6 Books That Weren’t Published Yet Appear In Tamriel
Elder Scrolls Online has the largest collection of in-universe books and lore materials by far, comprising most of the other games in the Elder Scrolls series’ books as well as nearly-countless numbers of its own. However, because ESO takes place in the second era, a lot of these books 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 from Skyrim, whose events take place two eras after ESO.
5 Anvil Castle Wasn’t Build Until The Third Era
Something pretty minor, but nonetheless lore-breaking, is the existence of Anvil Castle in the Gold Coast area of Elder Scrolls Online. With the release of Elder 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 of Oblivion.
Now, Anvil Castle has had two versions: one from before the Camoran Usurper, and one after. The one before was added with ESO, and the one after was mentioned in Oblivion as 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.
4 Cyrodiil Isn’t A Massive Jungle
A classic problem with the representation of Cyrodiil in Elder Scrolls games is the lack of marshes, jungles, and other traditionally difficult-to-navigate areas. In the original Pocket Guide To The Empire from early Elder Scrolls games, Cyrodiil is described as being pretty much an endless jungle where the Colovians had traditionally farmed rice.
As of Oblivion the jungle aspects of Cyrodiil have been all but nullified. Some players hoped that Elder Scrolls Online’s interpretation of the area would be more faithful to the original descriptions, but perhaps because more players are nostalgic for Oblivion than an old in-game text, the Heartland is much more european-inspired.
3 Mehrunes Dagon Can Invade Pretty Much Whenever He Likes
One of the major problems with Elder Scrolls Online is 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 to act the hero again and 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.
2 Black 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 the Elder Scrolls series, the area is described as being utterly inhospitable and unnavigable - the in-game book The Argonian Account hilariously 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 up because he didn’t try to terraform the landscape.
However, the zones of Deshaan, Blackwood, and Murkmire feature almost none of the strangeness that 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. In ESO, 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.
1 Somehow, Everything Happens At The Same Time
A double-edged sword of Elder Scrolls Online is 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 in Blackwood, the Daedric War arc of both the Morrowind and Summerset chapters, and everything else in between technically 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 the Elsweyr Chapter and go back to the Planemeld arc later on, or start with Blackwood and go back to Orsinium to 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 is Elder Scrolls Online retconning itself with every new character created and leveling choices made.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S
