Everyone has a "their" Elder Scrolls. For some, it’s the hazy, pixelated memory of a sprite-based dungeon in Arena. For others—probably most people reading this—it’s the infinite snowy peaks of Skyrim. Ranking these games isn't just about graphics or frame rates. It is about how a specific world felt the first time you stepped out of a prison cell.
Bethesda Softworks has a formula. They’ve used it for thirty years. You start as a nobody, usually in rags, and you end as a god-slayer. But the nuance between Morrowind’s weird alien bugs and Oblivion’s vibrant, rolling hills is massive. When you look at Elder Scrolls games ranked, you aren't just looking at a list of software. You are looking at the evolution of the Western RPG itself.
Honestly, it's a mess to rank these fairly. How do you compare a 1994 DOS game to a modern masterpiece? You can't, really. But we're going to try anyway because that's what we do.
The Absolute Bottom: The Spin-offs Nobody Remembers
Before we get to the "Big Five," we have to acknowledge the weird stuff. Most people forget Battlespire or Redguard. An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire was originally supposed to be an expansion for Daggerfall. It ended up being a buggy, claustrophobic mess that removed the one thing people actually liked: the open world. It was just a series of levels. It felt wrong.
📖 Related: Finding All Artifact Codes Risk of Rain 2 Players Actually Need to Know
Then there’s Redguard. It’s actually a decent action-adventure game, but it’s not an "Elder Scrolls" game in the way we think of them. You play as a set character, Cyrus. No character creator. No weird builds. Just a guy with a sword. It’s a cool piece of lore, but it’s the black sheep for a reason. And don’t even get me started on the mobile "Travels" series for the Nokia N-Gage. If you played those, you’re a legend, but they don't belong in a serious ranking.
5. The Elder Scrolls I: Arena (1994)
The one that started it all. Arena wasn't even supposed to be an RPG. Todd Howard and the early team at Bethesda wanted it to be a gladiator combat game. Somewhere along the line, they added side quests. Then they added towns. Then they realized the "world" was better than the "arena."
It’s hard to play today. Truly. The controls are archaic, and the world is procedurally generated in a way that feels incredibly repetitive. Every city looks kind of the same. Every dungeon is a labyrinth of frustration. Yet, it established the continent of Tamriel. It gave us the Emperor, Uriel Septim. It set the stakes. Without Arena, we don't get the rest. It’s the foundation, but it’s definitely at the bottom of the main series because it lacks the personality that defined later entries.
4. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996)
Daggerfall is big. Like, "the size of Great Britain" big. It’s arguably the most ambitious game Bethesda ever made, even to this day. It has thousands of towns and hundreds of thousands of NPCs. But here’s the thing: it’s all math. It’s a giant, mathematical simulation of a world that often feels empty.
The bugs were legendary. People called it "Buggerfall." You’d fall through the floor of a dungeon and just drift in a gray void for eternity. But the role-playing depth? Unmatched. You could buy houses. You could join a dozen different knightly orders. You could become a werewolf or a vampire in a way that felt consequential. If you use the "Daggerfall Unity" mod today, it’s actually a fantastic experience. But in the context of the whole series, its scale is its greatest strength and its biggest weakness. It’s too big for its own good.
3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
This is going to make people mad. Puting Skyrim at number three feels like heresy to the millions who have bought it on sixteen different consoles. Skyrim is a phenomenon. It’s the game that made "arrow in the knee" a global meme. It’s beautiful, it’s accessible, and the soundtrack by Jeremy Soule is literally transcendent.
Why isn't it number one? Because it’s shallow. There, I said it.
The magic system was gutted compared to previous games. The "infinite" quests are just "go to this cave and kill this bandit" over and over. The guilds—the Mages Guild (College of Winterhold) and the Fighters Guild (The Companions)—can be finished in like three hours. You can become the Arch-Mage of Skyrim without knowing more than two spells. That’s silly.
