The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road

Keeping us engaged with the carat-and-stick approach

Unusually for TESO, the latest expansion picks up directly after – and links straight into – the events of the last one. Necrom’s story revealed that a forgotten Daedric Prince had been wiped from the memory of all existence, but was on the way back. It’s disappointing, then, that narratively speaking, the followup is less ‘diamond in the rough’, and more ‘fool’s gold’.

So closely are the stories intertwined that if you decided to skip Necrom, Gold Road’s main questline will feature characters, references, places, and events that will mean little to nothing to you. However, if you did join the wiggliest Prince and his assistant on their quest to preserve the fabric of reality, get ready for what might well be the series’ most anticlimactic end to a questline yet. And certainly don’t hold your breath for a clear explanation of exactly why this forgotten Prince is so dangerous.

That’s not to say that the new story is a complete write off. You come face to face with the new/old Prince, Ithelia, quite early in the questline. Initially she appears to be suffering from amnesia, and you then learn that her mind is in fact caught between realities. This then leads into what is, in fact, one of the most interesting ideas that TESO has yet played with.

GOLD OPEN