The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset

 PC
User Score
6.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 139 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 72 out of 139
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 139
  3. Negative: 44 out of 139
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. vovik86
    Nov 17, 2022
    0
    I recently tried ESO again and was so disgusted by the direction it has taken that I wanted to leave a warning so hopefully no one else makes the mistake of buying this garbage in its current state. ESO has always been pay to win... unrestricted storage, access to all DLCs as soon as they're released if you pay a monthly fee. In other words you have to pay 15$/month if you don't want toI recently tried ESO again and was so disgusted by the direction it has taken that I wanted to leave a warning so hopefully no one else makes the mistake of buying this garbage in its current state. ESO has always been pay to win... unrestricted storage, access to all DLCs as soon as they're released if you pay a monthly fee. In other words you have to pay 15$/month if you don't want to run weaker suboptimal builds and use your characters as storage banks. I've found ways around this but it's very tedious. It gets worse, though. ESO also changed how loot works to make it much more grindy. Now you have to run the same dungeon up to 30 times (more if you're unlucky) if you decide to use a weapon that you can't craft. There's no other way to get loot that's dropped in dungeons and only the final boss drops weapons. Even players from eastern MMOs would consider this level of grind inhumane.

    The worst part is recently they changed TOS to allow them to sell your user data. And in usual bethesda anti-consumer fashion (think fallout 76) they are very secretive about it. And if you ask too many questions they will ban you (again, think fallout 76). Pretty sure I'm still banned from posting about this on official forums but it doesn't really matter. Any post on their forums that hurts their bottom line immediately gets locked and deleted anyway... I mean, it's bethesda so why would you expect anything else?    … Expand
  2. Andizzzzy
    Apr 19, 2021
    2
    I've thought about whether to give this game a good review or not. I almost did, but it would be unfair to the gaming community as a whole, as I would be advocating online gambling and loot boxes essentially saying that it is OK to include that in games. The most painful issue I have with this game is the in-game shop and the way that this game has been monetized. ZOS claim to only sellI've thought about whether to give this game a good review or not. I almost did, but it would be unfair to the gaming community as a whole, as I would be advocating online gambling and loot boxes essentially saying that it is OK to include that in games. The most painful issue I have with this game is the in-game shop and the way that this game has been monetized. ZOS claim to only sell cosmetics and conveniences, however both of these things clash with the core gameplay of ESO.

    There are a number of rewards which are only obtainable through purchasing crowns with money, and with extremely expensive costs too. The game is objectively worse off by the existence of these things. I can count on one hand the number of mounts you can collect in game, but the number of mounts you can buy or obtain through ZOS's loot boxes is closer to 100. This gives players less things to actually play for, less things to collect and fewer targets to set for themselves.

    In addition, you can buy time-savers which grant you ability points (if you've collected them on other characters), experience scrolls, mount training and the research scrolls for professions. The issue I take with the existence of these items is indicative of the fact that ZOS are aware that these grinds are a slug. They are literally time-gated; you can learn one mount training skill every 24 hours, of which there are 180 skills to spend. That is half a year of spending points to max out your mount training. This grind must be done on each character. The research scrolls speed up the rate at which you research a trait in a weapon. When researching a trait, you must wait an increasing amount of actual time before unlocking it and researching another. My main character has gotten to the point that she must wait 20+ days to learn a new trait in some professions. Or I can throw my wallet at ZOS and get it done instantly. ZOS, I want to enjoy your game, but you're making it so hard. This game has become a chore for people who cannot afford pay-to-win "cosmetics", but has become a breeze for new players who have the money to spend in the Crown store.

    The largest houses you can buy typically sell for around 14,000 crowns (a whopping $140 JUST FOR A digital HOUSE!) and are unobtainable otherwise... - just stop and think about that. On the other hand the housing system in the game is alright. However, it suffers when considering how expensive furnishings actually are, especially when compared to how little gold you actually get for just playing the game. While players can obtain some furniture pieces through playing the game, these are extremely few and far between when considering just how many furniture pieces there actually are in the game (majority of which are sold in store - because "cosmetics". The nicer furniture pieces are often priced at 10,000 gold, up to 100,000 for the fanciest pieces. When you only get 300 gold for completing a quest, as a player, you must look to get money through other systems if you want to engage fully with housing and furnishing. ZOS, PLEASE increase the amount of gold you get from quests. This leads me to the auction house in-game, and ESO plus.

