The Elder Scrolls Online release date is coming soon!

The Elder Scrolls Online has officially been released.

As of right now The Elder Scrolls Online might come as an open beta this holiday season. If Zenimax Online Studios does not release the game by then, it will likely be released sometime in 2014. At the end of the video below, you'll see the message "coming 2013," which strongly infers a holiday season release date. On top of that, Amazon.com has the release date set as December 31st, 2013, which also strongly infers a release date for this year.

Zenimax has been working on The Elder Scrolls Online for supposedly 5 years. This much hard work and dedication into the game is one of the driving forces as to why The Elder Scrolls Online will be such a collosal success as an MMORPG. Another major driving force pushing this game to success is the way that Zenimax set it up. The Elder Scrolls Online is in closed beta right now, but already the leaks and official releases have shown that it is going to be an excellent online game which will be accepted by millions.

*EDIT*

According to some of the video they showed at E3, it said "spring 2014" at the end of the video, which means the official release will likely come next year. They may offer an open beta before then, but we'll have to wait and see on that.

As of right now The Elder Scrolls Online release date was technically when they handed out the first round of closed beta invitations back in March and April; however, the official release date is still yet to come. For those of us lucky enough to enter The Elder Scrolls Online beta, they might send out another round of beta invites sometime soon.

The closed beta allows players to wander around Tamriel with most of the features available at their disposal from crafting and fishing all the way to killing and looting dungeons. The Elder Scrolls Online beta is a closed privilege available to a handful of players who meet Zenimax's requirements for beta testers.

Well there are a lot of specialties about The Elder Scrolls Online, the most important of which is the skill system. Unlike most other MMORPG's, The Elder Scrolls Online has skyshards, which players must explore the world to collect. Once a player collects 3 of these they can increase one of their skills.

This might not be the only way to skill though, the game might follow a Darkfall style leveling system, where using skills is the only way to gain skills. If that is the case then there's good reason for people to look forward to this game vs. any traditional style MMORPG out there.

If that's not good enough reason to try out The Elder Scrolls Online, read some of the compelling features of the game below.

Also there are three main alliances, each with a distinctive feel for each individual player. This will give each player a gameplay experience that will match their personal visual preferences, i.e. dark dreary evil world vs green pastures and cows world.

Currently the three alliances include: The Daggerfall Covenant, the Ebonheart Pact, and the Aldmeri Dominion. Each of these alliances have their own unique characteristics and motives for attacking the imperial alliance of Cyrodil.

Another compelling concept is the simplicity yet complexity of the crafting system. There are three main crafting categories: weaponsmith, armorsmith, enchantments, alchemist, and provisioner. Each of these do their own category and players can do two of these crafting categories at once. Also in case anyone was wondering, provisoner makes food and drinks.

Because only two professions may be active at any one time, it allows people to find their niche in society, and fit in more easily. It forces people to interact and join together, which isn't that what MMORPG's a really about anyway?

Another compelling reason to join the Elder Scrolls Online is fishing! There are different baits, different water sources, different fish, and different sized fish. There aren't a lot of details yet, but it sounds like the size of the fish might matter. According to Elder Scrolls Online official website: "If you can figure out what type of bait the fish like in a fishing hole you’ve found, you improve your chances of landing the big one!" So in other words, there's some kind of complexity to the fishing system that should keep it entertaining.

While PvP and PvE haven't been discussed very much, it seems likely that Elder Scrolls Online will have a very intense, Darkfall-like, battle system that should make fighting intense and really get players immersed into the game. There probably won't be a point and click battle system in this game, instead it will likely be more of a first person / third person shooter type of game.

The skilling system might be similar to Darkfall as well, but the details are iffy at best at this point. It seems skills might be gained by collecting sky shards, using skills, or both. Staying tuned for the official release this holiday season is the only way to see all the greatness for yourself.

The Elder Scrolls Online is going to be one of the greatest games for exploring and adventuring, as every Elder Scrolls title has been before it. This is just another reason as to why this online game will be so much better than most other MMORPG's on the market today. The dungeons and cities to explore will likely seem endless on the Elder Scrolls Online.

One of the last wonderful things about the Elder Scrolls Online is the other players. Most people know from personal experience that the console Elder Scrolls would be so much more fun if there was just someone to play with. Well now that will finally be possible. Players will be able to band together for strength and take down dungeons in groups which is something that the Elder Scrolls series has been missing for decades.

On top of that, The Elder Scrolls Online is one of the most followed upcoming MMORPG's ever; in fact, it could potentially start off as popular as Guild Wars 2 or Diablo 3. This would make the world choked full of people ready to quest and adventure or even compete against you on your way to exploring the world of Tamriel.

The Elder Scrolls online is going to be an extremely popular and well received game. Zenimax Online Studios is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone happy and building a significant amount of hype. Aside from the already intense following of die-hard fans for the Elder Scrolls series of games, any MMORPG fan, or PvP fan could really get a kick out of this epic video game.

This game is going to be one of the record books and should finally bring some good competition to the age of WoW MMORPG's. As of right now tens of millions of people are following the news of this game, which is why it's likely to be the best MMORPG of 2013, and or 2014.

• Age of Empires 4 release date
• Final Fantasy 15 release date
• Halo Wars 2 release date