Latest news with #ElderScrolls
CNET
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Best Video Games Under $50 Right Now
There's been a lot of talk about how much the cost of games could increase in 2026. It's already been confirmed that some AAA games, like The Outer Worlds 2, will be priced at $80 when they come out. It's ironic that a game that satirizes corporate greed should be the first official title with a higher price, but here we are. However, another trend has quietly emerged over the past few months as well: Many great AA games are being released for $50 or less. A lot of these titles are currently on sale, too, so you can pick them up even cheaper right now. As an avid gamer, I've found a lot of more affordable titles that are well worth your consideration. One is even the top contender for Game of the Year. And who knows, maybe one of them will end up being your new favorite game. The best games for $50 or less right now Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon FBC Firebreak Elden Ring Nightreign Helldivers 2 Alan Wake II The best games for $50 or less Questline Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon $45 at PlayStation $45 at Steam $45 at Xbox A newcomer to "scrolls-like" games, Tainted Grail has all the right ingredients. It takes place in Arthurian legend. The fabled King Arthur has already died, long ago, but not before he established a new capital for humankind on the island of Avalon. However, a Wyrdness has since settled on the island, and it's your job to sort it out, with some unexpected help. Though it's a little rough around the edges -- my time with the game has included a number of bugs and crashes -- it has really solid bones, and the team behind it is actively working on patching things. The magic system, itemization and world building are all good. You can really tell Questline has a love for games like Oblivion. I happily paid the $45 to support the studio, and I'm excited to see how it continues to iterate and improve on the game as development continues. Genre: RPG, first- or third-person Number of players: Single player Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC $45 at PlayStation $45 at Steam $45 at Xbox Arrowhead Game Studios Helldivers 2 $32 at PlayStation $40 at Steam I can't write a list of great inexpensive games without including Helldivers 2. It's one of my favorites, especially to play with friends. When you're seconds away from extracting off an alien planet, surrounded on all sides by thousands of bugs, with fire, lasers and missiles raining from the sky and your friends in your ear cheering you on or yelling at you for inadvertently blowing them to bits, it's a rush, to say the least. As a Helldiver, it's your job to spread "managed democracy" across the universe, ending the threat posed by giant bugs, the voteless zombie Illuminate, and cold, terminator-like robots. You're just fodder in Super Earth's endless wars, but until your inevitable demise, you'll have all its weaponry -- including massive, orbital lasers; automated turrets; and destructive napalm strikes -- at your disposal to obliterate its enemies. Genre: Third-person shooter Number of players: 1-4 players Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (starting 8/26/25), PC $32 at PlayStation $40 at Steam
CNET
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
You Don't Need to Drop $80 on a New Game. Here Are the Best Games for $50 or Less Right Now
There's been a lot of talk about how much the cost of games could increase in 2026. It's already been confirmed that some AAA games, like The Outer Worlds 2, will be priced at $80 when they come out. It's ironic that a game that satirizes corporate greed will be carrying a higher price like that, but here we are. However, another trend has quietly emerged over the past few months as well: Many great AA games are being released for $50 or less. A lot of these titles are currently on sale, too, so you can pick them up even cheaper right now. As an avid gamer, I've found a lot of more affordable titles that are well worth your consideration. One is even the top contender for Game of the Year. And who knows, maybe one of them will end up being your new favorite game. The best games for $50 or less right now Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon FBC Firebreak Elden Ring Nightreign Helldivers 2 Alan Wake II The best games for $50 or less Questline Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon $45 at PlayStation $45 at Steam $45 at Xbox A newcomer to "scrolls-like" games, Tainted Grail has all the right ingredients. It takes place in Arthurian legend. The fabled King Arthur has already died, long ago, but not before he established a new capital for humankind on the island of Avalon. However, a Wyrdness has since settled on the island, and it's your job to sort it out, with some unexpected help. Though