The Elder Scrolls 6 will determine the course of visual design for the series after The Elder Scrolls Online, and has a big choice to make.
Skyrim was launched in 2011, which means that more than a decade has passed between The Elder Scrolls 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6 when it is released. Yet, Skyrim it wasn’t the last installment on the Elder Scrolls console and PC games – that honor goes to The Elder Scrolls Online.
The Elder Scrolls Online made some significant design choices that The Elder Scrolls 6 you will have to choose to continue or leave it behind. One of these choices in particular has major implications for the unique aesthetics of The Elder Scrolls series, and can have a marked impact on the world of The Elder Scrolls 6.
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Elves of Ancient Scrolls
The elves of The Elder Scrolls series have always been fascinatingly alien. While Lord of the Rings movies and video games Warcraft for Dragon Age generally portray elves as thinner, pointy versions of humans, Elder Scrolls the games are filled with some of the most wrinkled elves, with pointed faces and bulging eyes that have already graced a fantasy setting.
The Elder Scrolls‘elves do a lot to make the environment unique. Many players who started the series with Skyrim will remember seeing your first elf up close during the Skyrim character creation screen and be genuinely surprised at how deeply inhuman elves are in the world of Bethesda’s Nirn.
This is immersive for a few reasons. To begin with, the alien presence of the elves, particularly in Skyrim, helps to make prejudice against them more engaging. It is hard to imagine that elves like Faendal in Riverwood would have received such an icy welcome if they looked like beautiful, pointed-eared humans as in many of the race’s achievements. Instead of inspiring admiration, they inspire distrust and aversion.
In fact, the ugliness of The Elder Scrolls elves dates back to the design of other fantasy staples before Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings. Not only the elves and beasts of The Elder Scrolls have a more fleshy aesthetic than Conan the Barbarian, but the elves also look like the elf-like creatures seen in the 1977 Rankin / Bass version of The Hobbit, which depicted elves with pale skin, long, slender limbs, scratched nose and saucer eyes.
The true extent of the elves’ strangeness in The Elder Scrolls maybe it was accomplished in Morrowind, set in the home of the Dark Elves. From complex religions to strange architecture, creatures and giant mushrooms, Morrowind set the tone for how surreal the elves in the Bethesda scenario could be.
Why Strangeness Works
Many people don’t like the way the main Elder Scrolls the games covered the design of their elves, but design contributes a lot to make the world of The Elder Scrolls feel unique. This forces a reinterpretation of some of the main themes surrounding elves in many types of fantasy media.
Without a real good look, for example, his “justice” is recontextualized as a form of elven supremacy with groups like the Thalmor. While some fantasy scenarios have elves living lives so normal in close contact with humans that they lose all their mystique, the appearance of the elves is a constant reminder of their other world.
The striking differences between humans also give players a greater sense of the elves’ perspective. Inside Lord of the Rings and in similar media, elves tend to be essentially more magical versions of humans, whether that magic is still with them or not. In any case, elves only make sense in relation to humans, especially characters like Elrond, who had to choose between being an elf or a human.
Inside The Elder Scrolls games – in addition to Forgetfulness, where elves, like human characters, looked like potatoes – the elves’ alien appearance not only makes them seem more intimidating, but also helps to disconnect them from a dependent relationship with humanity in history. Elves have their own religious denominations, their own kingdoms and their own imperial ambitions. The intense difference between human and elven aesthetics and beauty concepts forces the player to consider the elves ‘perspectives, while in other media the elves’ perspective is often seen only in direct relation to humanity.
The Elves of ESO
Inside The Elder Scrolls Online Tamriel’s elves became much more human. Players are able to create elves that are more like those of Morrowind or Skyrim, but they can also create elves that fulfill a much more generic idea of the race, both in terms of their faces and the available skin tones. In fact, one of these human-looking elves appeared heavily in the first film trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online as well as your most recent trailer for The Gates of Oblivion.
The Elder Scrolls 6 you need to stick to your weapons and the wonderful strangeness of your elves. Few designs have captured the simultaneous mystique and aversion that have characterized elves in folklore since long before Tolkien chose the pen. The vast differences between the beast-people, humans and elves of The Elder Scrolls helps to bring out some of the tension in that world. The Elder Scrolls has a relatively generic fantasy setting, but its strange mix of occasionally realistic aesthetics, Skyrim, and its bizarre and strange inhabitants create a contrast that helps it stand out.
If anything, The Elder Scrolls series could expand the difference between its different species. Although rarely addressed in the game, elves The Elder Scrolls they have lived for centuries like their cousins in other media – it would be interesting to see more of how having such a long life affected politics, war and even the elves’ mentality. The more players understand the elves’ awkwardness in the games, the easier it is for players to interpret as an elf and explore the full repetition value of the next game.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.
