputation in TES6 will determine that.