it's a little rough around the edges -- my time with the game has included a number of bugs and crashes -- it has really solid bones, and the team behind it is actively working on patching things. The magic system, itemization and world building are all good. You can really tell Questline has a love for games like Oblivion. I happily paid the $45 to support the studio, and I'm excited to see how it continues to iterate and improve on the game as development continues. Genre: RPG, first- or third-person Number of players: Single player Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC $45 at PlayStation $45 at Steam $45 at Xbox Hangar 13 Mafia: The Old Country $50 at Target The next instalment in Hangar 13's Mafia series isn't out yet, but it's looking promising. This time, Hangar 13 is turning back the clock to 1900s Sicily, where you'll be put in the shoes of Enzo Favara as he rises through the ranks of the Torrisi crime family. I've played all the other Mafia games, and whereas Mafia 3 stumbled with its open-world format, Mafia: The Old Country brings the series back to its more linear, story-driven roots. Pick this one up when it hits stores on Aug. 8, 2025, for $50. Genre: Third-person action Number of players: Single player Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC $50 at Target Arrowhead Game Studios Helldivers 2 $32 at PlayStation $40 at Steam I can't write a list of great inexpensive games without including Helldivers 2. It's one of my favorites, especially to play with friends. When you're seconds away from extracting off an alien planet, surrounded on all sides by thousands of bugs, with fire, lasers and missiles raining from the sky and your friends in your ear cheering you on or yelling at you for inadvertently blowing them to bits, it's a rush, to say the least. As a Helldiver, it's your job to spread "managed democracy" across the universe, ending the threat posed by giant bugs, the voteless zombie Illuminate, and cold, terminator-like robots. You're just fodder in Super Earth's endless wars, but until your inevitable demise, you'll have all its weaponry -- including massive, orbital lasers; automated turrets; and destructive napalm strikes -- at your disposal to obliterate its enemies. Genre: Third-person shooter Number of players: 1-4 players Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (starting 8/26/25), PC $32 at PlayStation $40 at Steam
Gizmodo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Seagate's 8TB Game Drive for Xbox Just Got Cheaper for a Limited Time, 16x Storage and One Solid Deal
For friends, family, and loved ones who play video games on the reg, some new gaming accessories make for wonderful gifts. with Memorial Day deals still abound, you can find some big opportunities to save on peripherals and components such as controllers, headsets, hard drives, you name it. If you yourself are an Xbox Series X or Series S player or love someone who is, treat yourself or them to this Seagate Game Drive for Xbox. You can expand the onboard storage to download and play more games for just $190. Normally this external hard drive goes for $220, but right now it's $30 off over at Best Buy. See at Best Buy The Xbox Series X and Series S are the current generation of Microsoft gaming consoles. The more robust Series X features an internal SSD with a total storage of 1TB while the Series S supports a storage of just 512GB out of the box. After considering the system software loaded on them that gets consoles to run in the first place, the actually-usable storage is considerably less than that. Plus, games these days are ballooning in file size. Most recently, the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster released last month and that game alone has a download size of over a hundred gigabytes. If you want to make the best of your Xbox console, you're going to want some form of additional storage. 8TB of Xbox Storage The Seagate Game Drive for Xbox will add a whopping 8TB to your console. That's almost 16 times the storage capacity as the Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S off the shelf. Adding an external hard drive to your Xbox could not be easier. The Seagate expansion hard drive simply plugs into your console over USB. The Xbox Series S or Xbox Series X will recognize it to be a hard drive and will allow you to choose to download games directly to it instead of the console's internal drive. The external hard drives only takes about two minutes to set up. Some past generation titles or smaller indie games can be played directly off the external hard drive. However, newer, more expansive titles will require you to move them from the hard drive to the Xbox's internal drive as they require the fast load times the onboard storage offers. It's not the perfect solution, but it is still much faster than redownloading games after deleting to make space.
