The Elder Scrolls series has spanned multiple generations. But it was only after the fifth game in the series that developer Bethesda Game Studios decided to bring it online. Elder Scrolls Online was launched back in 2014. To no one’s surprise, this game was an instant success. But to everyone’s surprise, it was somewhat different from what fans were expecting it to be.
Developer ZeniMax Online Studios developed Elder Scrolls Online in around seven years. During that time, they were looking everywhere for inspiration. Of course, games like Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim were no exception. But this online MMORPG also took inspiration from a very unlikely video game franchise.
Developers of Elder Scrolls Online took inspiration from Batman Arkham Series
For the longest time, there was only one big game that served as the prime massive multiplayer online role-playing game. That game was Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. It was so successful that people never thought of competing with it.
It launched back in 2004, yet it remains one of the most-played MMORPGs. However, this was not the game developers were trying to compete with. They were just trying to bring Elder Scrolls Online.
As a game develops, a bunch of ideas are thrown at the wall, and some of them stick. One such idea was to introduce a redesigned reticule. According to Elder Scroll Online’s gameplay producer, Yvette Nash, an unlikely franchise paved the way for this change.
One of the developers working on Elder Scrolls Online was playing the Batman Arkham series back then. This developer was inspired by the inventive new reticule system in those games. Then this developer decided to prototype it and throw this idea at the wall, and it stuck. Yvette Nash then explained how they went on to make this thing work.
“One of the programmers at the time was inspired by one of the Batman games of the time with the reticule system in that game, and he went off and prototyped it. It was originally turned down during the game’s early stages of development, but as Skyrim came out, “it just made sense. The reticule system worked.”
Skyrim was another game that introduced Reticle to its third-person mode. That’s exactly what Elder Scrolls Online did, too. For those unaware, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion never had a reticule in third-person mode. Many gamers complained about it, but it was never added.
Skyrim, on the other hand, introduced this new system that kept the reticule no matter the orientation. In both third- and first-person modes, it remained. It worked too, in combat, in using bows and arrows; it just worked. Going by the above statement, it looks like Elder Scrolls Online developers used a mix of the Arkham series and Skyrim’s reticule system, making its combat much more fun and dynamic.
The Batman Arkham series introduced a lot more to the industry than just a reticule
Everyone knows how popular the Batman Arkham franchise ended up being. There was a reason for that popularity; those were good games. They gave fans a very authentic Batman story to experience, with awesome characters and their original voice actors.
And who can forget its core gameplay loop? An additive mix of free-flow combat and stealth gameplay just worked. That freeflow combat has since inspired combat in games like the Shadow of Mordor series and Sleeping Dogs.
