The first glance into the open world of The Elder Scrolls game remains one of the most exciting moments in a gamer’s playthrough, especially since each The Elder Scrolls game offers not just a different region of Tamriel to explore but a tutorial on how players can get there. While players starting as prisoners have become a meme in The Elder Scrolls, each Intro Quest introduces players to the game’s mechanics and overworld differently.
Now that The Elder Scrolls has The Elder Scrolls 6 in development, as well as the MMO The Elder Scrolls Online, players of the acclaimed franchise may be eager to try other titles to see just how the world evolved across the years. Thankfully, certain entries into The Elder Scrolls have Intro Quests that can make introducing their respective worlds quite exciting for players.
9 Battlespire
The self-contained nature of An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire can be put into perspective once players realize the project started as Daggerfall expansion developed alongside Redguard and Morrowind. Instead of featuring an open world, Battlespire focuses on the dungeon-crawling aspect of Daggerfall. This level design focus is tied heavily into its premise, where players start the game as an apprentice hoping to complete their final test in the Battlespire, the training ground of the Empire’s elite Battlemages.
Unfortunately for players, their character soon discovers Daedra, courtesy of Mehrunes Dagon himself, has overrun the fabled floating citadel. Unlike other Elder Scrolls titles, Battlespire doesn’t provide players with an Intro Quest. Instead, a short cinematic paves the way to character creation and finishes the “intro” segment with a quick run-through of controls. After that, players need to go through a classic The Elder Scrolls dungeon to gather clues about what exactly is happening with nary an Intro Quest to guide them.
8 Redguard
Among the entries of The Elder Scrolls franchise, The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard stands out due to its nature as a third-person RPG with a predetermined character. Starring a young Redguard named Cyrus, Redguard players soon find Cyrus deep in a conspiracy out of his control. The game doesn’t have an Intro Quest in the strictest sense of the term. Instead, the introduction is a lengthy exposition detailing the Tiber Wars, a series of conflicts ending with Tiber Septim founding the Third Empire and unifying Tamriel for the first time. Events of Redguard take place after the invasion of Hammerfell, where provisional governor Lord Richton rules the southern port island of Stros M’Kai with a ruthless iron fist.
The game’s first few minutes show Cyrus on his way to the island in search of his sister, with its equivalent of an Intro Quest ending after a brief combat encounter with pirates before docking. Despite the third-person RPG being more linear than the rest of the titles, its relatively long exposition could’ve been elaborated through dialogue or bits and pieces throughout the Intro Quest instead of all at once. After all, the extended background becomes useless when players realize Cyrus’s quest for his sister has no immediate relation to the earlier exposition.
7 Blades
Instead of following the traditional open world of The Elder Scrolls franchise, The Elder Scrolls: Blades blends action RPG with base-building mechanics. These are directly tied into its premise, where players are former members of the disbanded Blades who find their hometown ravaged by threats such as bandits and the undead. Now the only townsfolk with combat experience, players become responsible for rebuilding and protecting the village against threats. As with other mobile experiences, Blades doesn’t have one Intro Quest. It instead has an entire questline, beginning with a classic The Elder Scrolls dungeon crawl that teaches the game’s combat mechanics.
After finishing this quest, other tasks involve rebuilding the town’s basic buildings to get access to the rest of the title’s gameplay loop: the Town (story mode), Arena (PVP), and Abyss (repetitive dungeon survival mode). While Blades bridges the gap between Oblivion and Skyrim, its underwhelming delivery and rather mediocre intro questline don’t make the gameplay loop seem worthwhile.
6 Daggerfall
Compared to other Elder Scrolls titles, The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall takes a more straightforward approach to an Intro Quest. After players get a brief background on Tamriel’s history, they’re put through a cutscene where Emperor Uriel Septim VII orders them to appease the ghost of the King of Daggerfall and destroy a private letter he’s dispatched to the Queen of Daggerfall. These visuals then transition to the playthrough proper, where in-game prompts give players direct instructions on the game’s mechanics.
Being only the second game in the franchise explains the need for more immersion in introducing the world of Tamriel through the Intro Quest. Unfortunately, this makes Daggerfall’s tutorial less appealing than the other games. However, Daggerfall having a less urgent Main Quest does pave the way for a more carefree exploration of the game’s version of Tamriel. This pressure-free exploration can be an advantage for players, as Daggerfall has one of the largest open worlds featured in a game.
5 Oblivion
Now featuring full audio and improved visuals, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion spared no excuse in showcasing a cinematic experience with its thrilling Intro Quest. Again using the classic Elder Scrolls prisoner intro, the player character’s supposedly extended stay in the Imperial Prison is interrupted by Emperor Uriel Septim VII himself. While he and his guards only intend to use the character’s prison cell as an escape passage, the Emperor says the player’s presence there is dictated by destiny. With the Emperor’s urging, the player tags along with them as they familiarize the game’s mechanics.
