Vanilla Elder Scrolls Online is a memory, and one I don’t want to honestly revisit. Over the last few years, the good folks at ZeniMax Online Studios have worked hard to make ESO an online experience that is formidable to the Elder Scrolls offline titles. They have slowly, but surely progressed forward with their labor of love and have come to a crossroads where the game is now fun as hell. Through a series of different expansion releases, and tightening of gameplay design here and there, ESO really has found some legs to move forward into its offline brethren’s shadow. That isn’t a knock, that is a compliment. It has come a long way.
Along the journey, there have been several expansions to help with the tightening and tweaking of the game. Most recently, I enjoyed Summerset, their last DLC. It was colorful, lively, and a bit mysterious in some aspects of the land (exploration is huge for me, so I was delighted when exploring the world paid off). That said, the real meat and potatoes title that hooked my interest was Morrowind. I felt like they had reached a new level of entertainment with that expansion, and haven’t looked back since. Plus, it was neat to return to a land that has been somewhat forgotten for a little bit in the series.
Anyway, with Morrowind and Summerset in place, the combination did a lot to add more depth in characters and expand the ESO world a bit more. Now, ZeniMax Online Studios has returned to the content and focused on story/terror and the need for group work (not that the latter expansions failed in that). The Wolfhunter DLC, which released on the August 13th, and, prior to our review of it, was provided to us to explore and we had a chance to sit down and run through one of the dungeons, Moon Hunter Keep, with the ZeniMax team. It was quite fun.
The story behind Wolfhunter, specifically the Moon Hunter Keep dungeon, is simple. Werewolves have begun to crop up around the land and have been spreading their disease to residents. It has gotten so bad that a wolf hunter lodge, Moon Hunter Keep, has been overrun with werewolves. At the center of the werewolf plague stands a werewolf lord, Vykosa, who is looking to make the world an unstoppable werewolf haven. It’s like Silverbullet had a baby with the Howling and produced something intelligently horrifying. I’m not a huge fan of werewolves to begin with, the concept always creeped me out, but this story is absolutely badass. It feels well thought out, which is impressive because I know there are only so many ways to tell a werewolf story, and thankfully this one feels meaningful. Most importantly, this story feels like there are some actual stakes in play if the player fails. Obviously, the game will never show that side of the coin, but still the stakes are there and they’re real. The addition of a fellow character, Commander Varian, a soldier that is plagued by the werewolf disease and whom is desperately seeking a cure for it, helps guide you through the keep. He adds his own stakes and keeps the story/mission going.
As for the actual gameplay, it’s methodically planned. As I played my 45-minute session with the developers, and I’m sure it will take hours for non-developers out there because it’s challenging, the narrative design felt tightly knit. The dungeon begins with the entrance to the Moon Hunter Keep. You meet Varian, who tells you his story and reminds you politely that he doesn’t want to turn into a werewolf, then you’re off on the hunt. You will run into three separate bosses in the dungeon before the main one, with a gradual difficulty moving up between bosses. The first boss is located inside the first half of the keep, a mage of sorts that requires you to hit him, fight adds, then locate symbols to save your character while he/she is avoiding a giant explosion from the mage. It’s a simple three-step process that requires patience, timing, and attention. It’s certainly a good way to get the player’s feet wet with this DLC.
Beyond the mage, the dungeon moves from inside the keep to the outside, where the player will encounter a wonderful maze to navigate through, which is riddled with bad guys to dispatch (be careful). The early version I played was a bit glitchy, which was fine because it’s early, so the maze kept flickering in/out, but the concept was there and it was fun. The second boss was a bit more of a brute than the first. It was a giant tree monster that could trap you in roots, smack you around a bit, and get help from outside tree creatures that would keep pelting you from afar. There was less timing with this boss when compared to the first, and it felt like there was a lot more attention needed to avoid/kill the outside adds. It was a different type of battle, and one that certainly upped the difficulty of the progression. Difficulty progression is a helluva thing when it comes to this DLC, as it felt like it was done properly. Some of the biggest issues I’ve had with ESO in the past is that the bosses felt like their difficulty jumped exponentially from the ramp up. It would be like cooking on the stove at medium, then twisting the knob instantly up to ‘HOT AS HELL’. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case with the Wolfhunter DLC, as it seems to offer a proper ramp up to challenge.
Moving on, the third boss in the mix, before you get to Vykosa, is a giant white werewolf with rage issues. He can call in an army to help him out, smack you around, and rage on you at any given moment. He was more difficult than the first and second bosses, and felt a bit more sporadic in its actions. I’m not sure that I would have survived long without the devs on this one, as the wolf is quite the challenge. You will certainly find a different kind of fight with this boss that doesn’t feel comfortable at all. There is no real good pattern and everyone has to absolutely work together to see the mission through. Again, it’s a step up from the previous bosses, and different enough to keep the content fresh.
Now, prior to getting to the third boss, you will traverse through a series of keeps that feature big hulking werewolves. What’s great about this, as a developer pointed it out, is that the werewolves are shoved into a small set of corridors, which makes them difficult to avoid, and it makes battling them complicated. It was done on purpose and the end result was brilliant. This is good gameplay design that made sense with regard to enemy size and difficulty. It also makes the moments a lot more claustrophobic, which adds to the intensity and scary factor of the dungeon.
Anyway, once you get beyond the third boss and work your way to Vykosa, you’re ready to go. On that note, I’m not going to spoil the final battle or give you any tips. I will say that it’s exhausting and methodical in design. You will have to work as a coordinated group to defeat Vykosa, so don’t go at it alone.
As it stands right now, the Wolfhunter DLC, which is going to be a review in progress to see how it all works out, is action-packed and entertaining. The dungeon I was able to get through with the devs at ZeniMax Online Studios was fun, and it felt like a well thought out idea that was executed beautifully.
In the next week or so, we’ll have a complete review of the Wolfhunter DLC. If it’s anything like this dungeon, then I think we’re going to be in for a treat.
Stay tuned.