    The best way to obtain money in this game, is by engaging in the auction house. I love the auction house system in the game, and the way it forces players to be a part of a guild(s). One thing to help you make gold is the use of the extra bank storage and (literally infinite) crafting bag you get when subscribing to ESO plus. If you plan to sell any crafting materials and you don't have the crafting bag, be prepared to have a full inventory every 10 minutes. It's like ZOS are aware that not playing with the crafting bag is a handicap, and so they move it to a pay-wall. There are other ways to make money in the game, such as farming for rare item drops for hours on end, hoping that one will eventually drop which you can sell for a lottery cash out

    ZOS are masters at creating problems and selling you the solution - if there is a way to make money, ZOS will find it. The in-game store and the monetization is in direct conflict with the soul of this game, and I never feel satisfied playing this game. I want to engage in the housing, but the rate at which I can actually buy furniture, if I just do quests is extraordinarily slow. The crowns I get with the ESO plus subscription make it a bit better, as they allow me to buy furniture and housing with crowns instead of gold, but I can't help but feel like this doesn't have to be a problem at all.

    ZOS, fix... no improve your monetization such that the game still has a soul, that it still offers players many more chances to obtain amazing loot by just playing the game, reward players - stop putting every damn thing in the Crown Store! I paid for this game and like many/every other PERSON that has also paid, we keep paying for every new chapter as well, let us play it without locking features behind time-gates and pay-walls.    … Expand
  3. Tenarus
    Feb 20, 2021
    0
    A quite enjoyable game, but the progression for new players feels bad. Being kicked out of dungeons, just because your level isnt high enough in the eyes of some players is plain bad behaviour - which doesnt get punished. As a new player this really takes a lot of fun out of the game. The amount of content and the quests are good (the voiceacting is great) but the amount of bugs (many ofA quite enjoyable game, but the progression for new players feels bad. Being kicked out of dungeons, just because your level isnt high enough in the eyes of some players is plain bad behaviour - which doesnt get punished. As a new player this really takes a lot of fun out of the game. The amount of content and the quests are good (the voiceacting is great) but the amount of bugs (many of them related to quests and breaking them) is terrible. In the bugged out state with its "elitist" community elder scrolls online is a game not worth to be played. EDIT: Well after a few days more of punishing myself to play the game i can say, that the game has the poorest balancing I have seen in any mmo up to this date. Really just keep your fingers away from it. If you planed on getting a subscription better pay for FF14 or WoW - you will get far more quality content for your money.… Expand
  4. kira84
    Oct 30, 2019
    3
    Summerset wasn't called as expansion like Morrowind, but as a chapter. However it's sold at expansion price but with half the content. The new Zone is buggy at release (as always with Zenimax new releases). Sorry but this isn't worth the money.
  5. Wolfstorm
    Mar 21, 2019
    2
    Outdated graphics, braindead AI, cluncky gameplay, no flow on combat. The quests are extremely easy, and even an 10-year old would get bored by it. Even at low levels and without any champion points, you can kill enemies without much effort. The enemy AI wont flank your character, it just stands still, ready to be butchered. Your abilities are overpowered and there is no variation in lightOutdated graphics, braindead AI, cluncky gameplay, no flow on combat. The quests are extremely easy, and even an 10-year old would get bored by it. Even at low levels and without any champion points, you can kill enemies without much effort. The enemy AI wont flank your character, it just stands still, ready to be butchered. Your abilities are overpowered and there is no variation in light and heavy attacks, no skill being required to fight. The difficulty is based in how much health the enemy have, creating health sponges which dont offer any challenge at all, just take more time to kill, leading to a DPS race among the players.

    This leads to another problem, which is the big ammount of cheaters in PvP. ESO PvP is cheaters galore, plagued by the intense use of malicious scripts, which overloads the server with information, leading to lags and desynchs in Cyrodiil. Cheaters are able to cast four snipes (a bow ability) in one second, with the press of a buttom, one-shoting you without you even seeing them. Recently there have been reports of cheaters flying across the province, doing super jumps and going invisible with their scripts. The cheaters are even posting videos on YouTube, showing their hacks with impunity.

    I reported dozens of cheaters, but the devs dont take any action about it. Instead, they nerf abilities with each patch, harming player styles and making players leave the game. They nerf a class, then release a new class, having similar abilities of the class which was nerfed. They nerf a build considered "OP", then release a build which is even more OP than the last one. And while they do that, the cheating in Cyrodiil persists, with cheaters casting several abilities in one second, and attributing it to "lag". The cheaters also bunked themselves in the community, where players who point the cheating are promptly called "scrubs", leading to a very toxic environment. I was even banned from the ESO Reddit for pointing out the obvious cheating in this game. Instead of fixing the game, they censor the players who are pointing out the issues.

