Elder Scrolls Online Casual Solo Gameplay: How To Play This Way?
Posted: Jul 30, 2025 Views: 84
While nearly all MMORPGs emphasize combat to earn resources and survive, if you’re not comfortable playing with others, a casual approach might be more suitable, especially in a long-running game.
Undoubtedly, Elder Scrolls Online, now over a decade old, is such a game. Even new players will probably be drawn to the casual atmosphere and relaxed after completing the initial quests.
So, what qualities of ESO still allow you to enjoy it casually as a solo player in 2025? We’ll analyze them for you.
Game Overview - Atypical MMORPG
While you can reach the top of Elder Scrolls Online by constantly farming ESO gold or rarer gear, the more you play, the more you’ll find that even casual questing can provide a solid ESO experience.
If you prefer full-on combat, you can team up with guild-mates in ESO to complete raids or slay bosses in large dungeons for loot. You can also gather in PvP zone of Cyrodiil to form an army and fight other players.
If you prefer a more casual solo experience, you can wander around Elder Scrolls Online’s towns, chat with NPCs, or create clothing accessories to accessorize and style your character for a more unique and stylish look.
ESO’s comprehensive crafting system allows you to experience forging, enchanting, cooking, and even crafting furniture to build houses through a variety of crafting skills. Furthermore, you can use the fishing feature to sell rare fish or materials you catch for more ESO gold.
In fact, with the removal of the subscription requirement and more Tamriel updates, such as the recent addition of the subclass feature, ESO becomes more like a pure “Elder Scrolls game” than a typical MMO, allowing you to customize your playstyle to your needs.
Easily Immerse In The Game Story
In MMORPGs, most PvE gameplay and quests involve complex storylines and character backgrounds, sometimes even affecting your quest progress. Therefore, you need to be fully familiar with these details before engaging in combat.
Some MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft series, often use extensive text descriptions to explain quest backgrounds. While this approach helps ensure that no details are missed, it can be tedious.
In contrast, Elder Scrolls Online sometimes provides key quest information in the form of notes, and most quest dialogue is voiced for quick understanding.
Furthermore, some ESO story content is actually based on the background of other Elder Scrolls games, but the integration is very good. Combined with the engaging narrative style, completing an ESO PVE quest is like immersing yourself in a magical story.
A Large Number Of Completable Quests
ESO PvE quests are diverse, including multiple faction quest lines and various side quests. Completing them rewards skill points, making them perfect for a killing time as a solo player.
A single faction questline takes approximately 50 hours, and if you prefer, you can complete the questlines for two other factions with the same character. This way, the faction questlines alone could fill a whole vacation, not to mention the other smaller quests.
In addition, as you complete the quests, you might unlock more points of interest, find places to fish, gather crafting materials, or even complete your own dungeon. This gives you a constant stream of content to enrich your single-player experience.
Multiple DLCs
If you’ve already experienced all the base game content or are looking for new single-player adventures, Elder Scrolls Online offers a wealth of DLCs to satisfy your needs.
These DLCs typically include different dungeons, maps, and exclusive gameplay options, allowing you to choose the one you want. Each DLC also has its own storyline, which flows seamlessly together, helping you gain a deeper understanding of Tamriel.
Major ESO DLCs include:
- Imperial City
- Orsinium
- Thieves Guild
- Dark Brotherhood
- Shadows of the Hist
- Morrowind
- Horns of the Reach
- Clockwork City
- Dragon Bones
- Summerset Chapter
- Wolfhunter
- Murkmire
- Scribes of Fate
- Necrom Chapter
- Scions of Ithelia
- Gold Road
- Fallen Banners
- Seasons of the Worm Cult Part 1
Recruiting NPCs As Helpers
While most of the game can be completed solo, one person’s power is limited, and completing it may require more time and effort. If you’re a solo player and don’t have any friends or don’t want to socialize, you can recruit NPCs as helpers.
Compared to real players, NPCs can complete your requests simply by giving you command, eliminating the need for additional communication. They’re also more cooperative, especially on simpler tasks.
Diversity With Subclass Feature
Newly added in June of this year, the subclass feature allows you to choose from up to two other classes’ skill lines, in addition to your chosen base class, and experiment with a combination of skills.
Based on the total number of ESO classes and their associated skills, this is expected to result in over 3,000 possible combinations. This significantly expands your combat skill-set and allows for even more customized builds and styles.
While this will consume more skill points, as a solo player, you’ll have plenty of time to earn enough skill points by completing quests to unlock the desired class skills, allowing for maximum character customization.
More New Content
Since late 2024, Elder Scrolls Online has laid out several preliminary plans for its next decade. This means that even if you’ve been a ten-year veteran, you can still enjoy new content, much of which is still suitable for casual solo gameplay.
These are the reasons and methods for easily exploring solo play in ESO. We hope this will inspire you to explore your next game plans. Have fun!
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