Chris InglisThe Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom is the next major chapter update for the nine-year running fantasy MMORPG from Zenimax Online Studios and Bethesda Softworks. This year’s adventure, Shadow Over Morrowind, takes us back to the eastern edge of Tamriel near Vvardenfell that we first saw in 2017’s Morrowind Chapter. ESO Necrom adds a new class, the Arcanist, two new companions, a new trail and two new zones to explore with tons of quests and items to loot. I enjoyed my time playing a fresh character and the stories told were engaging as we explore some amazingly detailed lands.
For someone who has played ESO since day one back in 2014, there is plenty of content added that feels the same as each chapter each year, but I always appreciate new lands to explore and new stories to dive into. Zenimax continually amazes me at the level of detail in the stories told, and these are enhanced by the stellar performances of the voice actors. It’s easy to just skip through quests to churn through the levelling experience and think they are just the standard quests we get every year. However, taking the time to listen to spoken word adds so much more immersion and an understanding of why we are heading over to this delve, or exploring this point of interest over this way.
If you are using an existing character to start Necrom, you can find the quest starter within the crown store and then locate the first wayshrine in Telvanni Peninsula. The last time we got a new class in ESO was back in 2019 with the necromancer in the Elsweyr chapter. Since then, I have played every new chapter with my trusty warden which I started with 2017’s Morrowind. Given the fact that Necrom starts off in the zone to the east of Vvardenfell, I felt it appropriate to start fresh by rolling a new arcanist character. In doing this, I remembered how much I rely on and appreciated the six years of history and gameplay experience of my warden.
I had no money to just fast travel everywhere, I had to run to the nearest fast travel point to be able to travel for free. If I died, I only had a small number of soul stones so had to resurrect myself at the nearest wayshrine, and I had no extra bonuses from champion points. The ‘worst’ thing of all was that my horse speed was no longer maxed, so sprinting on my arcanist’s mount felt so slow. This is all sounding bad, but it was actually refreshing to feel slightly more challenged. This permitted me to take my time exploring the Telvanni Peninsula that felt familiar like Morrowind with the towering mushrooms, but different enough when climbing over a mountain peak or into a new ravine felt fresh.
Apocrypha, on the other hand, is the kingdom of the Daedric Prince of Knowledge, Hermaeus Mora, and it was amazing seeing all the tall spires of books twisted and melded together. The sky looked eerie too with portals and creatures partway coming through. I was worried about the vast amounts of green in the Necrom trailers, however the colours are well balanced throughout the zone, and even more so when you go into delves and other areas. I do have to say that if you are thief character or someone that likes looting every desk, cabinet, jewellery box and any other container, you are going to love these zones, especially apocrypha. There are lootable containers everywhere!
As the new arcanist, I skipped the new player tutorial and started in Telvanni Peninsula. The Arcanist is ESO’s seventh class and as a mystical magic-based class, you can harness powerful runes, tomes of ancient knowledge, and the energy of Apocrypha itself to unleash destructive, defensive, or restorative magics in three new skill lines. There is Herald of the Tome (damage), Soldier of Apocrypha (tank) and Curative Runeforms (heals).
I chose to specialise more down the healing line which I found to be quite powerful given the generation of a new combat mechanic called crux that gives bonus damage/heals. I loved the new sounds of the arcanist’s abilities making some really sound like projectiles, and the spell effects, especially for the healing spells, were bright and vibrant. These additions made the arcanist feel like a new type of mage to play and it was super fun.
Your Arcanist abilities can be cast without building up crux, kind of like combo points, but they will become empowered stronger as you generate more (up to a maximum of three). Some abilities will generate crux while others will spend it. There will also be abilities that have morphs that can turn them into crux generators or spenders. Some of the channeling spells cast a beam of green light which you can aim at enemies if it’s a damaging spell or at your group mates to heal them. Even at low levels, I felt quite powerful in the overworld, delves and in a group. Though I did struggle trying to solo the public dungeon bosses which I can handle on my warden main.
