The Elder Scrolls Online - Elsweyr Review Summary

Engaging story, dragon world events, and excellent lore and worldbuilding, but overpriced with bugs, crashes, and aggressive monetization.

Story and quests are engaging: The Elsweyr storyline, main quest, and side quests are noted as interesting, solid, and non-tedious, with engaging narratives and meaningful objectives.

Lore and worldbuilding are excellent: The expansion deepens Khajiiti lore and history, with deep and interesting storytelling that enriches the Elder Scrolls universe.

Overpriced for value delivered: Many players consider the $40 price tag too high for the amount of content provided. They feel it's not worth the money compared to the base game or previous expansions, and suggest a price of $10 to $20 would be more appropriate.

Incomplete Elsweyr zone content: Only the northern part of Elsweyr (Anequina) is included, not the full province. The map is small and the southern part is expected to be a separate paid DLC, which feels misleading and incomplete.

Necromancer class lacks uniqueness: The Necromancer class is often described as just a reskin of the mage class, with boring abilities and lacking a dark or sinister feel. It does not fulfill the fantasy of a proper necromancer.

Bugs, crashes, and performance issues: Players experience game crashes when entering DLC areas, login issues, animation glitches, lag after patches, and many bugs including quest-breaking ones. Support is unhelpful and bugs remain unfixed.

Lack of language localization: The game lacks support for Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Polish, and other languages. This creates a language barrier for non-English speakers, affecting gameplay and community engagement.

Dragon world events: Dragons appear as world events, replacing dolmens, and require large groups of players to defeat. Their mechanics include flying, landing at predetermined spots, AoE attacks, and summoning flam atronachs, involving up to 50 players.

Necromancer class introduction: The Necromancer class is a major new addition in Elsweyr, available from the start and offering versatile roles including damage, healing, and tanking with stamina or magicka morphs. It features unique abilities such as summoning exploding skeletons and timed minion summons.

Content variety and structure: The expansion offers a mix of PvE and PvP content including new dungeons, trials (Sunspire), world bosses, public dungeons, battlegrounds, and large-scale PvP campaigns with alliance lock.

Elsweyr region exploration: The Elsweyr expansion covers Northern Elsweyr, featuring a large map with deserts, valleys, high ground, monkeys, leopards, butterflies, springs, and old structures. It includes quests, events, and new locations such as Sunspire.

Class system flexibility: The class system allows any build with six classes, skill bar swapping, and flexibility in role assignment. Necromancer supplements this with stamina/magicka morphs.

Post-update login failures: The game is reported to crash or fail to log in after updates, indicating potential compatibility or patching issues that block access to the game entirely.

DLC area crashes: Players experience crashes specifically when entering DLC areas, suggesting that these new zones have instability or resource loading problems that break the game.

Group PvP freezes and disconnects: Large group PvP battles cause freezes and random disconnections, pointing to optimization failures in handling high player counts and combat effects.

Dragon hunt lag from crowding: Dragon hunts create lag due to the mob of players participating, indicating that large-scale events overwhelm the server or client performance.

Worth buying overall: A subset of reviewers find the expansion worth purchasing, stating it is definitely worth the money. They consider it a worthwhile addition for regular players.

Recommended for Elder Scrolls fans: Multiple reviews recommend this DLC for fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise, ESO, and RPGs. The content appeals specifically to those who enjoy the series.

Buy on sale or via ESO Plus: Many suggest buying on sale or using ESO Plus to unlock the DLC, especially if undecided. On sale, it is considered a great deal.

Do not buy this DLC: A number of reviews strongly advise against purchasing this DLC, calling it a waste of money and time. They recommend avoiding it entirely.

Must-play for dragon fans: Some reviews highlight the expansion as essential for players who miss dragons from previous Elder Scrolls games, particularly TES5. It is recommended for dragon enthusiasts.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 20.0h.

Story completion: 10.0h.

Players report immediate fun in solo play, but early game can be rough with bugs, boring abilities, and heavy grind; fun is enhanced with friends but no clear time-to-fun anchor is identified.

Friction: Bugs and glitches at start; Boring or bad abilities; Grindy guild reputation and research system; Countless map objectives for collectors.

Hardcore PvE Trial Runner: Optimizes builds and rotations, farms Trials for BiS loot, and pursues challenging group PvE content with a coordinated team. Motivation: Obtaining best-in-slot gear and completing the hardest achievements in Trials (Hardmode, Speedrun, No Death). Stance: buy.

Solo PvE Explorer: Takes a slow pace, does quests, explores zones, avoids heavy group content, and appreciates scenery and story. Motivation: Exploring the beautiful world of Elsweyr, experiencing the story and lore, and enjoying solo-friendly content. Stance: sale.

PvP Competitor: Engages in large-scale and small-scale PvP, focused on class balance, faction coordination, and optimizing for competitive play. Motivation: Competitive PvP in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds with class builds and faction mechanics. Stance: sale.

Monetization: User reviews for this ESO DLC reveal significant concerns about monetization: real-money loot crates (gacha), premium currency obfuscation (gems), and content deliberately split and sold separately via the cash shop. While a minority claim no pay-to-win, the evidence of predatory mechanics like random loot boxes and confusing currency systems leads to a high score.

Steam playtime tracking broken: A user reports that Steam is not tracking their playtime for this game, which can affect achievements, stats, or overall user experience.

Third-party translation plugin recommended: A player recommends using a third-party Chinese translation plugin, which suggests the game lacks official localization support or has inadequate language options.