Daily Mirror
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Oblivion Remastered reminds me of when Bethesda were the true RPG masters
If Bethesda wants to be back on top by the time next Elder Scrolls game rolls around, it should take more lessons from Oblivion Remastered than Starfield. Oblivion Remastered demonstrates the kind of inspiring world and storytelling experience any studio worth its RPG weight should be aiming to recapture. For the longest time, the RPG video game arms race was dominated by the two Bs: BioWare and Bethesda. Specialising in creating titles with memorable characters set in incredibly detailed worlds – the kind where you, the player, can make an impact through your own gameplay decisions – it's clear that this style of game, in 2025, has only become harder to make for both studios. As a result, there's a lot less of these 'all-encompassing' style RPG experiences to be found in general, which means when a disappointment of, say, Starfield 's calibre arrives, it's no fun for anyone. Particularly the players and developers who adored the genre-defining experiences of BioWare and Bethesda's heyday. While not a bad game per se, Dragon Age: The Veilguard 's more action-oriented approach caused long-time series fans to wonder why it was even called Dragon Age at all. As for Mass Effect? Time will tell whether BioWare can put lightning back in that bottle. Meanwhile, as for the other big B, I've been dipping in and out of Oblivion Remastered since its release this month. It's showing age in places, true, yet still reminds me of when a Bethesda RPG was something to be savoured. Is it full of jank and barmy voice acting? Yes, but it also nails (as Skyrim also did) the feeling of being transported to another place, a feeling that's further cemented once you gain influence over it through your decisions. Starfield lacked a lot of this texture, by comparison. The difference with Oblivion is that it cuts the clutter. Now, what do I mean by 'clutter'? Part of this is the size of the world, of course. Whereas Starfield was largely sold on the premise of being limitless, what with procedurally generated planets making up a vast solar system that seemed ripe for exploration alongside a few central hubs, Oblivion's Cyrodiil is almost the exact opposite. In a little under 10 minutes, I can run from its capital all the way to the county of Kvatch, where I'm immediately besieged by countless narrative threads to pull on – almost all of them interesting. By nature of being substantially smaller, not only is Oblivion Remastered more manageable, but less intimidating when wanting to become invested in the several stories it presents. Starfield's more procedural approach feels more like a chore. There's an interesting concept at its centre, one involving some sort of ancient prophecy that quickly sees your main mission to hunt down a series of Artefacts as part of Constellation's effort. This narrative throughline quickly gets muddled soon after you've first launched off the starting planet, however, and it isn't helped by the avalanche of continuous load screens as you board, fly, and then exit your shuttle. Oblivion Remastered has absolutely none of these extra trimmings, and therefore very little bloat. You're quickly out there, exploring Cyrodiil at your own pace, meeting all kinds of quirky races and characters. A dying age Funnily enough, where Oblivion Remastered is most like Starfield is in the raft of dungeons I'm encouraged to plunder. Absolutely all of them I've explored so far feel like the same copy-and-paste underground design, only with a slightly different layout and objective. This isn't an issue exclusive to Oblivion, mind you, Skyrim still has a similar sense of repetition. However, it never bothers me too much since you're never forced to spend exorbitant amounts of time in them, meaning it's never too long before you're back out into Cyrodiil's beautiful open scenery – which obviously looks better than ever due to being rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5. These are just a few superficial examples, but as someone who is currently playing Oblivion for the first time via this remaster, the benefits are clear: Bethesda RPGs are best when they cut out any noise and make you the centre of this story cleanly and promptly. It's not perfect, and by nature of being essentially a facelift of a 2006 Xbox 360 title, there's a few niggles I have with combat, pacing, and the minigames. Dear lord, the minigames… That said, I hope Bethesda learns what it did great during this era of RPG development so it can use these lessons to inform the next generation of The Elder Scrolls rather than the less nuanced approach of Starfield. In the end, there's a direct line that can be drawn from Oblivion all the way to Starfield. You see it in its insistence on wanting to make the player feel special, combined with plenty of reasons to poke away at the farthest reaches of the map and, most of all, tell a story in a world that reflects the effects of your specific decision-making right back at you. These kinds of wide-scale RPGs are no longer a walk in the park to make, and so it's not too surprising to see both BioWare and Bethesda stumble a fair bit when wanting to still get it right while making the most of what new advancements in technology offer. Oblivion Remastered, warts and all, has far more texture and allure than most other recent video game worlds. As such, I don't think it's wrong to expect a once great RPG studio like Bethesda to try and get back to that.
