The Elder Scrolls Online chapter High Isle takes you to an area never shown in an Elder Scrolls game before and wants to tell a down-to-earth story at the same time. Here you can find out what to expect in High Isle and what our first impressions were.
Dragons, Daedra and other divine catastrophes were really enough in the last year’s adventures in The Elder Scrolls Online. With this in mind, Zenimax Online Studios have set out to tell a less mystical and much more down-to-earth story for the latest chapter, High Isle, than in its predecessors.
Instead of rehashing the familiar areas of past Elder Scrolls games, as was the case with Morrowind, Greymoor and Blackwood, you’ll take an extended look at the legacy of the Bretons on the two largest islands of the Systres archipelago with the 2022 Annual Adventure.
On High Isle, your adventure starts where the Breton noble dynasties have created an idyllic home of secluded villages, sprawling half-timbered mansions and chic castles with slender, tall towers around the magnificent port city of Gonfalon. The geographical proximity to the High Elf Island of Sommersend is evident in the bright chalk cliffs and the generally lovely warm climate.
But High Isle has more to offer than idyllic scenery Every now and then you will find small lava lakes between the peaceful stretches of land. These are the basis for the new, stationary world events in the style of daedra anchors and crevice geysers, while on the prison island of Amenos everyone who disturbs the peace ends up – in other words, plenty of political prisoners. And instead of a cosy cell and a few meals, it’s prisoners: Survival in the wilderness. Because the sprawling rainforest and the other, sometimes more bloodthirsty criminals on the island, are anything but pleasant.
High Isle – The Good Soul of War
The main story of the basic game is already strongly characterised by an all-embracing conflict: the War of the Three Banners or also called Alliance War. Here, the great alliances wrestle with each other for the orphaned throne of the Empire of Cyrodiil. The Aldmeri Dominion under the High Elven Queen Ayrenn, the Ebenherz Pact under Northern King Jorunn and the Dolchsturz Alliance under the Breton Great King Emeric.
In terms of gameplay, you will encounter this conflict again and again in various quests, in that NPCs of the other alliances appear as opponents. In addition, PvP fans fight against each other in the mass battles of the Alliance War on the side of their faction. Of course, there is no lasting decision in these battles; the ongoing war exacts a correspondingly high price from the inhabitants of Tamriel.
For the Breton prince Bacaro Volorus, it has long been a matter of the heart to help those most affected by the effects of this war. The League of the Steadfast, which he founded, is guided by the teachings of Stendarr without being a religious order. On the outskirts of the major battlefields, the League sets up healing centres to help injured soldiers as well as ordinary citizens affected by the war.
An enemy in hiding
But since the war has no end, Volorus now devotes himself to fighting the disease, not just the symptoms. To do this, he has used his influence to bring the leaders of the three alliances together in the Bretons’ home on High Isle to negotiate a peace in secret. However, the ships with which the three rulers were supposed to arrive have been lost in a heavy storm – in this situation, of course, your help is needed. Because resistance to the prince’s plans has long since formed on High Isle. Even before the planned negotiations, the Order of the Upstart on High Isle has disturbed the planned peace.
The aim of this increasingly terrorist and masked separatist movement is to smash all alliances and thus free the inhabitants of Tamriel from the tyranny of their rulers. The group is led by a duo of aspiring magus and princes. Who is behind the aspirants and whether a lasting peace can really be achieved remains to be seen in the course of the annual adventure Legacy of the Bretons.
Fortunately, at Prince Volorus’ side, a real celebrity will support you in unravelling the mystery: the former secret agent Princess Arabelle Davaux, who is considered the author of the raunchy in-game detective stories surrounding investigator Vala.
The introduction to the intrigue-shaken main story is excitingly staged and makes you want more. Especially since the basic theme does not only concern a limited area, but could potentially have an influence on all of Tamriel. At the preview press conference on 4 April 2022, Creative Director Rich Lambert remained silent on the question of whether the main story of the basic game will be continued through High Isle.
