Earlier this year, I predicted that The Elder Scrolls Online was going to the biggest bomb of the year. I was proven wrong, since it only arrived on PC. And now, Bethesda is making it official by declaring that The Elder Scrolls Online won’t arrive until 2015.
In an update posted to the official blog, the game’s director Matt Firor noted that the console versions weren’t quite there yet:
As I’ve mentioned, we have been (and will continue to be) steadily working on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of ESO. They are playable and fun right now, but there’s still some work to do before we can set an official launch date. First and foremost, we want to make sure that two of our most important systems still in development—the Justice and Champion Systems—are included in the console release.
The Champion system he refers to is essentially the leveling you do after you’ve hit the level cap; the gimmick is that you have to choose each bonus in a clockwise order on a wheel representing mage, warrior and thief. The Justice system is what it sounds like: Allowing you to break the law or hunt down those who break the law for fun and profit. Mostly the former.
Supposedly they’ll announce a date in early 2015, but to be honest, I’ll believe it when I see it. The reality is that ESO came out on PC and didn’t exactly become a Skyrim-grade hit. It’s making money, but clearly, less than a million hardcore fans was not the game’s target audience. And while Bethesda is probably locked into delivering the console versions, console MMOs are more odd niche products than anything else. So don’t be surprised if the date keeps slipping. Hey, maybe they could bring in Gearbox to finish it up!