Can a reboot work?

[julystork]

Reboots seem to be a trend amongst game franchise devs these days, rather than continuing the storyline where the last game sequel left off
Latest examples are Tomb Raider & DMC

So can a reboot work for a ES game? Say a Daggerfall or Morrowind reboot

[Musicman247]

I thought the new Tomb Raider game was more of a prequel than a reboot?

Either way, I don't think a reboot would work considering the established timeline. I can see them going back to a province during a different period of time, but not a complete reboot of the series, which would mean all the history and lore we have now would be meaningless.

[AngryNord]

Well, considering the rather heavy departure in lore between Daggerfall and Morrowind, you could almost call Morrowind a partial reboot...

[Mark Spencer]

I think, reboot can work on established timeline. Latest technology and available resources can help to build such reboot.

[all_freed]

This sounds impossible but maybe, like comics, there are alternate timelines/universes/realities.

[TheOogyBoogyMan]

I don't like the sound of it. If they simply remade the game with our newer technology, it would be interesting, but ruining all the history they've created and allowed us to take part in, or take away spells or skills that were odd but fun and replacing them with anything else would be heart breaking.

Besides, given the liberties they take with each game and with their success, I don't see the need for a reboot. They can easily add any other race, enemy or talent, just as easily as they did dragons or perks. They would just say it's thousands of years before or after, or claim it comes from one of the many unspecified-sized Deadric Realms or something to that effect.

[The SheoDovah]

It could work but at a heavy cost. 80-90% of the fanbase would view it as a slap in the face and refuse to adknowledge the reboot. They would have to rebuild the lore from scratch as well as come up with original Aedra and Daedra and new provinces and races etc.. It wouldn't be worth the effort as i suspect it wouldn't sell well. If they turned it into one of those OMFG! I R TEH BADDESTARSE ON TEH PLANET AS I CAN KILLZ ANYTHING WITH ONE HITS AND NEVER DIE games, it would spell the end for the TES franchise as we know it.

They got away with rebooting the franchise with Morrowind as i think the lore was a bit of a mess before they decided to sort it out and even then, it was a semi-reboot. The first two games are still cannon although Daggerfall is a bit odd due to every ending being cannon. And rebooting TES when the Dominion are the biggest threat to Nirn would be a massive mistake. DMC didn't need Rebooting and as a result, half of the fanbase was [&@%!] off when Capcom did reboot it due to a lot of unanswered questions. Such as Who is Nero? What happened to Dante after DMC2? Etc..

[Travalanche]

I'd love a DF remake but there would just be far too much content to be developed to make it profitable. Morrowind has overall aged well imo, the character models look like horse manure but better bodies fixes that, mods generally make the game smoother and add a considerable amount of content to a great base game. Also the overall feel of Morrowind is something that most likely cannot be replicated in the current or next gen as it is one game that is so distinct and obscure that many current gamers wouldn't really touch base with it like the gamer friendly Skyrim.

[Avron the S'wit]

The first two games are still cannon although Daggerfall is a bit odd due to every ending being cannon.

That's true, but at least they justified that with the Warp in the West/Dragonbreak explanation. The Dragonbreak is sort of the easy way out for justifying things, but it served as an explanation. So I wouldn't quite call the jump from Daggerfall to Morrowind a "reboot" so much as the "passing of time."

A reboot will not work for TES. Let's be realistic. This is a world that has an established lore that builds upon itself, slowly and surely, sloppily at times, but builds nonetheless. Every action in the game has a long lasting effect somewhere down the line, though sometimes it's small and sometimes it's real big. You can't wipe the slate clean, because it would negate not just the last 15+ years but also the very foundations that a great deal of the fanbase was built upon. A total retcon of established lore and history would be an absolute deal breaker for me.

As for recreating the games graphically or on better engines? That's not cost productive. There's no reason to go back and upgrade the games when you have a talented community of modders who are going to do it for free. Morrowind has been completely redesigned visually, in terms of AI, and even with features thanks to the amazing modders within the fandom. Why waste money digging up the past again when I can move on to the next big thing, and let my fans do it for me? Bethesda is lucky in this regard and I think it's a big reason why they are so prone to acknowledge and admire the modding community: they're pretty much keeping these games alive for people who wouldn't be into the "old school" graphics.

[Ripcage]

A semi-reboot of Daggerfall and Arena could work. Keep the main plot points, improvising a few of the dungeons and adding voiced characters. NONE of the side quests in AR or DG are ever mentioned in MW, OB, or SR (as far as I know.)so the side quests could be completly redone. Adding the Daedric princes in AR would be a plus as well. And as with every TES game, expand on lore. In DF they would need to gut the randomly generated named NPCS and landscape and replace with non-random NPCs and landscape. There are other things that could be done, but we'd be here all day if I listed them.

[DikaSmausha]

Tomb Raider wasn't a reboot, by the way. I would rather them not do a reboot for anything. Let the game satisfy the generation that it was released in, or pick up a copy.

[Unionhack]

I would LOVE a remake of Daggerfall to be more like Skyrim. Daggerfall is easily my favorite setting out of all the ES games so far. Stros M'Kai being a close second; I would love for an actual main series game to take place there.

[philfredobob]

Stros M'kai a little bit small, so i doubt it would get a whole main series game about it. maybe a DLC.

[ZackyZombify]

I'm sure if a reboot was made it would work well as most people wouldn't know it was a reboot aside from the hardcore fans.

[Chaos the N'wah]

A reboot would be pointless given TES' lore depth and any attempt to due so would likely end in either throwing out all the events that shaped the series in the first place or reliving the same lore with a different twist that could leave a sour taste in the community's mouth.

A remastering of the first two TES titles could work and have the added bonus of potentially correcting any errors lorewise (that they'd want to correct) or add connections to future titles

[philfredobob]

Arena is too big to be remade, its set across all of Tamriel.

[AngryNord]

And they're already making all of Tamriel for TES:Online...

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Well, considering the rather heavy departure in lore between Daggerfall and Morrowind, you could almost call Morrowind a partial reboot...

The reboot began with Redguard, mostly because of the collaboration of Kurt Kuhlmann, Michael Kirkbride and Todd Howard getting together on the First Pocket Guide. It fleshed out Tamriel a lot and made it a lot more unique. Battlespire contained some of the modern lore as well. Morrowind reused a lot of those ideas and further expanded them.

It'd be interesting to redo Arena with modern graphics and elements of post Daggerfall lore thrown in - for instance temples to specific Divines rather than generic ones.

[AngryNord]

....and the Imperial race, not to forget

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Yeah... in Arena, Daggerfall and Battlespire 'Imperial' wasn't even a specific race.

I believe the lore of that era was that Cyrodiil contained a cosmopolitan culture consisting of all races and ruled by humans, probably of Breto-Nordic descent.

Which...is actually about the same as the lore of the current games, actually. The Imperial race is mostly just gameplay. The natives of Cyrodiil are kinda like Americans. Yeah they're "Imperials" but they're the descendents of Nords, Nedes, Bretons, Ayleids, Akaviri and loads of other immigrants.

[philfredobob]

And they're already making all of Tamriel for TES:Online...

thats less detailed than single player games.

[Ripcage]

And they're already making all of Tamriel for TES:Online...

thats less might be less detailed than single player games.

Seriously, cut ESO some slack. It hasn't even released yet so we don't know if it will have less detail than single player ES games or not.

[Br3admax]

It's an MMO for more than one person made for lower-end PCs. We know that it will be less detailed.