Today, August 22nd, comes the latest chapter in Elder Scrolls Online. It’s called Lost Depths and continues the main story of the game. MeinMMO author Mark Sellner was already allowed to play one of the new dungeons in Lost Depths with the developers and had to be careful that an undead didn’t steal his soul.
What have I played? Practically for the first time The Elder Scrolls Online. Even before the MMORPG came out, I played the beta a bit. A few weeks after the release at most. After that I left ESO behind for me personally, at least until I knew that I got to play the latest dungeon from Lost Depths with the developers.
So I dusted off the old account, at least replayed the tutorial to get the basics down and not embarrass myself completely, and I was good to go. By the way, for the dungeon I got a character at the maximum level with the best equipment, and one of the developers always made sure that I didn’t lose too much life.
So I can’t say that much about the actual difficulty of the dungeon. But I do think about how much fun I had on this trip.
Here’s the trailer for Lost Depths:
ESO Shows Lost Depths Gameplay Trailer – “Can’t Understand Why This Doesn’t Get More Attention”
Lost Depths comes with two new dungeons. That would be the Earthroot Enclave, which continues the story of the Breton legacy. Secondly, there are the core depths, where a somewhat magical ex-pirate invites us to explore why all ships are really sinking on a reef.
It was up to me to decide which dungeon to play. Unsurprisingly, I immediately jumped on the ship, which just as unsurprisingly sank shortly afterwards, leaving us stranded on an island with the pirate Dhulef. The start of the core deep dungeon.
The first boss waits before it really starts
How’s it going? Despite the small shipwreck, the magician-pirate Dhulef has a plan and so my group and I follow him across the island. In the first few minutes, I encounter a wide variety of monsters that challenge us. By the way, also on completely new enemies that look a bit like raptors with a head too big.
During the tour of the island, the developers explain to me that there are many secret passages in the core depths. Unfortunately, we don’t explore any of them together, but I keep spotting paths on the island that obviously don’t lead to the goal. A feast for people who like to explore, because there are plenty of these junctions in the course of the dungeon.
The core depths come with a total of three bosses. The first guards the gateway to the underwater world on the island. There I notice that there are not only new monsters, but also new mechanics.
eso core depths mechanics.jpg
Successful boss fights: Even before the first boss starts, I have to get his new mechanics down. A random member of the group gets a debuff that explodes around the player a short time later. This explosion must be brought to one of the glowing earth holes on the ground, otherwise it will hurt.
If this is completed three times, the boss starts. For me, as a complete ESO newbie, the mechanics are easy to pick up, but not always easy to implement in the turmoil of combat. At first there was a lack of clarity here, but I quickly placed the fields correctly.
The other boss fights in the dungeon are also very successful and pleasantly demanding, at least for me as a newcomer. The scheme of mechanics, which are easy to understand but comparatively difficult to implement, runs through the entire dungeon. Personally, I find that particularly successful. In this way, noobs like me and experienced players can be challenged alike.
Of course there are also challenge modes for the bosses in the core depths. However, given my overwhelming inexperience with ESO, we decided to leave it disabled. But if you are looking for a bigger challenge, you will definitely find it.
One of the coolest underwater levels ever
Attention to detail is convincing: As soon as you go hundreds of meters down from the island, the dungeon becomes really impressive. It goes into an underwater fortress built by dwarves. The mixture of the old walls, the seemingly technical structures and the undead wandering through the corridors immediately pulls me deep into the story.
In addition to undead opponents in the walls, there are also friendly spirits on every corner. These belong to the ships that have sunk over the years and must now spend their lives here. Again and again I see tragic individual stories when I look out the window of the underwater fortress.
Ghosts trying to pull a deceased friend out from under a shipwreck, weeping ghost women standing in front of her husband’s corpse. All this in an impressive ocean, in which fish, corals and all kinds of wreck remains create a good atmosphere.
This attention to detail runs through the entire underwater world and fascinates me. Again and again the developers have to wait for me because I stop in front of one of the windows and wonder what I can see. But they are happy to see me excited.
eso core deep spirit on disk.jpg
Not annoying outside the walls either: The vast majority of underwater levels are a bit annoying, as any gamer who has played Super Mario knows. That’s why I was a bit skeptical when it actually went out of the underwater walls into the open ocean.
But here ESO surprises me with my personal highlight of the dungeon. As soon as we enter the nasty sea, Dhulef envelops us in large bubbles that we can use to span the distance to the next room.
In the overall course of the core depths, this section accounts for a few seconds at most. But it’s just incredibly cool to have the freedom to pretty much limitlessly trudge through the ocean in a bubble and also get to see all of the details mentioned above up close.
Because the actual goal of this bubble section is just “run from A to B”, which was incredibly difficult for me because I wanted to explore and observe. Here, too, the details are convincing and leave a lasting impression on me. The core depths are definitely among the coolest underwater levels I’ve ever played.
eso core depths blubberlasen.jpg
My soul leaves my body
The fight highlight: I really don’t want to spoil too much at this point, but a fighting highlight for me was the final boss of the dungeon. Of course, this one has a variety of mechanics to watch out for, but one in particular stuck in my mind.
And although the evil final boss constantly tries to steal my soul in the fight. I was able to avoid it for a long time, but in the end it got to me. And I’m glad I got hit. Because the following mechanic was the best part of the whole fight.
If the boss hits me with this attack, my soul leaves the body of my character and is transported to a kind of intermediate world. Here I am on my own, my team has to do without me and I without my team.
In this intermediate world, I constantly lose life points and have to try to capture my soul as quickly as possible. To buy myself a little time, I can also absorb the souls of poor spirits, which regenerates a little HP. In sheer panic, I’m trying to find my soul while trying to understand the mechanics.
eso core depths final boss space.jpg
Slight nostalgia: At the same time, the fight reminded me a lot of the raid boss Dhuum from Guild Wars 2. Here too I lose my soul and have to win it back under time pressure, otherwise my team will have massive difficulties and I will have to die.
Dhuum was already one of the coolest boss fights of my MMORPG career due to this mechanic and the end boss of the core depths can also convince with it. In the end, I don’t survive the soul loss. Still, it was great fun to try.
In general, this applies to a large part of the dungeon. As a complete noob, I just didn’t understand a lot of what was happening on the rim and in combat. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and thanks to the mechanics of the bosses I was still able to be a help to my team and not a burden.
The new dungeon convinces me. While I can’t compare it to other ESO dungeons, I’ve played a lot of MMORPGs that have a lot of dungeons. The core depths are definitely ones I will never forget.
So if you still have an ESO account, all I can suggest is that you get it out. Lost Depths and the Core Depths might be worth it. At least if you want to see a really cool underwater dungeon.
Players in ESO own all the DLCs without spending a dime on the MMORPG