Soon, players learn that mysterious assailants have killed the Emperor’s heirs and plan on killing the Emperor himself. These killers eventually catch up to the Emperor and kill him, but not before he entrusts the players to deliver the Amulet of Kings to his remaining heir. This Intro Quest introduces the province of Cyrodiil and the Empire at stake against a mysterious threat. However, the implied urgency of the main quest doesn’t mix well with the open-world nature of Oblivion. Moreover, despite jumping straight to the plot, sections in the tutorial where setpieces cut to character creation screens interrupt what immersion the game sought to set up.
4 Arena
As a 1994 release, The Elder Scrolls: Arena relies on text for exposition, explaining how Battle Mage Jagar Tharn usurps the Imperial Throne by exiling the Emperor to another dimension. It also describes how “Arena” is the nickname attached to the brutal life in Tamriel and the ghost of Sorceress Ria Silmane entrusting the realm's fate in the player’s hands. The game’s equivalent of an Intro Quest simply tells players to escape the Imperial Prison as Jagar Tharn has left them to die in their cell and doesn’t see them as a threat.
With the lack of immediate urgency in the player’s destiny of dealing with Jagar Tharn, the title gives players as much time as they need to ease themselves into the game without pressuring them to resolve Main Quest. The Intro Quest in The Elder Scrolls: Arena is simple but properly introduces many tropes fans would associate with the franchise. These Bethesda traditions shown in Arena include embedding gameplay tutorials in a dungeon-like sewer setting as well as the game ending its hand-holding by revealing the vast expanse of land players can explore to their heart’s content.
3 Skyrim
Memes likely fill up a player’s memory of the Intro Quest of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, particularly the scene of new characters waking up as prisoners on a wagon on their way to a public execution. While making a character right before they are executed seems ironic, things get heated when a supposedly-extinct dragon swoops down from the skies and causes havoc. This incident frees the player, with the game teaching players its mechanics while they survive the chaos around the execution zone.
This setpiece theatrically introduces the game’s mechanics, ending as soon as the dragon leaves and NPCs bestowing players with a new mission: let the Jarls of Skyrim know that dragons are back. Unfortunately for players, these Jarls are engaged in a civil war to determine the true rule of Tamriel’s northern region of Skyrim. Skyrim's main story is cinematic, and noteworthy for the franchise, with the downside of pulling the veil off an urgent story and revealing a vast but equally distracting open world.
2 Morrowind
Entering Morrowind for the first time borders on the alien for the fantasy enjoyer, especially since The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind is the only game in the franchise with marshy locales and oddities such as floating creatures. Even the game’s Intro Quest aids in the immersion into this non-stereotypical fantasy setting, with players pardoned by Emperor Uriel Septim and sent to Vvardenfell in Morrowind to start a new life. The player’s Intro Quest involves completing their release papers, with queries from guards doubling as character creation options and introduction to gameplay.
Players are free to make a headcanon as to why they’re incarcerated as the guards say an imperial pardon practically means no questions asked. After giving their release papers to Sellus Gravius, he encourages players to enjoy being a free man in Morrowind. And should they decide to pursue the Emperor’s purpose in pardoning them, they can choose to deliver a package for Caius Cosades in Balmora. The Intro Quest not rushing players into the main storyline incentivizes players to explore Morrowind without breaking character, making Morrowind’s starter questline perhaps the best in the franchise.
1 The Elder Scrolls Online
Set in the distant past of the Second Era, The Elder Scrolls Online positions itself as an MMO that predates the events of all The Elder Scrolls titles. This approach sets players up for more stories in the world of Tamriel without the pressure of condensing everything in a Skyrim follow-up. Whereas other MMOs sets players up for greatness in their starting missions, Online’s Intro Quest appropriately grounds players in the vastness of what Tamriel’s many locations offer.
When players start The Elder Scrolls Online, High Elf scholar Norianwe tells them she was researching their current location, the Keywright’s Gallery on the Isle of Balfiera, when players arrive via the portal. The Intro Quest doubles as the tutorial, as players learn the game’s mechanics while assisting Norianwe in finding a way out of the island. The MMO’s intro is noteworthy for its meta component, where players are hinted to be travelers from a faraway land. The Intro Quest ends where Norianwe presumably found the players, in the portal-filled room of the famed Keywright’s Gallery. Players then select one of the many portals to head to a notable Tamriel location as a starting area, each containing a problem Norianwe says players may be fated to help resolve.