Elder Scrolls: 6 Hardest Games, Ranked
The Elder Scrolls series is full of amazing stories and great games, but they are surprisingly different in how hard they are to play.
The past of the Elder Scrolls series is, to put it bluntly, weird. Even though the major franchise has been going for 30 years, there have only been a small number of games made for it. But one thing that has always been a part of the series is the chance that players will run into big problems as they explore some parts of the huge world of Tamriel.
From the early Arena and Daggerfall games, which are almost forgotten now, to the great heights of Morrowind and Oblivion, and finally to Skyrim, which was a huge hit, the Elder Scrolls series has been through a lot of problems. But there are some games in the series that are a step above the rest because they have inspired so many other games in the same style.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Skyrim was such a huge hit because it was easy for anyone to play. It wasn’t too hard. There are ways to make it harder, but Skyrim isn’t nearly as hard as any of the other big Elder Scrolls games. From the start, there is a decent tutorial with some challenge, but there is so much to do in the early stages that help players level up before they have to fight bigger battles.
Players in the Skyrim community are known for changing the game to make it harder in different ways. Later, Bethesda added new modes like Survival to other versions of the game to give players new ways to play. Skyrim is the easiest game overall, but that hasn’t stopped people from playing it again and again.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Another easy entry is the famous Elder Scrolls game Oblivion, which got so much love and success because it built a world and told a story that people cared about more than the fighting. Even though most people think that Oblivion is harder than Skyrim, it is still easier than most of the games that came before it.
Oblivion kept its level of difficulty pretty consistent, which helped a lot with keeping players interested as they went on their adventure. Oblivion was an amazing journey, and many fans still think it’s the best of the series. However, it wasn’t as hard as the early RPGs that came before it.
An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire
Battlespire came out in 1997 as a weaker game in the series after Arena and Daggerfall did well. It was set in the training center for battle mages soon after it was destroyed by Mehrunes Dagon’s army. The player character, a witch who is on their last day of tests when the army comes and kills most of the people, had to deal with this Daedric force.
Battlespire wasn’t a very long game, but it was hard. In contrast to the previous main games in the series, there was no gold to collect and no one to buy anything from. The enemies were spread out randomly across the map, and they were tough to fight, so it wasn’t too easy or too hard.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
When Daggerfall came out in 1996, it was an older type of action RPG, which was a much tougher challenge for players than the newer versions of Tamriel. The dungeons in Geometry Dash World had different levels of difficulty, but some, like the first one, were huge and confusing.
In older games like Daggerfall, players have to grind more to get to higher levels and take on bigger tasks than they do in newer games. This challenge, or trying to win some of the game’s bigger fights without doing this work first, is much more likely to make players give up on the game than the more recent Elder Scrolls games.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Even though many fans of the Elder Scrolls series haven’t played the first two games or learned more about the series’ past, most fans of the series probably agree that Morrowind is the hardest of the three. At times, this game’s task is huge. Fans of Skyrim and Oblivion will be able to tell right away that it’s in the same style as those games.
The reason Morrowind is so hard is because fighting enemies is so hard all the way through. Morrowind’s open-world design, on the other hand, lets players level up faster than in previous games in the series. This gives players more time to get stronger before going into bigger fights. Still, Morrowind’s story is one of the best in any Elder Scrolls game.
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
Interestingly, the original Elder Scrolls game is still the hardest one in the series. Arena was full of challenges, some of which came from the fact that the game wasn’t finished and was based on a unique idea from a company that had mostly made sports games instead of large-scale RPGs before. The game’s rules for moving and fighting weren’t as good as they should have been, so players, especially those who play it today, find it very difficult.
Even with a well-built character, it can be hard for players to get out of the early places, and the difficulty doesn’t go away once they start leveling up. Even after players figure out how to play, it’s easy for sneaky enemies to kill them from behind because it takes so long to turn around. When Arena came out, players found it hard, and if they compare it to games made today, they find it even harder now.