Skyrim is the best exploration game, but it’s not the best role-playing game. It’s a giant theme park. A gorgeous, snowy, dragon-filled theme park that I have spent 500 hours in, but a theme park nonetheless.
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
Oblivion is the middle child, and it’s a weird one. It came out right at the start of the Xbox 360 era and blew everyone’s minds with its "Radiant AI." Suddenly, NPCs had schedules. They ate breakfast. They went to work. They stole from each other. Sometimes it was broken and hilarious, but it made the world feel alive.
The quest writing in Oblivion is the best in the series. Period. The Dark Brotherhood questline, specifically the "Whodunit" mission where you're trapped in a house with people you have to assassinate one by one, is a masterpiece. The Thieves Guild actually felt like you were a thief.
Yes, the faces looked like melting potatoes. Yes, the level scaling was broken (if you leveled up too much, even the bandits were wearing glass armor, which made no sense). But the heart of Oblivion was its whimsy. It felt like a high-fantasy painting. Shivering Isles is still the best DLC Bethesda has ever produced. It was a perfect balance between the weirdness of what came before and the polish of what came after.
1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)
If you didn't see this coming, you haven't talked to enough Elder Scrolls nerds. Morrowind is the peak. It saved Bethesda from bankruptcy, and it did so by being completely, unapologetically strange.
👉 See also: Why Every Anime Last Stand Code Matters More Than You Think
You don't start in a generic forest. You start on a volcanic island filled with giant mushrooms, flying jellyfish (Netches), and people living inside the shells of giant dead crabs. There is no fast travel. You have to read a journal to find out where to go. "Go north past the big rock, turn left at the fork, look for a cave behind a tree."
It’s hard. You will miss your attacks because your "Long Blade" skill is too low. It’s frustrating. But when you finally succeed? When you finally find that legendary artifact hidden in a forgotten tomb? You earned it. Morrowind treats you like an adult. It lets you kill essential NPCs and "sever the threads of fate." It lets you fly. It lets you create spells that can jump across the entire map.
It’s a game about being a stranger in a strange land. It’s political, it’s religious, and it’s deeply alien. It is the gold standard for Elder Scrolls games ranked because it has an identity that no game since has been able to replicate.
Why Do We Keep Playing These?
The common thread across all these games is the "Todd Howard lie" that turned out to be true: "See that mountain? You can climb it."
That freedom is intoxicating. Most RPGs give you a story and let you play through it. Elder Scrolls gives you a world and lets you exist in it. Whether you're a cat-man thief or a lizard-person wizard, the games don't judge you. They just let you be.
But there’s a cost to that. As the games have become more popular, they’ve become "safer." Skyrim is safer than Morrowind. Online is safer than Skyrim. Fans are worried that The Elder Scrolls VI will be so streamlined that it won't even be an RPG anymore. We want the complexity back. We want the weirdness.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Traveler
If you’re looking to dive back into Tamriel after reading this, don’t just hit "New Game" on the same version of Skyrim you’ve played ten times. Do this instead:
🔗 Read more: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Into the Underworld: The Medieval Reality of Kuttenberg's Depths
- Try Daggerfall Unity. It’s free. It’s a fan-made port of the second game into the Unity engine. It fixes the bugs, adds modern resolutions, and makes the game actually playable. It’s the purest "life sim" in the series.
- Mod your Morrowind. Use the "OpenMW" engine. It makes the game stable on modern Windows (and even Android). If the combat drives you crazy, there are mods to make your hits land 100% of the time, though purists will hate you for it.
- Play the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood line. If you only do one thing in these games, do this. It’s the pinnacle of Bethesda’s quest design.
- Look into Enderal. It’s a total conversion mod for Skyrim. It’s a completely different game with its own lore, and honestly? The writing is better than the base game. It’s on Steam for free if you own Skyrim.
The wait for Elder Scrolls VI is going to be long. We’re looking at years. But the beauty of this series is that you can always go back. There is always a cave you missed, a book you didn't read, or a civilian you haven't accidentally punched while trying to talk to them. Tamriel is still there. Go find a new way to break it.