Highlights

  • In Skyrim, racial bonuses become redundant as Dragonborn levels up, unlike in Elder Scrolls Online where racial skills evolve.
  • The Elder Scrolls 6 could benefit from a racial skill system that grows with character levels, improving replayability and strategic builds.
  • Bethesda can take inspiration from ESO's racial passive system, balancing racial benefits to make every race and build viable.

Choosing a race from a selection during character creation is a staple of RPGs, and The Elder Scrolls series is no different. Different race options often offer different benefits, such as unique spells or resistance to different types of magic. Skyrim's race system offered similar decisions but was limited in that, as the Dragonborn progressed through the game and leveled up, the race bonus gradually became redundant. The Elder Scrolls Online offers a different racial skill system that unlocks as the player character levels up. This is a system that is more rewarding, and it keeps racial benefits relevant.

The advantages of racial skills that are introduced at later character levels are that they keep the racial class decision relevant for gameplay, add to strategic builds, improve replayability, and reward the player for progressing further. This is particularly useful for a game like The Elder Scrolls Online, but The Elder Scrolls 6 can take this even further by taking the best parts of this system and making them more robust, with better benefits that hit harder for each race.

The Dragnborn from Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls 6 logo
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Racial Skills in The Elder Scrolls Online and Adapting Them for TES 6

Racial Skills in The Elder Scrolls 6

The Elder Scrolls 6 could adopt The Elder Scrolls Online's system of racial skills that uses a leveling system, rather than sticking to Skyrim's system. There are a number of ways it could do this that depend on its leveling system. Overall, The Elder Scrolls 6 would benefit from a system where racial benefits develop and grow with the characters as they level up. While some may prefer a system where a racial choice is more of an aesthetic and lore choice, lore and game mechanics can be integrated together seamlessly and, when it's done well, can be more rewarding for both role-playing and gameplay.

The Cons of the ESO Racial Skills System

Racial skills for The Elder Scrolls Online, however, also tend to suffer the same problem where they become irrelevant when the player character reaches a certain level, although this plateau happens later in-game than in Skyrim. This is because racial passives are overcome with other components such as items and abilities. While this effect may only happen far later than other The Elder Scrolls games like Skyrim, it still kicks in, to the point where racial passives ultimately become pointless unless the player is dedicated to min/maxing their character.

Implementing a New Racial Skill System in The Elder Scrolls 6

If The Elder Scrolls 6 wants to keep racial benefits relevant for longer, Bethesda could take inspiration from The Elder Scrolls Online's racial passive system and make improvements, rather than merely copying it. More robust racial benefits would make picking a racial option more significant, and affect gameplay further down the line. The racial passives would also need to be balanced, so that every race has a passive that's valuable at every level of gameplay, thus making every build viable.

As well as giving the player access to better skills at later parts of the game because of their decisions, giving The Elder Scrolls 6 more robust racial skills could also improve replayability and would encourage players to create new characters of different races and with different builds. Rewarding players for exploration doesn't have to be limited to the in-game world and can begin with character creation.