The Elder Scrolls Online has established itself as a treasure trove of diverse quests and storytelling since its launch back in April 2014. Among the many lighter, more charmingly fantasy-oriented quests out there, ESO also has some surprisingly dark and atmospheric quests to complete.
Delving deep into the shadowed terrors of Tamriel, these grimmer quests provide chilling tales of everything from ancient curses to unsettling encounters with fearsome Daedric Princes. Such immersive quests wind up painting the world at large in a much darker light, exploring themes such as death, madness, and destruction. The game's typically rich and layered worldbuilding helps add to the eerie, often disturbing nature of its gnarlier quest lines, ensuring players get plenty of grim, confronting bang for their buck when venturing into the wilder side of Bethesda's enormous online epic.
6 The Heart Of The Beast
Hircine, the Daedric prince of hunting, takes great pleasure in causing murderous mayhem everywhere he goes. The culprit behind lycanthrope in Tamriel, Hircine is up to his usual tricks here, and wants a shrine dedicated to him to be taken back from the Reachmen.
For players, dealing with the Reachmen means a human hunt, rituals at the altar, and the claiming of a Reachman Briarheart's cut out heart. It's a thrilling but grisly, sometimes mean-spirited, quest that reminds players of Hircine's gleeful sadism from Bloodmoon and Skyrim. The core plot here involves the Reachmen's feud with the Glenmoril Wyrd, a group of witches who have cures for supernatural afflictions such as vampirism and lycanthrope. The Reachmen, meanwhile, consider the werewolf condition as a badge of honor. While both parties worship Hircine, this ideological difference is where the player steps in, assisting dark worshippers of a cruel Daedric prince no matter what in a thrillingly violent storyline.
5 The Corrupted Stone
As is so often the case in The Elder Scrolls, an old Dwemer base has an essential artifact and a lot of action and lore for players to uncover. This quest is bestowed on the player by Erold, a Star-Gazer obsessed with uncovering more knowledge on the Celestials.
After a series of errands revolving around the Skystone Amulet, players meet a key example of where Celestial worship can lead in the form of Izrunath the Corruptor. A key figure in the Scaled Court, Izrunath has formed an alliance with the fearsome Celestial Serpent, granting him immense supernatural power. As well as giving players a dramatic boss fight, Izrunath is a compelling look at the consequences of obsession and the quest for power. Lending a grim, sinister edge to the mysterious world of the Star-Gazers, this quest ultimately highlights the perils of supernatural worship and influence in an action-packed, disturbing manner.
4 Circus Of Cheerful Slaughter
With a quest title like that, it almost goes without saying that this surreal quest provides some dark moments for players to mull over. Focusing on Sheogorath, the infamous Daedric Prince of Madness, this quest is a part of the eccentric fiend's new play, The Folly of Isolation.
The quest involves running some errands for, and frequently meeting with, Sheogorath as he puts his bizarre play together for a ghostly audience. On the surface, the play is predictably silly, however, its oddball plot highlights the dark mindset of the often-goofy Daedric Prince behind it. Much like his appearances in The Shimmering Isles and Skyrim, Sheogorath provides some laughs here, causing a sharp contrast between tone and theme in this key chapter in the Mages' Guild questline. However, the fact that the player is roped into the murderous cruelty of the performance makes this an ultimately glum and twisted moment in the expansive world of The Elder Scrolls Online.
3 The Final Assault
The title of this quest ought to give players an idea of what they're in for. Following on from the destruction of the Dremora forces in The Citadel Must Fall, players must now take part in all out assault on The Endless Stair.
The reason for attacking The Endless Stair is simple, the Planar Vortex needs to be destroyed as a part of the war on Molag Bal, one of the series' most evil Daedric princes. Representing dominion over humans and slavery, the detestable Bal is an unsurprisingly horrible figure in the game. Destroying the Planar Vortex leads to a follow-on quest in which players must use the Amulet of Kings to defeat Bal once and for all. What makes The Final Assault dark is its emphasis on the level of death and destruction the player character and their allies must commit in the name of freedom and justice, highlighting the grim cost of war no matter the cause.
2 The Witchmother's Bargain
This spooky sidequest is seasonal, and only available for players to enjoy during the Halloween period. Appearing only during the Witches' Festival, mysterious Witchmothers can purportedly be bargained with. For the player, discovering just what a Witchmother is capable of requires completing several strange tasks, including obtaining animal guts and slaying a delve boss in order to acquire the macabre Essense of Death.
Obsessed with death and destruction, Witchmother Olyve is a suitably creepy character for a quest zeroed in on witchcraft and dark magic. Pleased with the player character's lengthy history of battle and execution, the Witchmother frequently refers to them as a reaper, encouraging them to acquire ingredients for her mysterious brew. Overall, the emphasis on death and destruction paints the player character in a surprisingly grim light, making the overall quest a bleak, atmospheric experience.
1 The Mystery Of Razak
This Bangkorai-based side quest takes players into the depths of an abandoned Dwemer ruin called Razak's Wheel. As players delve deeper into the area, they must create a Dwarven Cog to get Razak's Machine back to being operational.
What makes this side quest so unexpectedly grim is the emphasis on the corrupting obsession with power as well as the Dwemer's various unethical experiments. The mysterious dwarves of The Elder Scrolls have frequently provided great dungeons and world-building for players to discover. Here, the lore paints them in a much darker light, similar to their depiction in Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC. Out to create monstrous threats to Tamriel in the name of power, the echoes of the Dwemer's behaviour lend this adventurous quest a sense of eerie dread.