Bethesda launched The Elder Scrolls: Castles for iOS and Android this week. This game is a spiritual successor to Fallout Shelter.
In this game, you play as the Hand of the King, and it is your responsibility to manage the castle. Each day in the real world is a year in the game, and your job is to make the right decisions as you expand the empire.
“Like Fallout Shelter, we wanted to give players the same fun, easily accessible, entertaining experience, but this time with the Elder Scrolls,” says Craig Lafferty, Director of Mobile Games at Bethesda Game Studios.
The game’s castle-building mechanic offers quite a lot of flexibility and customisation. You can easily change the castle layout and decorate it to your liking with props that all affect the gameplay.
Ensuring your subjects are happy and keeping up morale is also a big part of the job, and you may have to play cupid to ensure there is an heir to the throne. You’ll eventually have to venture outside the castle walls. Here, you will send your subjects on quests, and they will combat familiar Elder Scrolls creatures. As you unlock new materials in your quests, you can craft new weapons for your combats or level up existing gear.
The game also features a rogue-lite mode, in which you face waves of enemies with increasing difficulty.
You can get The Elder Scrolls: Castles for free on iOS and Android, but there are microtransactions in the form of gems and items you can buy. There’s also an Emperor’s Pass (30 days) for about R250 and a Starter Bundle for R260. The Emperor’s Pass is a rewards-based subscription system that will give players various rewards as they progress in this game.
Yes, these prices are way too expensive for a mobile game, and it remains to be seen if the microtransactions will limit gameplay over the long run. My advice, as always, is to stay away from microtransactions.