Hello Everyone,

I am new to bethesda games and especially Elder Scrolls. I have heard alot about TES series but so far I havent played many rpg games, except a couple. I would like to know if Skyrim will be a good game to enter the TES series or do I need to know more about TES universe and how these games work ? In other words do I need to play the previous games or not ?

If I dont play them then what will I be missing and how it will effect my experience and gameplay ?

Note : I am new to the forum too, just signed up and have been searching a bit but wasnt able to find the right place to look for or the right topic. If I made a mistake please let me know.

Thanks & Regards,

That's the beauty of the Elder Scrolls series. You never need to know what the previous game was about. Skyrim is perfect to start.

...we've never played the game.
How do you expect we answer this question?

Each game in the Elder Scrolls series is independent of the other, none are direct sequels. So you should be fine if you want to start with Skyrim. If you would like to know more about the lore there is always the http://www.uesp.net/.
You can always play the other games in the series while you wait for Skyrim as well

You don't have to play the other games but I highly recommend that you do. You'll get hundreds/thousands of hours of awesome gaming in preparation of the big one on 11.11.11.

Welcome to the forums!

nah you dont really NEED to play the previous games, i started with morrowind and did just fine. thats the beauty of it. they are connected but the stories are sequels, for instance skyrim is 200 years after oblivion

Yes and no to me. I would pick up oblivion , i mean it won tons of GOTY awards. And will give you a taste of how awesome skyrim will be. But the game will take hundreds of hours to fully enjoy and i dont know if you have that kind of time :wink_smile:

Welcome to the forums and the TES family!

Short answer, no, I don't think you'll need to play the other TES games to get a nice experience of Skyrim.
Bethesda are working hard to please both us die-hard fanatics and people who are new to the TES series as well as rpg in general.

I myself started playing TES seriously with Oblivion but had played Morrowind a bit before but mostly faffing about and didn't know anything more or less.

I would, however, recomend playing either Oblivion or Fallout 3 to know just what you're getting into and because, in my opinion, they are still very good games.

pick your poison. All of them are good.

You can get TES I Arena and TES II Daggerfall for free, so if you want to start playing now, you can, just go to theelderscrolls.com and download them for free off there. (or did Bethesda stop doing this when the new website came out?)

As somone said that is the beauty of TES, you don't need to know anything about other games, but Bethesda keeps the people who played before, into it with continuing the Lore.

If anything, you could start with Daggerfall or Arena since the official website has them up for free. Just watch out if you're not used to the stylings of old timey DOS games if you're not used to them I guess.

Welcome to the forum

Bethesda always makes sure that each elder scrolls game can stand alone. In fact, they all differ greatly from each other in gameplay and mechanics.
You should have no problem starting with Skyrim.
Though maybe the first few playthroughs youll start over again a few times to do things differently, and it will take time to understand the vast amount of content.
But this is part of the fun! Nothing beats an elder scrolls game in quantity of moments where you realise: 'I can do that?! wow, amazing!'

You also do not have to worry about the lore.
All elder scrolls games have this kind of layering where you decide how much you want to immerse yourself in the lore.
You can play it perfectly fine by just doing the main quest and nothing really much else.
Or you can pick up and read every book you find, talk to every NPC, and explore every inch of the map.
But its a statisfying and rich game even if you dont, its just an extra layer for those that like that kind of thing.

Don't worry about the story. I started with Morrowind and the world is fleshed out enough that I understood what was going on. Just read some of the books you find lying around especially "The history of [insert era or province here]".

Gameplay wise it should be the easiest. This is what bethesda has been striving towards. As stated, I started with Morrowind and it took me about 3 or 4 installs to finally get into it. Once I had it was simply amazing but until then it was painful.

I think Skyrim is as good as any place to get into the elderscrolls universe, but you should be able to pick up Oblivion GOTY for a reasonable amount of money so you can try that yourself.

If you want you could go play Oblivion. It's a good game in itself (one of my favorite), and you can play it to death for 7 months before Skyrim. You don't really need to know anything about the series to jump right in, but if you do find stuff out they do a great job an the lore is quite in depth. So it doesn't really matter.

Since you have over 7 months before the game comes out, why are you waiting to dip into Elder Scrolls? Go get Morrowind, then get Oblivion. You might be done with both games come November.

Thanks alot everyone !

I would definitely check out the official site to see the first two games if they are there to download and play for free. Many of my friends have recommended me to play Oblivion, so I guess if I can get an edition which has all dlc and additional content at a good price I will buy it and play till skyrim comes out.

Thanks for the welcome ,

Cheers,bye everyone

Although the thing about tes games is that they are always a fresh start, I advise you get oblivion first anyway. GOTY edition on steam is like 13 quid, and about a tenner used in most game stores.

Yes. It's a stand alone game. Of course it would be a good entry.

Previous games necessary? No
Previous games as a great introduction to what the Elder Scrolls series is all about? Most definately
Games recommended: Morrowind GOTY Edition
Oblivion w/
Shivering Isles Expansion pack
Knights of the Nine Expansion pack

Yes Skyrim could be the entry game for the series if your new although Morrowind and Oblivion are still good.

I would bet that Skyrim will probably a great starter game for people like yourself who have yet to play an Elder Scrolls game. From everything we've seen so far, Skyrim looks like it will be the most engaging game of the series.

But if you choose to try out one of the previous games before Skryim, try not to let any bad experiences you have influence your judgment too much. A lot of people have difficulty adjusting to the size of Elder Scrolls games at first. And if you find the action in the other games to be boring, you'll probably be surprised by Skryim in that area also.... well at least the developers are making it seem a lot different...

If one just wants to check on the lore, go to http://www.imperial-library.info/ and research on anything you want regarding past games, to include the races, gods, etc. This link will get one started.

And this http://www.uesp.net/ has a lot of good background information.

And welcome to The Elder Scrolls. Have a http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/3943/fishystickcf7.jpg

Any game would be a fine entry into the series, but Arena and Daggerfall might be a bit dated for you to really enjoy it(doesn't bug me though). I would recommend starting with Morrowind just because I think it provides the best environment to really become interested and immersed in the lore. Oblivion is great too and has some solid combat. Since Skyrim is not out yet I don't know if it would be the best first TES game.

Since each game follows a seperate story, you don't really need to play them in a specific order to understand each individual game. Of course they all take place in the same world, and the events of older games become history in newer games, and you may see references to things that happened in past games in later ones, but generally, the information you need to understand the self contained stories of each game is included in the game itself. Playing other games can help to enrich your understanding of the Elder Scrolls as a setting, but it isn't strictly necssary to enjoy individual games, and if you want to know more about the setting, aside from reading in-game books, there's also the Imperial Library, of course.

Now, in terms of gameplay, some games might be easier to get into for someone who has never tried an Elder Scrolls game before than others, making them a better entry point, but since Skyrim has not been released yet, I can't say how well it will serve for that purpose.

Each game is different like the Final Fantasy series. You don't need to know what happens in each game to be able to enjoy it. Oblivion is out and still easily found at game shops, why don't you go buy and play that?