Grabbing the first story quest and then any side quests along the way towards Necrom City, I quickly ran into the first of the two new companions, Sharp-As-Night. He is an Argonian warden (appropriate!) and a sturdy companion to my arcanists abilities. To gain rapport with Sharp-As-Night you will want to complete his story quests, complete Ashlander Hunt dailies, visiting vvardenfell, blackwood, hew’s bane and shadowfen, fishing, repairing gear, collecting alchemy items and crafting poison consumable. He doesn’t like paying a guard your bounty, destroying inventory items will sell value, pickpocketing beggars or using the outfit crafting station.
The other companion was a little trickier to locate. Azandar Al-Cybiades is an arcanist also and is found in Apocrypha near Cipher’s Midden settlement. As Azandar is an arcanist, I chose to stick with Sharp-As-Night as my main companion. To gain rapport with Azandar you will want to complete a daily enchanting master writ, necrom delve dailies, visiting a mundus stone, visiting coldharbour, fargrave, brass fortress and the hollow city, finding a lore book or new scrying lead, scrying a relic, and interacting with ayleid wells or psijic portals. Azandar sent you a lot further around Tamriel which was another turn off as I don’t enjoy those zones as much as others.
It wouldn’t be a new adventure in uncharted lands without new monsters to slay and world events to conquer. There are several world bosses to kill and plenty of new monster types to discover in each zone which was exciting. However, in terms of world events, the new addition to Necrom is in the form of bastion nymic events. These are designed for groups of up to four players and are not found on the overworld map in a static location. You will first need to grab the daily quest from Ordinator Tandasea in Necrom City that requires you to collect five daedric eichers that drop from roaming enemies called Herald Seekers.
Herald Seekers are found wandering the overland in both Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha and defeating them without the daily quest means you won’t collect the daedric eichers. I tried soloing these on my arcanist and couldn’t do it, so I had to rely on finding groups to defeat these which slowed my progress. Once you have five daedric eichers, you head to locations on the map with landing gates. I saw icons on the map for these, but they didn’t appear to do anything, but once you have the eichers you can portal to bastion nymic.
Bastion nymic is a large instance with three distincts – the plagued quarter, dreaming quarter, and subverted quarter – and a final encounter. Each district has mechanics to manipulate or puzzles to solve, as well as mobs to kill. Your daily quest will give you a specific boss to take down and once defeated, a portal will take you back to the landing gate where you can travel back to the Ordinator and turn the quest in for rewards. Given the reliance on groups and that they weren’t something you could just run to whenever someone shouted ‘world event up’ in chat meant I didn’t engage with these as much as previous chapter world events, but they were still fun when I found a group.
The main story arc of the Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom takes around 30 hours, or longer if you’re a completionist like me, and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. This makes it an exciting prospect as to what the developers are planning for the rest of the year. The release cadence for ESO in 2023 changes slightly. Rather than getting a second dungeon DLC in Q3 and a finalisation of the year-long story in Q4, this year Q3 will focus on quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. Then in Q4, there will be a new system which has been described as an ‘endless dungeon’. What about the story? Perhaps that will form part of next year’s big 10-year anniversary celebrations.
Not much is known about the endless dungeon yet but at a recent developer AMA it was stated, “The upcoming endless dungeon feature will be systemically endless. Randomness of bosses and boons will be a feature, and players can play duo or solo.” This is quite an exciting prospect because I often play either solo or duo with my wife, and our companions. We don’t have enough for regular dungeons so we use the dungeon finder, but often get grouped with players that want to rush or will leave if we’re not doing enough DPS. And trials? I have not completed a single trial despite playing the game from release only because it’s difficult to find groups during the times I play. To have something that I can potentially solo with a companion or duo with my wife is music to my ears.
Overall, ESO Necrom has a great mix of new stories, new lands to explore, new companions and a new class, coupled with new world events. It feels familiar and comfortable while also fresh and exciting in other areas. The voice acting was especially great this year, and the sound design of the arcanists spells coupled with new spell visuals made it an exciting new character to develop and is now my favourite healing class. The story was engaging and left me wondering what is to come next. I am very much looking forward to seeing what Zenimax has planned for the 10-year anniversary in 2024.
This review utilised a key provided by Bethesda ANZ and The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom is available now on PC/Mac and launches on Xbox and PlayStation on June 20, 2023.
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Str8JaktJim
