Five Veteran PC Gamer Editors Open Up on The Elder Scrolls’ Bright Past and Uncertain Future

Five veteran PC Gamer editors, each with more than 2,500 combined hours logged across The Elder Scrolls franchise, have publicly aired their strongest opinions on the series’ past and future in a candid feature that blends nostalgia, criticism, and a clear-eyed look at where Bethesda’s saga has been heading. The contributors—self-described “Serious Critics” who have played as Nerevarines, foiled Mehrunes Dagon, and absorbed Alduin’s soul—used the platform to debate everything from the franchise’s drifting away from its RPG roots to whether an Elder Scrolls television show is long overdue. The piece invites readers to weigh in on each “scalding hot take,” turning a personal reflection into a broader conversation about the games that defined a generation of open-world fantasy.

For those who have spent countless hours wandering Tamriel, the editors’ credentials are hard to dispute. As one contributor put it, they have “done it all”: bought horse armor, stolen an Elder Scroll, and even once pickpocketed a note from the butt of a fully-dressed assassin. That shared history lends weight to their arguments, which range from affectionate critiques of Skyrim’s main quest to pointed observations about the state of Bethesda’s storytelling today.

The RPG Debate: When Did Bethesda Lose Its Soul?

The most heated discussion centers on the franchise’s evolution from a systems-driven role-playing game into what several editors describe as a “uniform mush.” The argument traces back to the removal of traditional RPG mechanics—stats, skill points, and rigid class structures—in favor of a flexible, player-driven approach. While this design choice made Bethesda’s games more accessible, the editors contend it has also made them more boring, because players can simply become “a master of everything” without ever facing meaningful limitations.

The counterpoint, raised by one editor, is that the franchise has never been a particularly engaging RPG in recent years. “This isn’t Diablo, it’s not Baldur’s Gate,” they noted, arguing that the min-maxing in modern Bethesda games usually boils down to choosing armor and a weapon. For that reason, some editors see value in preserving features like Oblivion’s spellmaking system—where players could craft custom spells and achieve godlike power—despite the fact that it occasionally broke the game.

There’s no real grist or art to making a strong Elder Scrolls character anyway, so why not let us have fun breaking the game over our knee?

PC Gamer Editor

The debate highlights a broader tension in the industry between accessibility and depth, a question that will likely shape the design of upcoming titles.

Side Quests: Oblivion’s Triumph and Morrowind’s Missed Opportunity

On the subject of side content, the editors drew a sharp contrast between Oblivion and Skyrim. Oblivion’s Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and Daedric Prince quests are widely regarded as some of the best in the series, with the Thieves Guild’s Elder Scroll heist from the Imperial Palace standing out as a “stone cold classic.” Skyrim, by comparison, is criticized for reducing its Thieves Guild to a “pack of losers” and stripping the Dark Brotherhood of Oblivion’s Hitman flair.

Yet the editors also acknowledged that Skyrim’s main quest—featuring dragon hunts, mountain climbs, and a journey to the land of the dead—delivers spectacle and memorable moments like Paarthurnax, one of the few NPCs the entire game remembers. Meanwhile, Morrowind is celebrated for its atmosphere and worldbuilding, even if its side quests lack the shocking twists found in later titles.

Storytelling and the Dark Brotherhood’s Lost Magic

A recurring theme is the decline of Bethesda’s narrative ambition. One editor argued that the studio has flirted with emergent, systems-driven gameplay since Oblivion but never truly committed, leaving NPC schedules and relationship values as “garnish on a stubbornly hand-crafted meal.” The Dark Brotherhood questline from Oblivion serves as a prime example of what the studio used to do well, with its “Whodunnit?” mystery described as a “genuinely impressive spiderweb of potential outcomes.”

Looking at Bethesda’s recent output, including the “bland, sexless galaxy” of Starfield, the editors express doubt about whether the studio still possesses the creativity required for ambitious questlines. “A Dark Brotherhood questline requires more weirdness, creativity, and gallows humour than modern-day Bethesda seems capable of,” one contributor wrote, conceding they would like to be wrong.

Looking Ahead

As The Elder Scrolls 6 approaches, the editors’ opinions offer a roadmap of what fans hope to see. Several contributors expressed willingness to accept loading screens between interiors if it means preserving the interactive, immersive environments that define the series—where players can read books on shelves, drag dinner off a table, and rearrange cutlery. Others called for Bethesda to lean into systems-driven design, joking that the studio should “just make Mount & Blade.” Meanwhile, the absence of an Elder Scrolls television show was flagged as a glaring oversight, with editors urging Bethesda to finally cross-pollinate its massive lore into a screen.

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