As much as some particularly die-hardElder Scrollsfans might claim the opposite,Elder Scrolls Onlineis, in fact, canon in the franchise’s extensive history and lore. Just because it’s all official, though, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of historical details that were changed to suitElder Scrolls Online’s depiction of Tamriel in the second era.RELATED:MMORPGs Perfect For Newcomers To The GenreRetcons are nothing new to theElder Scrollsseries, as significant details were altered or outright removed with every game sinceArena. In fact, Dragon Breaks are one way to explain retcons, though they haveonly been used officially sparingly. Many of the retcons that had to be made forESO, though, can’t be explained very convincingly, even with time-altering shifts like this.
6Books That Weren’t Published Yet Appear In Tamriel
Elder Scrolls Onlinehas the largest collection of in-universe books and lore materials by far, comprising most of the other games in theElder Scrollsseries' books as well as nearly-countless numbers of its own. However, becauseESOtakes place in the second era, a lot of thesebooks shouldn’t exist at all yet.
The MMO’s reasoning behind anachronistic books appearing in-game is Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge, who apparently brings books from the future to the past to mess with people - or something like that, it isn’t exactly clear. Just don’t be surprised if you find a book fromSkyrim, whose events take place two eras afterESO.
5Anvil Castle Wasn’t Build Until The Third Era
Something pretty minor, but nonetheless lore-breaking, is the existence of Anvil Castle in theGold Coast area ofElder Scrolls Online. With the release ofElder Scrolls Online’s Dark Brotherhood DLC it’s official that Anvil has existed since at least the first era, along with Anvil Castle. Before this, though, Anvil Castle had only been built relatively recently to the events ofOblivion.
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Now, Anvil Castle has had two versions: one from before the Camoran Usurper, and one after. The one before was added withESO, and the one after was mentioned inOblivionas being built alongside the city of Anvil. It’s a little bit of a change, but it’s nothing that unbelievable, especially because the different architectural styles are explained by this reconstruction.
4Cyrodiil Isn’t A Massive Jungle
A classic problem with the representation of Cyrodiil inElder Scrollsgames is the lack of marshes, jungles, and othertraditionally difficult-to-navigate areas. In the originalPocket Guide To The Empirefrom earlyElder Scrollsgames, Cyrodiil is described as being pretty much an endless jungle where the Colovians had traditionally farmed rice.
As ofOblivionthe jungle aspects of Cyrodiil have been all but nullified. Some players hoped thatElder Scrolls Online’s interpretation of the area would be more faithful to the original descriptions, but perhaps because more players are nostalgic forOblivionthan an old in-game text, the Heartland is much more european-inspired.
3Mehrunes Dagon Can Invade Pretty Much Whenever He Likes
One of the major problems withElder Scrolls Onlineis just how many world-ending narratives the player takes part in. The Planemeld arc serves as the game’s main quest, and just about every Chapter and major DLC forces players toact the hero againand again to prevent some other cosmic-scale Tamriel-ending disaster.
The most recent Chapter,Blackwood, is a perfect example of this. Mehrunes Dagon is the main bad guy of the chapter and plans to invade and take over Nirn, as he is wroth. The problem with this is that it doesn’t apparently matter that other stops are in place to prevent this, including a pact with Sotha Sil. It’s cool to see Dagon again, but ultimately his invasion is little more than nostalgia-inducing for most players.
2Black Marsh Is Very Hospitable In ESO
Black Marsh is the southeasternmost province in Tamriel and serves primarily as the home of the Argonians, or at least those who were born there and have a connection to the Hist trees. Throughout theElder Scrollsseries, the area is described as being utterly inhospitable and unnavigable - the in-game bookThe Argonian Accounthilariously describes a mid-level bureaucrat’s struggles to pave a road into Black Marsh to facilitate imperial trade – he ends up secretly abandoning the venture, though trade still picks upbecausehe didn’t try to terraform the landscape.
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However, the zones of Deshaan, Blackwood, and Murkmire featurealmost none of the strangenessthat made Black Marsh such a mysterious and dangerous place. For example, to get around certain areas of Black Marsh you have to be eaten by a giant worm and spit out elsewhere. Roads seem to begin and end randomly, as the marsh itself is as alive as its inhabitants. InESO, though, it’s just as easy to walk around these zones as any other, despite it being a time of even less contact with the depths of Black Marsh than other games.
1Somehow, Everything Happens At The Same Time
A double-edged sword ofElder Scrolls Onlineis that everything in the game happens at the same time, in the same year, with no chronological order associated with any Chapter or DLC. Somehow, the Planemeld, Mehrunes Dagon’s meddling inBlackwood, the Daedric War arc of both theMorrowindandSummersetchapters, andeverything else in betweentechnically happens concurrently.
This is done to allow players to decide their character’s direction in the world without causing chronology issues. A player can start in theElsweyrChapter and go back to the Planemeld arc later on, or start withBlackwoodand go back toOrsiniumto meet up with Eveli again. It’s nice for player freedom, but it doesn’t make any sense in-universe for the last eight years of content to all happen at the same time. In a sense, this isElder Scrolls Onlineretconning itself with every new character created and leveling choices made.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Editionis available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S
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