Enchanting is a way to alter and enhance gear in The Elder Scrolls series, and while it’s practically overpowered in its effectiveness, it's still lacking somewhat in creativity, leaving a number of ways that The Elder Scrolls 6 could improve it. Imbuing weapons, armor, and jewelry with powerful magical abilities should be as exciting as it sounds, yet it usually feels like another grind to level up, much like Alchemy or Smithing. Elder Scrolls 6 could improve each step in the enchanting process: the methods in which the player enchants weapons and armor, the variety of enchantments that they can place, and how investing perks in the related skill tree could modify the experience.
All of Skyrim’s best character builds can be improved through the game’s Enchanting skill tree. Gear plays a huge role in designing the way the Dragonborn operates both in and out of combat. An enchanted pair of gauntlets can just as easily increase the damage of a bow and arrow as it can bolster the potency of a brewed potion.
An amulet could be enchanted to resist poison, lower the cost of high-level spells, or even to allow the Dragonborn to breathe underwater. In Skyrim a high-level Enchanter is a force to be reckoned with, capable of crossing blades with the strongest fighters, sneaking past the most skilled thieves, or overpowering the game’s mightiest spellcasters. While Alchemy can also enhance Skyrim’s strongest builds via potions and poisons, Enchanting eclipses it by virtue of its permanent effects and being less reliant on finite resources.
How Past Elder Scrolls Games Have Used Enchanting
Enchanting is not exclusive to Skyrim, however. Oblivion and Skyrim go about enchanting in ways that are similar but different, and Elder Scrolls Online simplifies the skill tree while adding some layers to the in-game enchanting process. Skyrim and Oblivion both rely on Soul Gems and Enchanting Altars, the former of which gather souls through Conjuration magic (or items with the Soul Trap enchantment), and the latter which can be found at designated locations around the game world. Oblivion had far fewer Enchanting Altars than Skyrim, but the game also had Sigil Stones, powerful artifacts from the Oblivion realms that simplified enchanting weapons, armor, and apparel.
Enchanting in Elder Scrolls Online is a mixed bag, as it undercuts the overall usefulness of ESO's best new gear sets. The same problem is present in Skyrim: Even the most unique leveled gear falls short compared to what a skilled player can enchant on their own. There’s little value in the Thieves Guild’s Nightingale Bow if it deals 30 points of frost damage and 15 points of shock damage. This is especially true if the Dragonborn can enchant another Ebony Bow with the same abilities but make it stronger.
Elder Scrolls Online did succeed in making the enchanting process more interesting. It used a similar crafting process to games like Magicka, Two Worlds II, and Arx Fatalis. Rather than flat enchantments that could be stripped off an item and pasted on another, players could experiment, combining Essence and Potency Runes together to create varying effects. Admittedly these effects still are not as creative or visually interesting as those from Two Worlds II or Magicka, but it offers a glimmer of hope that Elder Scrolls 6 could have spell crafting like earlier Elder Scrolls games, Morrowind and Oblivion.
Elder Scrolls 6 Should Do More Than Protective & Elemental Damage Enchantments
Skyrim is also limited in the variety of enchantments themselves. Most of the game’s weapon enchantments are simply a means of applying elemental damage to attacks. Swords can be enchanted with fire, a bow can be enhanced with shock, or an axe can deal frost damage per hit. Some weapons can drain health or paralyze, but there is a huge spectrum of untapped potential. Skyrim’s modding community is proof of this, with many mods adding new, creative effects to the game that players can put on their weapons. EnaiSiaion’s Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim, for example, is a mod which adds 120 new enchanting effects to the game. It was released in December 2016 and has since received over one million unique downloads.
Besides adding new ways to synergize with the series’ most popular archetypes, new enchantments also open the door to unique character builds to refresh the game completely. For people who have played Skyrim for multiple hundreds of hours, a pair of gauntlets that generate gold each hour can wholly change their approach: Speechcraft and bribing may become priority in the early game. Imagination is the limit for a set of armor that can magnetically pull foes closer, or a dagger that can change the enemy’s health percentage to match the player’s.
In an open world game like Skyrim or the Elder Scrolls Online (or any past game in the series), player freedom is paramount. Discovering new, interesting enchantments spurs the player on to keep exploring, adventuring, taking on quests, and setting out to find new gear on which to place their new enchantments. This is the heart of the Elder Scrolls series - incentivizing the player to investigate just one more cave or dungeon, or to play questlines through to their completion because the reward might be worth the work.
Elder Scrolls 6 Could Deepen the Enchanting Skill Tree
Much like the Alchemy or Smithing skill trees have pros and cons, Enchanting is also a crafting tree in Skyrim that has its benefits and drawbacks. After adding new enchantments and changing the way players implement them, this is the final piece of the puzzle. Looking at Skyrim’s underwhelming Enchanting perks, Elder Scrolls 6 could stand to learn much about what to bring back and what to avoid.
The primary focus of Skyrim’s Enchanting skill tree is to increase the potency of enchantments that the player can put on their gear. Though to a lesser extent, the skill tree also offers perks to more efficiently drain soul gems when they’re used to recharge weapons. This makes sense, but a logical upgrade to follow this perk might be something to slow the rate of draining enchanted weapons altogether. Elder Scrolls 6 could also solve two problems at once by providing perks to fix Skyrim’s lackluster magic.
Rather than reduce the cost of Destruction spells, Destruction enchantments could increase their damage output, making them more useful in the late game. Gear could be enchanted to boost Conjuration so that Necromancers could raise higher-level Undead. Higher-level Illusionists could have their spells affect higher-level enemies. The most powerful perks in the tree could even unlock entirely new enchantments, giving players more reason and incentive to invest in such a grindy skill.
Enhanced visual effects could also add some needed flair to enchanted gear. Grimeleven’s Animated Enchantments Overhaul is another mod with over twenty thousand unique downloads. The mod adds more realistic flame effects to fire-enchanted weapons and flecks of ice which flicker over frost enchantments. The Elder Scrolls 6 will undoubtedly improve the series’ graphics, and the next generation of consoles could realize a litany of new visual effects in gorgeous detail.
With the game potentially not releasing until 2026, Bethesda Game Studios has ample time to make new enchantments look and feel more exciting. In an interview at E3 2016, Bethesda's Todd Howard said, “I could sit here and explain the game to you, and you would say, ‘That sounds like you don’t even have the technology — how long is that going to take?’ And so it’s something that’s going to take a lot of time, what we have in mind for that game.” The future for enchanting in the Elder Scrolls series may be distant, but considering the time and resources going into it, it remains a promising one.
Source: EnaiSiaion/Nexus Mods, Grimeleven/Nexus Mods, Todd Howard/YouTube