Why does ESO's Dark Brotherhood feel so much smaller than Skyrim's

[NordOfSolitude]

I just finished the Dark Brotherhood questline in ESO and honestly it felt like I was doing errands for like three people total. In Skyrim you've got this whole sanctuary with actual characters - Astrid, Cicero, Babette, Nazir, Veezara, Gabriella - and they all have their own thing going on. You actually feel like you're part of something.

ESO's version felt so compressed? Like the story was there but the actual family part was missing. Which I guess makes sense given the timeline stuff, but it's weird how much smaller the operation felt even though lore-wise the Dark Brotherhood should be way more established by then.

Anyone else get that vibe or am I just spoiled by how good Skyrim's questline was?

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

Yeah, I think you're hitting on something real there. ESO's Dark Brotherhood is more about the intrigue and the job itself - you're basically a contractor doing hits for people who need them. Skyrim's version is genuinely a found family dynamic, which is a totally different vibe.

Part of it is just the nature of how ESO handles guilds though. They're designed to be player-driven endgame content that scales across zones, so there's less room for that kind of tight narrative focus with recurring NPCs you actually bond with. Skyrim could afford to make the Sanctuary feel like a real place because it's a linear questline with a clear arc and ending.

That said, I do think Skyrim nailed something that ESO struggles with - the sense that these are people with lives outside your quests. Cicero's whole unhinged devotion thing, Nazir just existing in the Sanctuary, Babette being ancient and weird about it. ESO leans harder on the contract work and the politics of the Brotherhood itself, which is lore-accurate in some ways (the Dark Brotherhood has always been fractured, different chapters doing their own thing), but it trades character for scale.

Honestly though, if you want that "part of something" feeling in ESO, the Thieves Guild questline scratches a similar itch better than Dark Brotherhood does. Not quite the same, but there's more personality to it.