BOOM. Nine game discs, five maps, hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of gameplay, a custom package to die for and something hard to hit the digital-only detractors upside their harder heads with, Bethesda Softworks upcoming must-buy The Elder Scrolls Anthology has officially and instantly made it to my Holiday Gift Guide 2013 list, gaming division. While it’s missing the LONG out of print standalone TES: Battlespire and Redguard side-story adventures (which I say NEED to get re-released one of these days), $80 for the entire main Tamriel saga (including expansions AND the Morrowind Construction Set!) is an absolute BARGAIN when you consider some of the games here are still a bit expensive when bought in either their original or Game of the Year formats as individual packaged products…

Yeah, yeah… they COULD have put Arena and Daggerfall on a single DVD and maybe combined some of the other games onto single discs or a Blu-Ray or made these all digital downloads (maps included) for some cheapskates or physical pooh-poohers out there who “don’t see the point” (as I heard one wag online state) of this massive set. But I say that’s one damn great thing about Bethsoft – they know who’s going to be buying this one (mostly old farts like ME plus collectors and younger TES fans who Just. Like. Retail. Product. these days) and anyone else can go fall into a big hole. OK, Bethesda is much nicer than I am about telling the digital-only zombies where to stick it, but I’m betting they think some of those advocates for retail dying off NOW are off their rockers for wanting to put too many people out of jobs (and probably shut a few studios down in the process with that enforced “evolution”.

The Elder Scrolls Anthology will be available on September 10, 2013 and includes the following content:

. The Elder Scrolls Arena

. Five Physical Maps detailing the lands of Tamriel, Iliac Bay, Morrowind, Cyrodiil, and Skyrim.

The press release had no news on mod support in the more recent TES games, but I’d imagine installing many of them won’t be a problem for those of you who want that extra fan-created content. And YES, Arena and Daggerfall will come with DOS emulators on the discs so you post-XP users can fire both up and not have to go nuts looking up online help. That is unless Windows 8 blows even more than it does and fails to let you load up a DOS emulator. They should work, though… I’m gathering Bethsoft is more than clever enough to test the oldest games on a new system.

Anyway, mark your calendars and start saving those pennies…