    The world of Tamriel is vast, for MMO standards. However, they dumped the lore from the franchise, instead focusing in themes that gives more money, like dragons and necromancers, combined with the usual politically correct agenda we see in many games these days (all the ship captains in the game are women, in a medieval fantasy setting). This could attract more players (fans of GoT, for example), but it wont garantee they will stay, with so much boring and repetitive quests, braindead NPCs, clunky combat, and so many cheating in PvP. All my friends in the game abandoned it, I was the last one to leave. If you are expecting Oblivion or Skyrim, you will be disappointed. In Skyrim, swords had scabbards. In ESO, they just float around. I will only give a 2 because of the crafting system, the only thing worthwhile in ESO.    … Expand
  6. Kneighbors
    Nov 28, 2018
    1
    It was really good game at some point, but ZoS studios became greedy and went all in for crown store. Patch after patch game became more and more broken.

    The balance changes were ridiculous, like one day they can reduce damage of some skill by 30% and after 2 patches increase it by 300% because noone uses it. One day you completely enjoy your character, next day after patch your    It was really good game at some point, but ZoS studios became greedy and went all in for crown store. Patch after patch game became more and more broken.

    The balance changes were ridiculous, like one day they can reduce damage of some skill by 30% and after 2 patches increase it by 300% because noone uses it. One day you completely enjoy your character, next day after patch your character is utter garbage.

    Along with that came the bugs and the lags. At this point it is totally pointless to report any of them because there are so many, many of which are out there for over a year without getting proper attention.

    With all that ZoS go after their ego. This is our game, our vision how players will play it, either play the way we want you to play or just get the hell outta here. And yea we are working on the bugs, meantime just browse our Crown Store.

    Community became really toxic because developers succeed to put really big distance between high end players, average players and casual players. Current number in terms of Damage Per Second: Casual will deal 10k, average 30k, top end 50k. If you aren't living close to server location and your ping is over 80 - you are doomed. No chance you will ever get to be the top end player.

    In any case end game community is pretty much dead, huge amount of players left it on Summerset and I wouldn't recommend anyone playing this game unless you have cool friends playing it and will spend more of a party time than game itself.    … Expand
  7. dudebro8181
    Oct 29, 2018
    0
    The lag and bugs are extremely real in this game. This does not help that the devs keep piling on dlc + expansions on top of each other without fixing pre-existing bugs. As such, each expansion makes the game more laggy and buggy. Support is almost non-existent as they are aware they are unable to help you as the problem lies in the coding of the game itself. But oh, boy those crown cratesThe lag and bugs are extremely real in this game. This does not help that the devs keep piling on dlc + expansions on top of each other without fixing pre-existing bugs. As such, each expansion makes the game more laggy and buggy. Support is almost non-existent as they are aware they are unable to help you as the problem lies in the coding of the game itself. But oh, boy those crown crates and cosmetics are a woop de doo great addition to the game which makes the game almost playable!… Expand
  8. Dragon_Fly
    Oct 5, 2018
    0
    This game is garbage. The way they random people into End Game Dungeons is total BS.
  9. JavaSquirt
    Oct 1, 2018
    0
    15 баксов за ремесленную сумку? Вы bleat серьёзно? Bethesda stupay nahooy.
  10. Antidote4
    Jul 22, 2018
    4
    The newest ESO expansion. While not founded in as great of an experience as Morrowind, the expansion does bring to life a land hardly scene in TES universe. While set as the same price as Morrowind, the new expansion lacks a new class to play. Something desperately needed for this game.

    Still uses with the game. Long load times, mediocre graphics, and awful combat system, and a sluggish    The newest ESO expansion. While not founded in as great of an experience as Morrowind, the expansion does bring to life a land hardly scene in TES universe. While set as the same price as Morrowind, the new expansion lacks a new class to play. Something desperately needed for this game.

    Still uses with the game. Long load times, mediocre graphics, and awful combat system, and a sluggish feel to all the characters.    … Expand
  11. ESO_SUCKS
    Jun 27, 2018
    0
    Do not buy this game is your into PVP. Zos does not support it and will not fix the issues related to connections / balance. Makes me sick. Completely ignores community. They just want your $$$$
  12. Lecrivain
    Jun 27, 2018
    4
    As a preface, I've been playing ESO since beta and am a massive, massive fan of the game and have been along championing it as it just goes from great to great. I love seeing the game constantly improve on itself.

