All Elder Scrolls Games Ranked from Worst to Best

BLG writes: "There are few franchises as venerable as the Elder Scrolls. Today, we’re going to be ranking all Elder Scrolls games from worst to best. Debuting in 1994, the Elder Scrolls has blessed gamers with some of the best titles in the history of gaming. It’s been a long, long wait since the most recent release, aside from Elder Scrolls Online expansions. To help with that long wait, we’re taking a trip down memory lane."

[lellkay]

Fun read

[Flawlessmic]

Oblivion 👌

[isarai]

Still my favorite in the series

[Sayai jin]

Those Oblivion gates were epic. Can't wait to see what Bethesda takes the ES series.

[jarek98]

For me Oblivion was definitely at the BOTTOM of the top-3 list. The main reason: enemy scaling, which removed any incentive to level up your character. I managed to finish the main story on 5th or 6th level (despite completing some side-stories along the way, including all arena fights, on a single sitting ;-)). Also, I don't like games when I start as a "hero" from the very beginning, without any effort from my part.

[slowgamer]

Yeah it's quite annoying that you mostly always are some champion, chosen one in aaa rpgs after the tutorial.
And you basically can still lose to rats or whatever mudcrabs

[ChubbyBlade]

I don’t think you know what the chosen one trope is. It doesn’t mean you just obliterate everything from the start. That’s the end goal/prophecy. You’re still a regular person until your character is built up. It’s not an instant win button.

[Tacoboto]

You completed the game in one sitting? And here I spent 100+ hours in it...

[jarek98]

Not the whole game, sorry :-). Only all of the "arena fights" side-story...

[CrimsonIdol]

Yup. The broken enemy and loot levelling was by far its biggest crime. One moment every 2 bit bandit has leather armour, you level up one more time and you'll go from never having seen glass armour to suddenly swimming in it. And that entry level quest you finally got around to playing 15 levels later, well every rat has been replaced by daedroths and you'll never see a low level enemy again.

Also the samey dungeons with generic levelled loot in em. Really killed exploration for me. You're never going to get anything good, ever, unless your level permits you to.

Having said that a lot of this can be mitigated with mods now and doing so the game can feel top tier again.

[esherwood]

I agree scaling ruins games for me. One of the funnest things is the first time encountering a high level boss and getting smoked only to come back later for revenge. It just makes the hamster wheel that much more obvious

[Inverno]

I hate Oblivion so much I bought it again last year during a steam sale. And I do mean hate, but damn do I love that game also. There's so much frustration and wonkyness to it, but there's so much more to enjoy. Theres no game I've started from the beginning over and over as much as Oblivion.

[Deathdeliverer]

For me the freedom of Morrowind is everything. Oblivion definitely stripped it down tremendously, but you could still see a glimmer of what the freedom was. What was this freedom?
In Morrowind you could create ANY spell you wanted. When I say any, I mean ANY provided you had the 1) some version of the spell/effect you wanted and 2) the mana to cast it.
When I got to a point where I first realized the potential of this capturing monsters in crystals and using them for creation I started the game over. Made a character strictly magic and focused on increasing mana. What did redoing all those hours of gameplay get me?
Well I created a spell that, on touch, would cause the person touched to be inflicted by frenzy. Frenzy causes the enemy to go crazy attacking everything BUT me. So that lasted for around 30 seconds. This person was also poisoned, took a chunk of fire damage, lightning damage, and frost damage, and takes damage from all of them over time for a few seconds. The real kicker though is it caused an AOE at around a 15-30ft radius. ANYTHING hit by the AOE had it all activate on them. Anyone in the radius of that thing chained along and along.
I could only cast this spell ONCE. Cleaned my magic bar out. First time I used it in a city it was absolute bedlam. Screen paused for a few seconds. To the point I thought it froze. When that pause ended guards were fighting guards, people in the streets fighting to the death, killing someone then running to fight whoever was in sight. Then, suddenly everyone comes to their senses. Guards put there weapons away, fist dropped, routines started again. I walked past the many dead in the street and spoke to the guard that responds, “ Good day Citizen.”
Don’t even get me started on flight, breathing under water, making people float for 10 seconds wayyyy up and then when the effect ends…. GG.
Man that game was legendary.
Hopefully that gives a glimpse as to why anything after it was disappointing.

[isarai]

I super agree that morrowind offered more freedom. And options, but the technical limitations just make it hard for me to go back and enjoy it as much as i can Oblivion. Kudos to those that can, i just cant. Im hoping ES7 brings back some things that were stripped, but i doubt it.

[Sayai jin]

Morrowind brought me to the ES series and I have never looked back. I played the first games on consoles, but when I wasn't deployed I replayed them with full on mods on PC...235 mods just on Skyrim. If you have never played their games with full mod support, give it a try if you can.

[jznrpg]

I played Skyrim and Oblivion and beat them both but they were letdowns in the end .

[babadivad]

Morrowind brought me in. Just the open nature and freedom of that game was something I had never experienced before in a game. It was a true sandbox with very little limits on player restriction.

Oblivion went tightened things up for a more mainstream appeal. Still fairly customizable but a lot less rough around the edges. I put the most time into this game.

Skyrim is where the series lost me.

[jznrpg]

Also it didn’t have quest arrows which I loved , acrobatics , athletics , levitating in the wizard spires was awesome . Just a good game and story too. I was hoping they built on that formula but like you said , they stripped it down and made it casual friendly and it hurt what could have been one of the best series ever to a good selling series but a shell of what it was and and nowhere close to what it could have been .

[jznrpg]

Morrowind hands down then downhill from there to a Mass market semi casual game

[P_Bomb]

Currently playing Skyrim for the first time. I know I know lol, but better late than never!

[frostypants]

The Daggerfall map was/is so, so huge. Stupidly, insanely huge. Yeah it is the product of procedural generation, but goddamn...it's monsterous. As in 15,000 locations and the size of Great Britain big. I don't think it would be humanly possible to "100%" that game by modern standards.

I'd love to see a current gen take on that design approach.

[il-JumperMT]

any list that ranks oblivion high is invalid and any lists that doesnt have morrowind number 1 is beyond invald