He did, however, emphasise how important it was to the development team to tell a story in which the Bretons are taken away from the fantasy world and you get to know more of their culture. Whether the plan will work out will have to be seen in the course of the story.
Time for a duel: Card game as a new feature
The other significant new feature of the High Isle chapter fulfils a long-held wish of Lambert’s: even before the release of the basic game, he had been promoting a card game in the team that is influenced by real pub games. With the so-called stories of glory, this idea is now becoming a reality eight years after its release.
This is not about slaughtering enemies or solving quests. Instead, you have to swing through the maps in your own storyline including a ranking system, just like the inhabitants of Tamriel have been doing for centuries to relax with friends. You will either compete against NPCs or other players – simply challenge others directly to a card duel or use the newly implemented glory story player search.
Once you have completed the tutorial for the turn-based, strategic deck-building card game for two ends at a time, you have four different decks at your disposal; the rest of the eight decks are earned over time by playing. At the start of a game, you choose two of these Patron Decks, consisting of around twenty cards, each with their own mechanics, synergies and different lore background.
You start with five cards in each hand, all remaining cards go into a deck shared with your opponent. During your turn, you generate gold by playing the five cards in your hand, perform possible actions such as fighting your opponent’s cards and finally buy cards from the split pile revealed by the generated gold.
At the end of your turn, you discard the unused cards before your opponent’s turn. On each new turn, you again pick up five cards from your deck, which can be action cards, contract cards and player cards. Action cards generate gold, initiate battles, let you draw more cards or allow you to force your opponent to discard cards, for example. You play contract cards immediately after buying them and use their possibilities for one-off actions. Actor cards and their effects remain in play until your opponent has taken care of them.
Gwent? What is Gwent?!
If you’re thinking of our favourite wizard’s card game, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The glory stories are not a Gwent clone in game terms, because you work towards different victory conditions depending on the desired strategy. It’s a bit like the classic board game Risk. For example, you could bring all four cartridges, represented by tokens, of the decks chosen by you and your opponents to your side through your moves by fulfilling their requirements in the game. Or you could try to accumulate a total of 40 victory points. According to Rich Lambert, you can only improve your cards through game activities. In the future, you will also only earn new decks by playing, not by buying them in the in-game shop.
But for all the strategy, it doesn’t come without a certain amount of luck – that’s what the developers call the glory stories a game that’s supposed to be easy to learn but hard to master. For advancements in the seasonal ranking system, you receive cosmetic items, new emotes, interior crafting materials and more as rewards. Unfortunately, the game was still a bit buggy in our preview version, so we didn’t manage a full game – but it was still fun! If the glory stories are not for you at all, you can also ignore this content, as you don’t need them to progress in the main story of the chapter.
More comfortable everyday life ahead
Aside from the new 12-player trial, in which you take on evil pirates on the Greywater Reef, you can collect two new companions in possession of the Blackwood chapter: The morally rather flexible Khajiit Funke will help you with her magical abilities, while the honourable, budding Breton knight Isobel Velois will provide powerful support in close combat. If the quickly repetitive companion spells eventually got on your nerves in Blackwood, the development team promises much more variety for the two new companions.
Editor’s verdict
When High Isle was announced, my first reaction was “Instead of a good idea, they’re now copying Gwent!”, coupled with indignant and annoyed eye-rolling. However, the glory stories are a lot more complex than expected, so I remain curious to see how this mechanic works in detail. The fact that the main story is now finally dealing with down-to-earth politics again instead of divine or mystical beings I think is a good decision, as things have been very lukewarm in this area in recent years.
I didn’t get to play the whole story, but I enjoyed the start – also meeting old acquaintances like the chaotic northern ambassador Rigurt, Captain Za’ji and Caska or the sly thief Jakarn, whom I already found very funny in the Stros M’kai story. I’m not really optimistic yet, but a certain curiosity about the new content remains.