    But that said, Summerset isn't an improvement. It's a step back. Where Morrowind blew me out of the water with its immersive experience, dynamic and highly rewarding quests,    As a preface, I've been playing ESO since beta and am a massive, massive fan of the game and have been along championing it as it just goes from great to great. I love seeing the game constantly improve on itself.

    But that said, Summerset isn't an improvement. It's a step back. Where Morrowind blew me out of the water with its immersive experience, dynamic and highly rewarding quests, and fresh setting, Summerset was just, well, more vanilla content.

    None of the side quests were lengthy, dynamic, and rewarding like essentially joining the morag tong was. ESO is playing it safe, and tried nothing new with Summerset. It was rumoured they would introduce necromancy, which they could have easily done in addition to the psijic order - but why work harder than they need to?

    Everything about it just felt like a missed opportunity to me. Nothing in the entire expansion wowed me and the rewards to the player in skills, items, and cosmetics were all incredibly underwhelming. And perhaps they thought this was acceptable because they introduced crafting among other things, but... Really? That could've been for free in the base game.

    Finally one of the worst elements towards this hugely poorly created expansion was the boring, grinding way in which you advance through the Psijic order. It's so boring that the skills to me are not even worth the effort of mindlessly droning about Tamriel closing rifts.

    In conclusion, I'm nothing short of shocked that they thought it was an acceptable or exciting release and even more shocked that they thought it was acceptable to charge the same price as Morrowind on what felt like a step back from Morrowind, rather than the step forward I was hoping for.    … Expand
  13. mmdcasdca
    Jun 26, 2018
    0
    This game is poorly optimised. slow loading screen (4-5 minutes), lagging, shuttering everywhere.
  14. FLXY74
    Jun 15, 2018
    0
    All the game media loves to promote games like Elder Scrolls summerset but they never do articles on the reality that is being delivered to end user gamers like us. Take this game for example the truth of the matter is that it crashes and or freezes constantly for everyone. Must re-login several times an hour on most nights....This release is the worst in years with the technicalAll the game media loves to promote games like Elder Scrolls summerset but they never do articles on the reality that is being delivered to end user gamers like us. Take this game for example the truth of the matter is that it crashes and or freezes constantly for everyone. Must re-login several times an hour on most nights....This release is the worst in years with the technical glitches. When reported they try hard to push it off on PSN and Sony but finally they admit in fourms it’s them. These problems are not new...in some form they have existed for a long time. Good luck to them on an online Fallout 76...I just wish I was held to such low standards at my job and could roll out such poor software.… Expand
  15. meru
    May 25, 2018
    4
    Contrary to the Morrowind expansion, the Summerset DLC is just more of the same. I was excited for both DLCs and mightily enjoyed Morrowind.

    Same look, same story, same quests, same main quest giver (Razum-Dar) as in the main game. Congratulations to Zenimax's copy & paste skills. Only Razum-Dar is now a bit more boring. It feels like meeting Han Solo after he got divorced the third    Contrary to the Morrowind expansion, the Summerset DLC is just more of the same. I was excited for both DLCs and mightily enjoyed Morrowind.

    Same look, same story, same quests, same main quest giver (Razum-Dar) as in the main game. Congratulations to Zenimax's copy & paste skills. Only Razum-Dar is now a bit more boring. It feels like meeting Han Solo after he got divorced the third time.

    And a tip: If you hate unnecessary mazes, do not play Summerset, as even the smallest park is laid out as a maze.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

37
#37 Best PC Game of 2018
81
#81 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. SpazioGames
    Jun 25, 2018
    75
    The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset is a good add-on, with a new realm, main quest and characters, but still not up to the Morrowind standard.
    Read full review
  2. The Overpowered Noobs
    Jun 22, 2018
    80
    Summerset is a great second chapter for Elder Scrolls Online (ESO), allowing players to explore, challenge themselves with new and dangerous enemies, and learn about the Psijic Order that had disappeared over 300 years earlier.
    Read full review
  3. Hooked Gamers
    Jun 13, 2018
    78
    The Summerset expansion pack brings a lot of quests, an enormous map to explore, and some pretty nifty skills and abilities to the table and I recommend anyone playing ESO pick it up post-haste.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »