The Elder Scrolls Online: The Gold Road PS5 Review. The Gold Road is the eighth expansion for Bethesda’s long running MMO The Elder Scrolls Online, and sees players embarking on a story in which we are trying to stop a completely new Daedric prince named Ithelia from rising. This character is unique to the expansion as I believe it is the first new Daedric prince that has been included in Elder Scrolls lore for quite some time.
Before we get into the expansion itself, I just want to take a moment to praise the server stability of the game. Most online titles I have played – especially MMOs – either have had login issues or just crashes due to the amount of players, but ESO launched more smoothly than I have ever seen in a previous MMO. This is an incredible achievement, and I do wonder if this is due to the staggered release of PC and console versions of the game, although admittedly I would love to have seen Cross-Play between all versions of The Elder Scrolls Online.
The Elder Scrolls Online: The Gold Road PS5 Review
Listen Up, Adventurer!
The story for the expansion covers the new area of West Weld, but before getting into details it’s important for me to note how ESO implements its new DLC. As you probably know, a lot of MMOs will force new players to grind previous expansions, which potentially means playing hundreds of hours of content depending on the MMO due to legacy expansions. However, one benefit of ESO is the ability to just jump in and play with friends even if you are new to the story or the franchise in general.
You can create a character and just start the story with the new character no issues at all, and though certain features will be locked from the start, this is still better then having to grind through an main story quest line or have a friend have to come back and help with other expansions just so you can play together on the newest chapter.
For this expansion I decided to make a new character, an arcanist because I haven’t tried that class yet and I didn’t feel like doing this slowed down my enjoyment of the expansion at all and I have to give a lot of credit for this feature.
Though the issue I did have is, unlike previous expansions, this one does have a strong connection to the previous expansion Necrom. I don’t know if this is a bug or a feature but I found you do need to complete Necrom to unlock the epilogue for the Gold Road story.
Decisions, Decisions
During the story, you will be given different options on which areas you wish to do first, typically two choices but sometimes a third option. This mainly just affected the way you started but you would often end up doing both objectives anyway.
I did have some issues finding quest locations on the map. This could have just been my bad direction skills but I’d find a few other people with the same issue. The main story took me around 15 hours to wrap up, but I will admit, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the dialogue but I did enjoy the environments and locations that I got to visit during the campaign.
One thing I noticed is that some areas were a little too dark and turning up the contrast would have affected other environments, although fortunately these issues were mostly restricted to areas with dense forests.
It’s time to battle!
One of the new features of the expansion when exploring the world is the Mirrormoor Incursions. These random events have enemies attacking the realm and you need to stop them by eliminating the opposition. These encounters usually feature a new foe, which are essentially reflective mirror, almost metallic-looking versions of previous adversaries. I found a lot of them were slime-based, but also came up against giants and other humanoid style enemies with this effect.
The expansion also included a new trial series, named Lucent Citadel. I was unable to do this before the review but I did unlock it. It can be found far to the north of the map and you get the quest to teleport in after beating the main storyline of the expansion. You do not need to beat any previous expansion to unlock this though, just the Gold Road story content.
Elsewhere, The Gold Road implemented multiple new delves, which are effectively public dungeons that you can tackle on your own or with friends in two. I found them quite fun and you have to do at least one of them for a certain questlines. The dungeons are compelling enough, but they have the same issue that I find a lot of ESO dungeons have. Namely, you can pick up a quest inside the dungeon on your first time playing, but you can be matchmaked with folk who have already completed the dungeon. As a result, they will be running off ahead while you’re stuck in a cutscene, so some of the dungeons will already be done before you actually get to experience anything for yourself.
Beautiful Locations
The Gold Road features plenty of locations ripe for exploration, with tons of varied environments such as vast plains to lush jungles. The city of Skingrad, which originally featured in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is a fantastic addition, and is really well designed with plenty of diverse NPCs populating the bustling streets, and was a joy to explore. My only gripe here is it would have been handy to have had a mini-map open at all times to facilitate navigation.
Visually, The Gold Road looks impressive enough, with enemies in particularly looking quite stylish with the aforementioned mirror-esque foes. It would be cool if the game did get a graphical overhaul one day though, as it much like Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Elder Scrolls Online has passed the 10-year mark. Having said that, the scope of the maps and towns make it feel like it might be a bit too much work. Regardless, the visuals overall still looked great and the wealth of locations really helped in this respect.
Scribe To The Top
The quest chain is located inside a new area called the Scholarium; this area can be quickly travelled to once unlocked. You unlock the Scholarium by completing a quest in the town of Skingrad, in which an NPC stands outside the Mages Guild and teleports you to a small quest location.
Though this simple quest just unlocks the feature of scribing, you have a much longer quest chain in which to unlock more spells and styles. The time needed to do this quest depends on whether you are much of a lore person and if you enjoy reading or listening. If you’re the type to skip cutscenes, expect a much shorter ride. Most of the scribing quest line involves a great addition to the cast in the form of Nahlia, who I really enjoyed getting to know as I experienced the narrative.
Each door has different types of quests you have to do, but they often follow the same sort of pattern: you must break the sigils, then do a set of challenges, then finally find the item. Some of these quests were kind of confusing at first, and I did struggle with them, but the character joining you will eventually help you out with some tips if you get lost or confused.
For a story about unlocking a new skill, the amount of lore and depth involved with the whole thing is staggering, and it brings you on a really solid and emotional journey. The characters have a varied backstory and all have a reason in their own way to both challenge you and help out.
To edit spells you must interact with the alter; this is not spellcrafting, but instead a new mechanic added to ESO with Gold Road. First, you must select the grimoire, the wielding soul, and a new ability from your soul magic skill line. These cost Luminous Ink, which is a new currency you must collect in the game. You can edit spells you have already created, and this will also cost Luminous Ink. The cost is based on the amount you are changing, so if you are only changing one item, the cost will be lower than if you are creating a whole new effect or skill.
You’ll also get a key item named the key focal lens. This item allows you to read text that is hidden in grimoires that you don’t normally have the ability to read. This will guide you to new items for scribing and other things. Once you have collected all the fragments in this quest, you have to go to a door that is only visible with both the fragment and the focal lens item. This will then open an invisible door, leading you to a new location.
You must complete two different challenges to prove your worth to the quest-giver. There are multiple different challenges, so you can decide which ones you want to do.
Some of the latter door quests will actually involve a larger selection of challenges, but you still don’t need to complete them all, so this allows for a more varied and unique approach to each door. As such, if you’re not a fan of PvP, you could technically avoid this and just focus on PvE.
Unlike the preview build I got to try earlier on, you can actually unlock new spells by doing quest objectives and other things in the open world. This is something I was hoping we would see and asked about in the original preview so it’s good to see this has been implemented.
Some skills cannot be combined together, so if you want to put a damage-over-time effect on a healing spell, the game will stop you. If you try to combine things that are not supposed to be in the game, it will make the effect red and unusable. This allows you to see what you can and cannot do without having to waste any precious ink.
At the end of the day, I had a ton of fun exploring the ESO world from the many different locations to the characters that I actually got to meet during the story. I even felt bad for the main villain at one point feeling, as their fate didn’t feel entirely justified (although admittedly this might be down to a lack of knowledge on my part!). I also had blast levelling my character and the story gripped me the entire time, while the dungeons proved varied and the locations ripe with variety and lush visuals.
The Elder Scrolls: The Gold Road is now available for PS5, PS4, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
Review code kindly provide by publisher.