E3 isn’t always the place that the big game developers and publishers use to show off new mobile games, but Bethesda has something of a track record in that regard. As evidence, we’ll point to a little game you may have heard of called Fallout Shelter. There was a little bit of consternation in some corners that Fallout 76 was going to end up getting revealed to be a mobile game this year, but after that turned out to be exactly what console fans wanted, Bethesda surprised everyone again by unveiling The Elder Scrolls: Blades.
Like Fallout Shelter, it falls neatly into the “games you wanted but didn’t realize" category, but that’s where the similarities end. Blades is a bona fide RPG set in arguably the most famous fantasy video game setting of the 21st century. Undoubtedly, it will connect to that world’s lore in ways that will make its longtime fans smile, and it reportedly has a city-building element as well. None of those things were evident in the build that waited somewhat unassumingly in the Bethesda booth at E3, set up on phones set up where journalists leaving their time with Rage 2 could play it at their leisure. All it offered was two different levels that showed off the core game mechanics, one in a forest and the other in a castle.

Fortunately, those brief tastes of the action were enough to get a feel for what The Elder Scrolls: Blades is all about. Played from a first-person perspective, the game uses a very sim...