The Elder Scrolls: Blades Reviews

by Would Be

This game has been busted since it was released and for many reasons. The combat has never worked and combat is the center point of the game. Enemies can stun you with their shield no matter how early they block. Which doesn’t work for the player. What’s the point of having a versatile weapon if it swings as slow as the heavy weapons. No weapon swings fast enough to hit the enemy before they bring up their shield. You can’t play offensively because the enemy will just stun lock you. They haven’t been adding more quests. All they have added is rooms filled with a bunch of enemies and change their vulnerabilities/strengths and call it a new quest. There haven’t been unique quests added since launch. And even playing more than one of the new quest types means you have to completely change your play style. Which would be fine if that just meant you change your control of your character. But it doesn’t. It forces you to have completely different sets of equipment. Not everyone wants to grind their life away playing the game. Some just want to hop on and play a little without feeling like there is nothing available unless they grind. The enchanting system doesn’t always enchant according to the stated stats. The town leveling up system doesn’t let you level up at the tail end of level nine. Players commonly have to scrap buildings and rebuild over and over again to continue. The most scarce material for building is copper and they won’t let you buy it with gems.

by 41029110000

This game has great potential but it’s not there yet , I have been playing a couple of days now and I’ve noticed that it’s very hard to continue with out paying money as far as graphics go it’s wonderful but it still lags and glitches a lot , the thing that bothers me is that I was on a level that 4/5 skill and that’s not that hard but I killed 4 troll who had hit/attacked a lot more than the last but even though I have a full bar of health I some how die from two hits?, not to mention almost every time I tried to hit a button to use my magic or my abilities it wouldn’t let me , the game has so much potential but what bothers me is you have to pay to win .

The features I wish they would add are some of the simple ones that I think would make a really big difference and let the player enjoy the game more , like being able to carry around food that would be awesome one level I only had two things to eat and ultimately ended up losing , I wish you could find more building materials sometimes if I’m luck I could get like 3 maybe 4 on a quest or job , I also feel they could maybe allow followers that would be cool but this game has a lot of potential.

Thanks for making a game like this for the phone but I hope to see you improve it in the future I wouldn’t mind if you had to pay like 10 bucks for a full game like Skyrim kinda rather than pay like 100+ to get what I need to complete a level then ultimately pay more plus some in the future.

by SLAAAAAAYYYYYYEEEERRRR

First off I just want to say that I’m a huge fan of Bethesda I played my far share of there games fallout elder scrolls and others games but when it comes to mobile games I’m not really happy with I got out of this game when I first got or shall I say launched of TheElderScrolls Store I could hardly even log in but years later here I am finally able to play this game and let me tell you the game is fun really fun and at time a at lest to me it kinda feels like I’m actually playing it on Xbox and I get a reality check ever once in a while haha but back on track there’s lots of good things about this games but there is a lot of bad things whit this game as well for example the dungeons are fantastic the amount of detail and graphics in to them are awesome and the combat can get a little bit frustrating but there are way to spice it up and some of the quest are responsible at a certain level I could go on abut what makes the game good but I must point out what makes me give this game a three star instead of a five star for example some of the quest you’ll find your self doing can be quit repetitive at time and the pieces in the shop is absolutely ridiculous and I’m not sure if this has happened to other people but I’ll be in the middle of a quest and out of the middle of now where TheElderScrolls kicks me losing Avery thing I worked for now I’m I telling to completely stay away form this game no but the game definitely need improvements

by Brefhjgcgjjj

I’m a huge fan of elder scrolls, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw this game available. I waited to play the game some before giving it a review.
Firstly the controls lag here and there throughout the game which can get pretty frustrating. Like when I break a pot and go to collect the stuff, when I tap on it, it makes me walk away. So I’m constantly having to go back to collect it. Second when I am fighting a enemy, it lags to strike sometimes, therefore I take hits and then end up dying. Third thing that is annoying in the game is the job posting. The main story line requires a certain level & 9/10 you’re not going to be at that level, so there’s job postings that you can complete to level up, so you can do the story line. The problem is the job posted are higher than your character’s level also, and you rarely ever get a job posting that is you characters level to complete it. So therefore you come to basically a stand still in the game. You can’t level up because you can hardly get jobs that are your characters level and you can’t complete the main story line because your character isn’t strong enough. The good things though in this game, it is easy to get gems and I guess you could slowly level up by doing the abyss tower. But it would be better if you would actually get jobs that are in your level of area more often.

