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Let's take a moment to reflect on the planes of Oblivion that we've been allowed to visit over the series thus far. Most prominently there was the realm of the Lord of Change, from the game Oblivion. In that same game we visited the Shivering Isles, Peryite's and Boethiah's realms (which were both knock-offs of Dagon's), Paradise or Gaiar Alata (which was part of Dagon's plane), and if you're willing to accept a loose definition of 'visit' then we've also seen Vaermina's Quagmire. In Skyrim we visit part of Sanguine's realm That's it, I think, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Part of the reason I'm warming up to ESO is that Coldharbour is, for me at least, one of the more interesting Oblivion planes, and given that it's tied in so closely to the plot it's almost guaranteed to be a place we can visit. I first read 'The Doors of Oblivion' right back in 2008 while playing Oblivion the game, and I remember thinking 'wow, that sounds cooler than the Oblivion in this game. Why couldn't we go there?'

For the uninitiated:


You see how cool that concept is? An almost exact copy of Nirn, but covered in gore and [&@%!]. OK, that's doing it a disservice. Serious now. I always found this 'Dark World' concept, as TV Tropes has named it, very compelling. It's almost creepier than a standard hellish world, because if you were to go there, it would be familiar yet horrifying. You could go and find your house, inhabited by some nightmarish creature and the bodies of its victims. Perhaps climb a mountain, and notice that the world looks the same, only gloomier.

So that means there are a few things I'd like to see in ESO:
Firstly, is Coldharbour a copy of Nirn because it's an echo of when Molag Bal tried to merge Nirn with his realm, or because he made it that way in order to practice what he'd do if he succeeded? Secondly, what will the extent of our visit be? Will we go there when we die? Can we shift between dimensions using the anchors and explore this realm in full or in part? And lastly, it's said that Molag Bal created vampires to spite Arkay, the god of death. It's unlikely that this even took place as recently as the second era, but I'd quite like to meet the original vampire. We met her descendents in Dawnguard, but that just isn't the same.

Anyway I'm not quite sure what room for discussion this leaves. So, is visiting another realm of Oblivion a good thing? Will we get to explore other realms? Since this is the first time all of Tamriel has been opened in such detail, perhaps some work is being put into other things too.

I've heard an early fan prediction already that the entirety of TESO or at least large parts of it could actually be taking place in Coldharbour. Like the big reveal would be a "dead all along" trope or something, which might explain away some of the slight perceived lore inconsistencies.

Also, of note, several sources written by MK - some of which made it into the games like Mankar's Commentaries- mentions that Coldharbour used to be the domain of an entity named Lyg, who was cast down by the Daedra and had his heart ripped out, making Coldharbour mirror Nirn even more. This Lyg entity would be a mirror of Lorkhan.

I've always been interesting Coldharbour as well, and I'd hoped to see in Skyrim (still do, though I dunno what our chances of a daedric realm DLC is now).

Anyway, it also seems like a relatively easy one to develop as you don't necessarily need to have a full mirror world, even just a major city and some surrounding landmarks is enough to fit some quests in and give you some recognisable areas to explore in their derelict state with whatever other machinations Molag Bal decides to throw in for good measure.

you know . . . I really really really really really really really really like that idea.

and it makes sense since the player characters soul was supposedly stolen by molag bal . . . where else can you be?

It would also explain why Coldharbour in the present day is ruined. It's the aftermath of the war of accession in the game.

Wow.

Inception jokes will run rampant.