Cliff Notes – The top eight Elder Scrolls games ranked from worst to best
- The Elder Scrolls series has evolved significantly since its inception in 1994, with each entry contributing to its status as a leading RPG franchise.
- The recent remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion highlights the enduring popularity of the series, while anticipation for The Elder Scrolls 6 continues to grow despite limited information.
- The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim remains a benchmark for RPGs, showcasing expansive gameplay and a vibrant modding community, setting high expectations for its successor.
The top eight Elder Scrolls games ranked from worst to best
There are enough Elder Scrolls games to keep you busy until Elder Scrolls 6 comes out (Bethesda)
With a remaster of the fourth game out this week, GameCentral looks back at the best entries in Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series.
Out of all the franchises Bethesda has under its belt, The Elder Scrolls is perhaps its most important. In its early days, the studio was primarily making sports games and movie tie-ins, with 1994’s The Elder Scrolls: Arena marking its first venture into the role-playing genre.
Since then, both the series and Bethesda itself have ballooned into industry juggernauts. So much so, that there’s feverish excitement for The Elder Scrolls 6 despite there been next to no information about it.
With a remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion just released, let’s take a look back through the series’ history and rank its best entries.
8. An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (1997)
Originally designed as an expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire was ultimately sold as a separate spin-off with more of a focus on dungeon crawling.
While not the worst Elder Scrolls game ever (that’d probably be mobile title The Elder Scrolls: Blades), Battlespire’s limited scope, more linear structure, and limited role-playing elements do make it a hard sell. It’s less than £5 on Steam, though, so there’s little harm in trying it.
7. The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (1998)
For the series’ second spin-off, Bethesda opted to make a third person action adventure game; one with a named protagonist and a linear story. While that may sound like a turn-off for some fans, Redguard does have a few things going for it, although mostly in terms of atmosphere rather than gameplay.
Like Battlespire, it’s incredibly cheap nowadays and potentially worth experiencing because its setting of Hammerfell is purportedly being used for The Elder Scrolls 6.
6. The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994)
Unsurprisingly, the very first Elder Scrolls game hasn’t aged too gracefully, over the last 30 years, but it had to have done something right to spark numerous sequels.
It was impressively dense at the time, sporting a huge open world jam-packed with quests to complete and dungeons to explore. It can be unforgiving to newbies during its early hours, but it’s still worth experiencing as a point of historical interest, if nothing else.
5. The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall (1996)
While The Elder Scrolls: Arena relied on procedural generation for its cities and dungeons, the sequel offered set locations to explore, and it was all the better for it.
Daggerfall was an overall improvement in every way, not forcing you to follow questlines and allowing you to simply live in the huge world Bethesda had crafted. Between its many quests to complete, guilds to join, and customisation options, it’s no wonder it was deemed one of the best role-playing games of all time when it was originally released.
4. The Elder Scrolls Online (2014)
We’re honestly not too sure where to include The Elder Scrolls Online in this ranking, since as an MMO it’s always evolving and despite the same setting and similar gameplay is a very different experience to the other single-player titles.
While it was deemed pretty average when it launched, subsequent expansions and updates have improved things greatly over the last decade, while adding in numerous new regions, characters, and creatures – to the point where all of the settings from the mainline games can now be found in The Elder Scrolls Online itself.
When will The Elder Scrolls 6 be released?
Although no formal release date has been given, the popular assumption is that The Elder Scrolls 6 will launch in 2028 at the earliest, based on comments made by Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced with a teaser trailer in 2018. However, Bethesda has provided very few updates on its progress since then.
What we do know is that it will retain the levelling system seen in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, with Todd Howard returning to direct it.
As of March 2024, playable builds of the game do exist and, this past February, Bethesda held a charity auction for fans to bid on the chance to appear in The Elder Scrolls 6 as a non-playable character.
There were plans for The Elder Scrolls 6 to launch as an Xbox exclusive, according to internal Microsoft emails, but those have likely been abandoned considering Microsoft’s current multiplatform strategy.
As such, you can expect The Elder Scrolls 6 to launch for Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PC, and perhaps Nintendo Switch 2.
3. The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (2002)
Many fans would argue that The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind is the best game in the series but the problem is it’s over 20 years old now and it is showing its age. Oblivion is the one that’s just got a remaster but it’s Morrowind that desperately needs a full remake, so modern audiences can properly appreciate it.
Morrowind is a considerably more complex role-playing game than Oblivion and Skyrim, with much more detailed systems than its action-orientated successors. That means it’s not nearly as accessible, and the combat is bad even by Bethesda standards, but the storytelling and sense of freedom is arguably the best the series has ever been.
2. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (2006)
Before Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls was a relatively obscure franchise, that had seen little mainstream success. That all changed with the fourth mainline entry, which successfully refined everything that had come before. It streamlined the interface and role-playing elements and beefed up the combat, transforming the series into the household name it is today.
It’s also fondly remembered for its full voice acting, which often borders on unintentionally hilarious, and the introduction of more advanced computer-controlled allies. The remastered version is close to a full remake, further improving the UI and graphics to modern standards.
1. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (2011)
Yes, Bethesda has re-released The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim so many times it’s become a running joke, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the best Western style role-players ever made.
Fans can debate over the minutiae of the story, characters, and worldbuilding, but Skyrim is mechanically superior to its predecessors, with a giant world that’s always fun to explore and packed with interesting and unexpected things to see and do.
Many fans have put hundreds of hours into it and there’s still a thriving mod community creating new content. That doesn’t mean a follow-up isn’t long overdue but it’s a testament to Skyrim’s quality that it’s kept fans sated for this long.
Elder Scrolls 6 has its work cut out if it wants to top Skyrim (Bethesda)
