THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE 2025 REVIEW: SOMEHOW, MANNIMARCO RETURNED (AND HE BROUGHT A MIDLIFE CRISIS)
Ever wondered what would happen if your favorite long-running MMO finally gave you the direct story sequel you've been craving for years, but in the process, it also gave every single character an existential crisis and sent you a bill for the privilege? That's the story of The Elder Scrolls Online in 2025, a game that takes one glorious step forward and about five baffling steps sideways.
Finally, The Story Comes Home
Let's start with the one thing they got unequivocally right: the story. After years of self-contained chapters about some new world-ending threat that my character had no personal connection to, they've finally brought it back home. The new Solstice content is a direct continuation of the original main quest, bringing back the Worm Cult and the big bad, Mannimarco. For veteran players, this isn't just another DLC; it's a reward. It’s a validation of the time we’ve invested. Seeing familiar faces and plotlines pay off after a decade is incredibly satisfying. This is ZOS playing their greatest hits, and it’s a banger.
Solstice: A Beautiful but Brief Vacation
The new zone itself, Solstice, is gorgeous. The art team at ZOS never, ever misses. The landscapes are stunning, the architecture is evocative, and it feels like a genuine, new piece of Tamriel to explore. But that's the problem: you'll be done exploring it in about an evening. The island is tiny compared to previous Chapter zones, and the amount of content within it feels sparse. It’s a beautiful place to visit, but you won't be staying long, which makes the premium price tag feel even steeper.
The Subclassing Identity Crisis
Now, for the main event, the system that has fractured the community: subclassing. And let's call it what it is: multiclassing. Instead of giving existing classes new, unique specializations that build on their identity, they just threw every skill line into a blender and let us drink the resulting beige slurry. The goal, presumably, was to shake up the meta and encourage build diversity. The result is the exact opposite. Class identity is dead. The endgame has consolidated around a few hyper-optimized, mathematically "correct" builds. Being a Nightblade or a Sorcerer used to mean something; now it feels more like a cosmetic choice before you slap on the same three "best" skill lines as everyone else.
The Power Creep Apocalypse
A direct consequence of this half-baked subclassing system is a power creep so massive it's broken the game's back. Player damage has skyrocketed from around 120k DPS to upwards of 160k+. What does that mean in practice? It means years of content—dungeons, trials, arenas—that were once challenging endgame pursuits are now trivial. They've been rendered completely obsolete, a speedbump on the way to the new, unbalanced hotness. Your old, hard-earned gear sets might as well be vendor trash. It’s a slap in the face to anyone who put in the work to master the old systems.
The Content Pass: Paying More for Less
Compounding all these issues is the new business model. The straightforward Chapter model is gone, replaced by a pricier "Content Pass." We are being asked to pay more money this year for significantly less content. You get a tiny zone, a short story, and that's about it. No new companions, no fun side systems like the card game or antiquities from previous years. It feels like a blatant cash grab, a way to drip-feed paltry amounts of content to keep the player metrics looking good for the quarterly earnings call.
The Crown Store's Unending Greed
The new model is insulting, but it's just a new coat of paint on the same old rotten foundation. The Crown Store remains a masterclass in predatory monetization. The ESO+ subscription, with its "bonus" Craft Bag for unlimited material storage, still feels less like a premium feature and more like a ransom note. Without it, your inventory is full every five minutes, making crafting an exercise in pure agony. They monetize everything from character customization slots to shortcutting the skyshard grind, all while selling digital houses for over $100.
A Lonely World Full of Strangers
For an MMO, the multiplayer experience is often shockingly bad. Try to do a dungeon quest for the first time, and you’ll be dragged along by speedrunners in a mad dash for daily rewards, skipping every boss and conversation. You'll get fake tanks and healers in your group who queued for the faster wait times, leaving you to die repeatedly. And PvP? Cyrodiil is a laggy, unbalanced slideshow where gear and exploits trump skill every time. It’s less a game and more a frustration simulator.
The Tamriel Tour: A Beautiful, Boring Walk in the Park
Finally, the game's oldest and most fundamental problem persists: the overland content is pathetically easy. The quests tell epic stories of world-ending threats, but the gameplay makes you feel like an unkillable god swatting at flies. There's a massive, jarring disconnect between the narrative stakes and the complete lack of gameplay challenge, which can make the thousands of hours of questing feel like a beautiful but mind-numbingly boring chore.
The Verdict
The Elder Scrolls Online in 2025 is a beautiful, sprawling, frustrating, and ambitious beast. It offers one of the best solo RPG experiences on the market, now bolstered by a story that finally respects its veterans. However, that brilliance is clouded by a controversial class system, a cynical business model, and a host of legacy problems that the developers seem unwilling or unable to fix. There is so much to love here, but you have to be willing to navigate a minefield of questionable decisions to get to it.
Score: 6.4/10 - A triumphant story in a house that's still desperately in need of renovation.
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.
#GiftedbyBethesda