The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited landed on PC in April of 2014, but just made its way to the Xbox One and PS4 consoles earlier last month. Yet, here we are in mid-July and Bethesda is already announcing the MMO’s first expansion DLC, Imperial City. Exciting, right?
Imperial City will arrive first on PC on August 31st, but the console version will hit the Xbox One a day earlier than its PS4 counterpart on September 15th. If the expansion offered much worth mentioning, I’d say that extra day was a pretty good win for Xbox owners, but Imperial City is shaping up to mirror the lack of content we’ve come to expect from Destiny instead, all the way down to its $25 price tag (or 2,500 Crowns).
Yes, Imperial City is already in the game as it stands, there’s just no way to enter it right now. The expansion will populate the city, transforming it in to a PVE/PVP hybrid zone that’s bound to deter a significant amount of their player base with little to no interest in PVP content.
Buying in to the expansion will add new quests that will become available to anyone level 10 or higher, new Rank 16 Veteran armor, two new PVE dungeons, 1 new PVP map, a new racial motif for crafting armor and weapons, and more, which you can read in extensive detail over on the official Elder Scrolls website.
So what if you’re not interested in the new content? There’s still some pretty significant changes headed your way in the pre-patch, so don’t reach for your wallet just yet.
You’ll still get the following bonuses (pasted directly from ElderScrollsOnline.com):
- 15% decrease in the amount of XP it takes to gain a Veteran Rank
- 100% more XP for all public dungeons
- 50% more XP for all Veteran Rank quests
- 20% more XP in Craglorn
- Veteran Rank increased to 16
- Racial Passive improvements
- Mundus Stone buff improvements
- Glass racial motif style
- Improvements to existing item sets
- The ability to hide mount visual upgrades
- New crafting skill line passives
- New Undaunted pledges
- Tons of combat and gameplay balance changes
- Improved end-of-campaign Alliance War rewards
- …and more!
In the end, you’re still paying $25 for one zone that’s already in the game; it’s just not filled with anything yet. After shelling out $60 last month for the Xbox version, I’m not too eager to spend $25 more on a hybrid PVP/PVE zone with little more than additional quests and only two new dungeons.
By comparison, this is a little under half the price of the recent World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV expansion, which offers tons of new dungeons, new playable classes/races, a handful of raids, and new zones to explore.
I can’t help but shake the Destiny comparison in this content-to-price ratio, making it hard to be excited about future content. It already seems that most of the changes will be coming in the free pre-patch update, so I guess that’s a plus, right?
Bradley Keene is the Executive Editor here at What’s Your Tag?, generally handling reviews, public relations, and our social media communications on Facebook and Twitter. He’s no stranger to sinking an absurd amount of time in to an MMO, but also has a deep seeded love for quirky indie games, pro wrestling, horror films, and his hometown of Baltimore, MD. Get in touch with him by e-mail at the address above, or follow him on Twitter.
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