Digital Trends
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
All Elder Scrolls games in order, by release date and chronologically
There are few fantasy worlds as fleshed out and deep as the Elder Scrolls' Tamriel. We were first introduced to the series in the early '90s, and now eagerly await Elder Scrolls 6 to show us a new chapter of this tale. Until that upcoming video game makes its way to our PCs and consoles, we love to revisit these games to see how they have evolved and reimmerse ourselves in the lore. Similar to the GTA games, you'd be missing out on over half the games if you think there are only 5 Elder Scrolls games out right now. Surprisingly enough, every single game is considered canon and contributes to the ongoing story of the world. While you could always jump into whatever game looks most interesting, we think playing either in release order or chronologically is a better approach. This is the official order for the entire Elder Scrolls series in release and chronological order. All Elder Scrolls games in release order The Elder Scrolls is an old franchise that has undergone tons of evolutions over the decades. What hasn't changed is how ambitious these RPGs are. Each one has pushed the limits of open world games, RPGs, and simulations, though not without their bugs and glitches. Most mainline entries are set in one specific region or province of Tamriel, though some cover more ground or have expansions that let the player visit new areas. Recommended Videos While the oldest games in this list can be rough on the eyes, playing in release order really shows how impressive the growth of this series is from game to game. If you want to take on playing the Elder Scrolls games in release order, here's how to do it: Note: We will only list the original release for games that have multiple versions. Otherwise, half this list would be Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls Arena (1994) (1994) The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996) (1996) The Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (1997) (1997) The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (1998) (1998) The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) (2002) The Elder Scrolls Travels: Stormhold (2003) (2003) The Elder Scrolls Travels: Dawnstar (2004) (2004) The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey (2004) (2004) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) (2006) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) (2011) The Elder Scrolls Online (2014) (2014) The Elder Scrolls: Legends (2016) (2016) The Elder Scrolls: Blades (2020) (2020) The Elder Scrolls VI (TBA) All Elder Scrolls games in chronological order One of the great things about epic fantasy series is that they tend to have their own calendars. That isn't true for the Zelda games, but thankfully is for The Elder Scrolls, so we can easily track what games take place when. As cool as it sounds to play the series in the correct order of events historically, in practice, it is going to be a bit of a nightmare. Since every single game is considered canon, you are going to have to track down some very old PC and mobile games. Aside from major events, you aren't required to know the whole timeline or history of the series before playing the latest entry if you wish. Of course, those who do spend the time engrossing themselves will be rewarded. If you're up to the task, this is the official The Elder Scrolls timeline. The Elder Scrolls counts major time periods in Eras (E) followed by years. The Elder Scrolls Online (2E 582) (2E 582) The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (2E 864) (2E 864) The Elder Scrolls Arena (3E 389 – 3E 399) (3E 389 – 3E 399) The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey (3E 397) (3E 397) The Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (3E 398 – 405) (3E 398 – 405) The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (3E 405 – 3E 417) (3E 405 – 3E 417) The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (3E 427) (3E 427) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (3E 433) (3E 433) The Elder Scrolls: Legends (4E 175 – 201) (4E 175 – 201) The Elder Scrolls: Blades (4E 180) (4E 180) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (4E 201) (4E 201) The Elder Scrolls Travels: Stormhold and The Elder Scrolls Travels: Dawnstar (Unknown) and (Unknown) The Elder Scrolls VI (TBD)