by Defcon106

This game is actually pretty good and very pretty. The combat is actually a little less clunky than Skyrim somehow, but also really slow. I know it’s a mobile game so I’m willing to forgive that, but you can’t move while you fight, which I don’t fully understand. The reason I’m only giving this 3 stars is the network issues. You’d think that Bethesda would have learned from fallout 76 that a always connected game is garbage, but it is mobile and therefore a cash grab. They always want to offer you things in the store, even during single player quests, so you always have to be connected. I have a few spots I like to play games that don’t have the best connection, like the subway and I can’t play this one at all. I miss my gameboy, where the whole game was right there to play and enjoy, we just don’t get that anymore because of online shops. It’s just sad because this could be a really fun game, but I’ll probably get bored with all the waiting for loading so I’m probably not going to bother spending anything on it. All the stuff you buy is just for materials and gear that you could get from rewards for the quests, but you can’t do the quests unless you have a great connection. I even got dropped from a quest because of a weak connection and lost 5 gems (the premium currency). Give me an offline mode and I’ll probably continue playing. At least there are no ads.

by Robbenn69

This is an incredible and unique game. It is the only first person shooter but with swords, battle axes, and maces I have ever come across. The storyline is interesting and the graphics are awesome. I love that you have a town you can rebuild. Now for the bad: I have played RPGs my whole life, especially D&D. This is nothing like that. For one, you are alone. When in combat or in a quest, you do not heal unless to have about 50 healing potions (5 or 10 is not enough), or can find rare scraps of food. There are no classes, like ranger, cleric, paladin, mage, etc. So, you are on your own and have almost no way to heal and will meet tough adversaries as you get higher in level and will lose. I am at level 28 and don’t know how I made it this far. Leveling is literally a slow painful process. You can’t dodge, all you can do is block and attack, and every attack must be a critical one, no other option. I think it is more geared to the very UNFAIR PvP arena, where you will be pitted against very much stronger, higher level players (you lose) or pitifully weak, lower level players (easy win). Whether you succeed or fail depends on luck of the draw and how fast you can hit. Forget spells and potions and abilities, they just slow you down while your opponent pummel you into the ground. A most frustrating game which is too bad because it is the only one of its kind. Don’t play this game unless you like to constantly lose.

by Brindlehund

I am at level 36, so have spent time and money on this game. It is fun and frustrating. Game play is good, I like the way you can combine spells and weapons play. Graphics are beautiful. It is worth just looking around in the game. The money pit is subtle. It is hard to find or buy the ingredients for health potions and they are rare in chests. Healing skills are not easy to use, and unless you only do easy quests and jobs, you will need health potions, lots of them. Many jobs are over your level. With health potions you can tackle them, but without them you can only handle the lower level jobs. At this point, I have spent serious money on the game and still have a stack of jobs too difficult for my character. You can buy missing ingredients with gems and you can buy gems with real money. You will eventually have to spend money, lots of it, to challenge yourself. A smaller frustration is you cannot use even high level two handed weapons on enemies near your level. Neither the two handed weapon, nor your spells will offer sufficient defense. Another frustration is the merchants never seem to have enough gold to buy the loot you don’t need, and if you sell low level supplies, you will have a really tough time finding them later on. This means you need a large pack. You can increase your pack size with skill points or gems. You will get a few gems in the game, but not as many as you need. Best phone game around, but expensive.

by Voltergeist97

{Spoiler Alert}

[Almost There]

