The Elder Scrolls is described as 'Series of action role-playing open world fantasy video games primarily developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks' and is a very popular role-playing game in the games category. There are more than 50 games similar to The Elder Scrolls for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Steam, Mac, Linux and Xbox apps. The best The Elder Scrolls alternative is World of Warcraft. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try OpenMW or Daggerfall Unity. Other The Elder Scrolls like games are Fallout, Guild Wars, The Elder Scrolls Online and Fable.
the games are pretty linear except for the last one