At E3, Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls: Blades. The game showed the classic single player first person experience Bethesda is known and loved for, but this time on mobile. Blades will have 3 different game modes: Abyss, Arena, and Town. Arena is stated to be a player vs player experience. This will be similar to the arena based in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion’s Imperial City. Abyss mode will emulate a roguelike game in which the player will try their hand at a never ending dungeon and attempt to get as far as possible. Players will collect gold and gems that they can use in Town mode. Town mode contains a standard area where players can receive quests, complete storyline challenges, and talk with NPC’s that litter the town. The town mode will initially start as destroyed and the player’s accomplishments will help rebuild the town.

A demo of the game was previewed yesterday and showed the versatility and beauty of the game. The initial part of the demo showed a landscape style view in what looks to be a forest dungeon. The player options are block, basic spell, advanced spell, and swing sword and all of these can be performed with a tap or swipe. The environment was interactive and contained hidden treasures that could be found. Enemies that were shown are familiar characters to the series and some new ones. Large spiders and ghouls/draugr are back and goblins have been introduced as some of the standard RPG enemies. The game has a Runescape-esque style movement as the player can tap the ground to move along the dungeons. Portrait mode was also shown as the player entered what seems to be a nordic style dungeon. The game showed an advanced lighting system and the HUD adjusts to the orientation of the device. The dungeon had stronger enemies with elven shields and light armor. We can assume that there is a progression system to the dungeons and the game gets more and more challenging.

There still are a lot of questions regarding the game. Storyline, Town mode, and the item and skill progression system have yet to be shown. Regardless of these unknowns, Bethesda’s track record for making awesome single player games is the best in the business and Blades should be another game in their trophy case.