If I could address your character as something other than the Blade, it would ‘The Problem Solver’; as you do almost everything to rebuild the town, Rivercrest. This game is fun for those who have played previous Elder Scrolls games and doesn’t have the time or means to play the Online Game. I’m not bashing ESO, it’s just the WiFi in my area makes it difficult as well as my personal unwillingness to meet stranger players online. As for this game, I find it best to play with a portable charger plugged into my phone. The game does consume the battery; but so does other great app games. Like other great app games, the developers improve the software overtime. I remember when I had to wait hours to have a Silver or Gold Chest unlocked. Now, it opens in an instant. My only complaint is the lack of Archery. Of course, you don’t use a bow to fight someone standing right in front of you. My suggestion for combat would be that you get an alert when an opponent sees you, which gives you the option to shoot one arrow the opponent as they approach you (which would weaken them before combat starts). If Archery is deemed impossible for the game, then perhaps instead you get a window of opportunity to cast an aggressive spell at the opponent or a defensive spell on yourself as a ‘prebuff’. Anyway, I give this game four out of five stars because I like to think this game has room for improvement.

by Kondache

Hey there! I just wanted to say great job on this game! It is really fun and I love playing it! I love how you can build and create the town and interact with the people! It makes me happy to know it has the Skyrim feel too it. There are just a few things that are missing I feel like. I love Skyrim and am a big fan, but Blades is just missing the free roaming style to it. It gets kind of annoying sometimes doing the quests and seeing the same scenery or same cave each time. I want to roam and explore! Also I noticed that all the enemies are friends to each other except for the main character. Like seeing bears chillin next to goblins just seems weird ya know? I feel like the goblins would typically avoid the bears or at least fight back? And vice versa. Also I’m starting to notice that even on level easy quests, the bosses all of a sudden can kill you in like 3 hits! What’s up with that! And then you have to use a scroll of revive or pay 25 gems. I’m starting to feel it’s a little cheap on that part and I don’t want to have to pay for gems all the time. My only requests are that you notice some of those tings and fix them please and then maybe make the game more free roaming. Add more freedom to it like the other Elder Scrolls games and I think you would find more customers and attention to your game because the fans would find it more enjoyable! Thanks so much!

by Jrkgamr

Movement is terrible and frustrating. Once you can figure out how to do it with the least confusion/running past things you need to pick up/into multiple enemies aggroing them simultaneously it’s ok tho. Difficulty rating is weird, I held off on a 5 skull quest for a long time Bc I wasn’t close to recommended level then I just did it and breezed through it 3 levels below rec. then I got a three skull quest after and just got annihilated over and over again. Sometimes you aggro a wisp/wolf/spider/skeever type enemy the wrong way and you just get stuck and have to die and restart Bc there’s no way to hit it. Not as customizable as I like. For instance if I really like the look of the full steel armor set a maxed out tempered steel set isn’t as good as lowest tier quicksilver or ebony or whatever wish the gap was bridged a bit better with that stuff. I love sword and board seems like two handed is op tho in certain situations like most Bethesda games. Wouldn’t scale back the two handed stuff but maybe give shield stuff couple more unique reasons to use them here and there. Also when you finish a quest you used to be able to explore, grab the chests and items you missed or still need to get them go back to the quest interface and click complete quest. That complete quest option has disappeared and you have to abandon now, I don’t know if you still get the rewards when you do this. Otherwise a very fun game.

by CptSteampunk

So far, I’m really enjoying this game. The combat is unique, way different from what I would have ever expected. It’s a really good surprise. I like the combat a lot, and since this is a mobile game, it makes it easy to use, so it’s not overwhelming you just trying to get one hit in like some other games I have played. Story isn’t too engaging just yet, but I’m only level 9 as of writing this. The chest unlocking feature, I’ve seen this a lot and I quite frankly enjoy opening silver chests, since they’re worth they hour long wait. Gold chests are also exciting to open. Wooden chests almost always have resources I badly need to build up my town. When I get new items, I’m actually just constantly checking if stuff gets easier so I can have more of a challenge, and progress in this good game. Building up a town to unlock missions is a way to make you prepared for other missions and an easy way to add new characters into the story, so as you develop your city, so does the story. This is a great idea, glad you did it. Great mobile game, easy to learn how to play and what you do, and it’s really fun. Okay, a big thing that I think can change is the quest system. So far it’s just repeating the same thing, but in different areas for slightly different reasons, over and over for progress in the game. I guess that’s not so bad, so keep up the good work.

