Today on stage during the Bethesda E3 Showcase, the company announced a brand new game called Elder Scrolls: Blades. Promising to bring the title to “every device and system that we can,” the game will support VR all the way from mobile to high-end headsets.
Todd Howard, director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, introduced Elder Scrolls: Blades as a smartphone-first title, but said the company wants to bring it to as many platforms as possible, including VR, and offer crossplay between all supported platforms. It hasn’t yet been announced exactly which VR platforms the game will launch on, but this will be Bethesda’s first mobile VR title. During their E3 presentation tonight, the company also revealed new VR games based on Prey and Wolfenstein.
The company showed off how the game could be played on a smartphone with tap-to-move locomotion and swipe-based combat, either in portrait or landscape mode; ostensibly the controls will be customized for each platform, but it wasn’t yet shown how it would play on console, PC, or VR. The game will launch this Fall for free on iOS and Android, but Bethesda hasn’t specified if other platforms will see a simultaneous launch.
Howard described the game as being an Elder Scrolls game at its core, saying that players would be able to battle through both handcrafted and procedurally generated dungeons, while using melee attacks, ranged attacks, and a variety of abilities and spells. Players can expect to create and customize their own character as they level up and unlock new abilities.
Elder Scrolls: Blades will have several game modes, including Abyss, where players see how far they can make it through an infinite dungeon; Arena, where players can fight each other; and Town, a hub space where players can build up their base, and invite friends to come see what they’ve built.
Elder Scrolls: Blades will launch later this year, but between now and June 15th the company has opened pre-registration for players interested in an Early Access release.