9. A Dedicated Single-Player Experience - Minuscule Multiplayer
Depending on where you look, some fan-requests and forum threads have alluded to the idea of Dark Souls-style dynamic multiplayer that would pair you up with random people for the sake of quests or clan missions. Not to sound too regressive in terms of this whole 'multiplayer is the future' stuff (it isn't), but the Elder Scrolls series should remain quantifiably a solo experience with zero player-matching when it comes to live gameplay. This kind of thing works in Dark Souls - and particularly the second one - as FromSoftware limit the amount of time you have with the person you're hanging out with. Instead you've already left a summon sign, and if you're 'called in' from your own game, chances are it's to help with felling a particularly hard boss or area full of enemies. Afterwards you get a few seconds to celebrate with your summoner thanks to some brilliant emote-animations, and you're returned to your own world. For the vast majority of all other games, this rigid level of discipline in terms of achieving goals tends to get cast aside in favour of killing each other, standing still, or just generally messing about - and so unless Bethesda can think of a very minuscule way to factor in other adventurers to the experience, we suggest they leave it out. One of the biggest fundamental problems Elder Scrolls Online suffered from was each character out of thousands all having a story that treated them as 'the one' that was going to bring about great change. As you can assume you feel far less like the chosen Dragonborn-esque warrior when the guy next to you is being told the same. A suggestion could be to take a leaf out of Shadow of Mordor's book and reveal where other players were slain, setting out to avenge them, or place posters and bounties around the world for specific creatures you've met out in the wild, getting the cash from another player's quest while they keep the loot. Whatever happens, it's pretty safe to say hardly anybody wants a multiplayer Elder Scrolls title as a main iteration in the series.