by Migauperpie

Love this game. Totally different in my opinion than Skyrim. The combat system is the most unique I’ve ever encountered, it’s fluid and fast paced, which makes it feel realistic. Everything else in the game is ok. The ISSUE(a) is the pvp system for whatever reason took a nose dive after beta. I can’t find a matchup to save my life, and having to sit and wait for the system to find a match is straight up torture.. especially since it started taking 10 mins + of staring at the screen to book a fight (post beta). The store is expensive...the most I’ve seen in terms of what you spend vs what you get. It’s completely unbalanced. The last thing I’d say as a negative for myself personally would be. I completed the entire story line months ago, all I have left are daily quests.. which are generally trash.. there’s a total lack of variety in the level appearances, creatures, etc.. it gets real old real fast once you’ve completed the story line. About the ONLY thing this game updates pretty regularly is the pay store items and “bargains”. My advice would be don’t invest your money progressing in a game that runs out of content.. other than that this game is great.. you have to try this game for the combat system though, it’s really fantastic! Looking forward to getting some new stuff from the DEVELOPERS one of these days!! I’d love to love this game again!

by The Kid With The Hat

I think its fun and it's got potential. Obviously right now there's not a lot of variety and some parts are pretty unbalanced, but it looks beautiful and reminds me of the console games without just trying to copy them (although i was a little sad the bears weren't tougher). I think y'all did a great job so far, and here's just a few more specific suggestions I hope y'all consider:

1. Quick weapon/shield swap button in combat. Considering the dungeons currently consist entirely of walking up to enemies and fighting them one on one, the fact that in challenging missions you often need to open up the menu to optimize your loadout for every other battle is kind of a pain. Eg, the way most crypt levels are all wights and skeletons, which have the exact opposite resistance/weakness. Does it remind me of the console games? Yeah. Is it still annoying? Yeah. A button in the corner to quick swap your loadout would be awesome.

2. Library or something. I'm sure y'all are working on lots more buildings already, but i'd just like to suggest that one hold the information on enemy weaknesses, resistances, abilities etc. It's just confusing to try to remember the tips. You could even make it quest based, like the researcher guy says go kill 10 wights and he'll add them to the library or whatever. Just an idea to add more variety to the town and help the player keep track of all the game elements.

by Inkdupskin

I've played this for awhile now. I also read all the reviews where people are saying is boring or hard around level 9. Here's the deal, this game is awesome if played correctly I'm currently level 24, with my town about level 7 ( just a bit under ), I don't know if people are not building their towns up, but that actually expands the game, brings in new missions, upgrading shops gives better options to craft or buy with in game currency. Early on when things are easy upgrade your inventory slots and chest capacity with the free premium gems they give you ( I get a lot free fighting in the dungeons) I have over 700 now, never bought anything. Time your chest timers around your work day, open gold while you sleep, never run into waiting issues. As far as combat and complaining about dying, here's a tip get the healing dodge and upgrade it, choose your talents and perks wisely, craft health absorbing armor and jewelry, with the right loadout, and proper potion planning, no quest is too difficult, the challenging ones are harder because they're supposed to be, you'll have a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when they drop a free legendary chest on you.
I'm level 24, all eleven gear, rings and necklace, usually have 15-20 various chests to cycle through, over 700 premium gems saved up from free drops, haven't spent a dime of real life currency.
Play smart play often, this is an unbelievable free offering from the elder scrolls franchise!!!!

