For those who find the expansive world that Bethesda's fantasy role-playing series puts forth, and the mind-numbing degree of possibilities that they offer to be not quite enough even still, how about something even bigger? Like an MMO? Which is in the works, according to at least one outlet.
Tom's Guide was the first to break the news. According to its anonymous source, "Elder Scrolls Online" as it will supposedly be called, takes place an entire millennia before "Skyrim," and several hundred years before any of the previous "Elder Scrolls" games.
Players will be able to choose from three different factions, each represented by an animal: a dragon, a lion, and some kind of bird of pray. Tom's Guide says it could either be an eagle or a phoenix. It will apparently be announced in May, and have a sizable presence at both E3 and Quakecon later this year.
Rumors of an "Elder Scrolls" themed MMO has been floating around for some time, and recent job postings reflect Bethesda's interest in producing such a game. But have many assumed it's for a "Fallout" MMO instead; Bethesda recently engaged in a legal battle with Interplay, the original developer and publisher of "Fallout," who was interested in creating a related MMO themselves.
Bethesda ended up the victor, which both killed Interplay's plans and set the stage for "Fallout"'s current developer and publisher. But Tom's Guide begs to differ, and if they are indeed correct, we will all find out this May.
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Matthew Hawkins is an NYC-based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of Attract Mode , and co-hosts The Fangamer Podcast . You can keep tabs on him via Twitter , or his personal home-base, FORT90.com .
