Heads up, Lemmings! The Elder Scrolls Online free to keep if you claim it between July 20 - 27

You can access the games through Heroic Launcher or Legendary, no need to use Tim Sweeney's shitty bloatware

That’s literally the only reason I keep EGS around, because of the weekly free games.

The irony is that this post deliberately doesn't mention the company and one would never find out save for following the link lol Having said that, I must ask, is the spam in the room with us right now?

No. The base game typically costs a one time fee and then you can play most of the zones and all quests within. All endgame stuff. No level restriction.

You can buy a few extensions for a one time price to get new zones (with full stories etc).

And you can subscribe monthly for unlimited crafting storage and a few other perks (double bank space, double customization slots in houses, etc).

There's an optional subscription that includes all the DLC and makes crafting materials not consume inventory space. Crafting is really difficult without the sub, but the rest of the game is approachable without it.

I personally bounced off of it as a fan of the main line Elder Scrolls games. That does, however, come with the caveat that I have no interest in gaming with strangers and don't particularly get along with the cool downs-based combat and incremental optimisation of gear, so large components of the game were falling flat for me from the start. I tried it out for two reasons - being able to play an Elder Scrolls game with my girlfriend, who was also a fan of the series, and because I enjoy the Elder Scrolls setting and liked the idea of seeing parts of it that have gotten no real attention since Arena. The first part of this, yeah, it did great! I was able to just play with the one person I wanted to play with, and there was plenty to do without joining any big parties. The second part let me down; the world is fantastic, but it really lacks the incidental points of interest and unexpected discoveries that make exploring fun (for me) in the main games.

I didn't feel like I was forced in to grinding to do what I wanted, and I was able to complete almost everything in Elsweyr by just doing the quests that interested me as they became available. The monetisation and pressure to log in every day irritated me, though. Both are relatively mild, as I understand it, but I'm coming from a background of being used to games with none of either.

I doesn't play the same at all. It's way more MMO than Skyrim-like. I don't think it's bad, but I couldn't get into the mechanics.

Exploration is kind of comparable though.

ESO isn't even on the EGS in Canada.