by Josa19

I am so glad this game popped up in ads online a few weeks ago. I have always been a huge fan of the computer and Xbox Elder Scrolls series. I thought since it was mobile that it may be a disappointment, BUT I absolutely love it. Amazing graphics for mobile, a nice storyline, it’s just like the other versions. I just defeated the Lich king or whatever and saved my city. I hope something new comes up in the storyline soon as now I only have small side mission quests to do from the board, which is completely repetitive. Perhaps when I fill up more empty slots in my city, more quests will pop up. We will see. People who complain about this being a p2p game are very impatient and/or unknowledgable. I am level 36 and for the most part getting there was f2p and without difficulty. I got some revival scrolls in the beginning levels, but that was with gems given to me in the game for free. Eventually I thought I might need a lot of gems or something later on and bought a cheat at a great deal with gems and revival scrolls that was 100 usd for only 20 usd. And guess what? I still haven’t even used those gems yet because it has so far been unnecessary. And only a handful of those scrolls which also one don’t really need although convenient. This is practically pretty much a f2p game. Those who complain it isn’t are probably (hopefully) kids who are impatient or don’t study all the parts to the game to see how to accomplish without paying.

by A Nickname For Review

Oct 2019: Elder scrolls has great graphics, a well thought through story line, and is very playable on iPad. I love the opt out of analytics feature. It took some time to kick in (24 hours). The last game I played showed no respect to players in this area, conducted fraudulent pay to play charges, and ruined any hope I will lightly provide donations to game devs ever again. My rating will move to five stars if a subscription cost were possible rather than pay to play which is full of privacy invading and insulting advertising tactics. Third party views would make it perfect.

Update November 2019: I have been thoroughly enjoying this game! It is challenging yet free to play is possible. The graphics in the game outshine any mobile game I have played so far. It has never crashed once. It keeps providing delicious graphical surprises just when I thought I saw the same pattern one too many times. I haven’t had this much fun since playing Eternium. Well done! This game is not just eye candy though, you need to work out which gear will be effective for each encounter in order to receive achievable quests. The potions are tricky and could use improvement, it is unclear in which conditions they become available above the health bar, whether they stack etc.

by Ggggggg3344

Let’s start positive. The game looks great and plays well on my phone. The enemies are diverse and their resistances/weaknesses make them interesting. Fighting is pretty smooth as well. I liked what I have seen of the storyline. But...I found this game underwhelming. I was hoping for another Morrowind or Skyrim experience, but this is not it. I am a longtime Elder scrolls fan and would gladly pay for another RPG, but the freemium model gets very frustrating, very quickly. I soon hit a point where I was too weak to continue the main quest, and my chest allotment was full. Looting without gaining chests costs more in item repairs than you gain. My options were put the game down or pay. I put it down... for a month. I just got back in out of boredom, but I’m in the same boring spot. Other complaints: the dungeons are very, very repetitive, you have to complete quests in one go and they often backload the difficult enemies. It’s frustrating to spend 10 minutes on a quest and have to repeat it from the start. After a few attempts, it makes you wonder if you’re spending your time wisely. You can sell items to vendors for one-fifteenth of what you buy them for. Basically, my interest ran out of steam because I was not advancing my character enough. I’m still an Elder Scrolls fan and eagerly await their next non-freemium game.

by Tug Boat Builder

The game is entertaining and can easily be finished with f2p. P2P will obviously have a massive advantage, but this is almost completely mitigated late game. The game becomes repetitive and a grind after level 35ish, which is fine for me and many other players, but may not be your ideal game. As a higher level it will take hours of gameplay for a single level with the game only currently having a few different maps and job types; maybe 40 different jobs in total. The mission difficulty is currently far to easy as once you can make the top gear you can stand still against the hardest enemies in a job for a full minute before they will kill you; add in abilities that heal/mitigate damage and they can't harm you. The developers are actively updating, but are sadly making the game easier and easier. Overall I am happy giving it a 5 star since it has entertained me and will continue to entertain me for many hours. I would suggest to the developers to make the game harder, and perhaps add in kill stats to know how many kills you have and damage you have done. Perhaps in in-game dossier to see enemy stats. My biggest issue is that the level-up rewards are completely unbalanced and worthless. 300,000 experience for a level and 5 grand soul gems was rather disappointing and should either be converted to far higher amounts or simply give us gems.

by Johnny Johnny Sykes

I played for a month before writing this review because I understand it is still a beta release, Blades, in my opinion is by far the best game on a cellphone and trust me that I should be a critic I have played and deleted thousands of games.
With all that being said Blades has amazing graphics that I would expect on a console, the gameplay is amazingly polished especially because you can tell they are improving it daily, when I first started Blades would shut down or freeze every so often (once a day) and now I cannot remember the last time that has happened.
The pace of the game seems perfect to me as some days I don’t have as much time I will open the treasure chests and construct new buildings in my city and on the days I want to grind for gold, material or weapons etc etc... Blades surely lets me decide my own pace.
I believe Bethesda is by far the best game developing company ever to make games so this is not a impartial review, I already knew I would love this game as I have from everything they have ever released.
So far the only thing I would like added to Blades is the ability to change between first person and third person as so many of Bethesda games have done in the past, it is amazing that this game is free because I dropped many other games off of my phone, Blades is all I need. Thank you Bethesda and also a thanks goes out to whoever read this book I just wrote.

by RamsQuince

At first I was concerned that I wasn’t going to like this game because I was sure it couldn’t possibly be like the Elder Scrolls games I’ve loved so much over the years, but I was very wrong to be concerned. While this is definitely the Elder Scrolls in a slightly different flavor that we’ve seen before, the solutions that have been found to creating an immersive, albeit simplified, gameplay are nothing short of elegant. I have found no significant glitches or pain points in terms of functionality, and find little to critique in the way of obstacles to my enjoying the full experience. I would admittedly love to be able to filter more specifically in the Sell/Salvage menus so that I could view only shields for instance. I would like to be able to more easily pinpoint those objects that I already have equipped in those menus as well. However, these are very minor issues and I think I only really notice them because I’m so used to Skyrim’s features, which include clearly highlighting the equipped objects. What I love is that this game breaks down questing to a really practical level. The quests are relatively quick to accomplish on the whole, but you can easily lose yourself for hours building your town. I also once switched mid-quest from my iPad to my iPhone and picked up in the exact spot where I left off on my other device, which I really appreciated.

by Supahfly90

Currently this game is in Early Access as I write this review. As a long time fan of the Elder Scrolls series I had my guard up when starting this game. It’s not an open-world as you might expect. It’s quite linear where you have to upgrade your town after it’s been destroyed and you do this by completing quests and jobs to collect gold, materials, and equipment for your character. So it has all of the basic RPG elements. The reason why I have given it five stars is because of how well the system works on a mobile game. Most mobile games are terrible in my opinion and this one has quality. There are the options to open up chests quicker and have more inventory slots and gold by paying real money, but you don’t feel as if you have to pay real money to actually progress and enjoy the game. Just be patient. The graphics are truly incredible for a mobile game and the ability to seamlessly switch from portrait to landscape mode and have the game keep up is impressive.

I do wish there was more variety to the dungeon layouts as well as to the settings for the dungeons. Such as having open layouts where you don’t feel like you’re going in such a linear path and I think it would give it more of an “open world” feel.

by Hdshsgus

To tell you the truth I was pretty skeptical when I saw it because I thought it was going to nothing compared to the trailer but it’s even BETTER. At first I was like oh I see it’s one of those crappy games but I still downloaded it and i said to myself the voices and main menu or surprisingly good then I started getting into the game play and I loved it so much I literally downloaded it like 2 hours ago. But I do have some suggestions first I would like maybe a little bit more simpler to understand what the creatures are like maybe when you see a new one it will like freeze on that monster or just anything new that you encounter and like show it’s name but other wise it’s fine to me notify me if you are going to take this into consideration. And also I don’t know if your still gonna update this game but I would say add a online multiplayer where you cans trade goods and stuff and really just to chat oh and chat system it would be good if you could type chat or mic chat but I have one more idea we’ll before I tell it if you do read this it’s ok if you say no but it would really make my day cause I’m so exited and I’ve never been contacted or gave my ideas to and game company but your probably one of my favorite game company’s on my phone oh and I was also going to ask is there and elder scrolls blade or just any elder scrolls on Ps4 and if there is notify me please. Overall thanks Bethesda 👍🏻👌🏻🤜🏻🤛🏾🙏🏼🧑🏼‍💻