When I think about how many hours in my life have been spent playing video games, I don’t know whether to celebrate or sigh. Ultimately, these games, at their best, offer us a chance to inhabit another world, and given the current state of ours, it’s no surprise the games industry is as successful as it is. I also believe it is better for the mind than passively watching television, and how many hours do people spend doing that. I’ve been gaming since around 1987, which means I’ve seen a massive evolution from 8 bit sprites like Super Mario, to the jagged form of 32 bit Lara Croft all the way to a digital twin of planet Earth in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (if you need someone to land an Airbus A320 and have absolutely no other option, I suppose I’m your guy, but start praying). The changes I’ve seen in the video game space are nothing short of astounding. Of the hundreds of games I’ve played, there’s one that I’ve spent the most time with, that holds a special place in my gamer’s heart: Skyrim.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim really is a title that needs no introduction. Nevertheless, here goes: Skyrim is an action adventure role playing game set in the mountainous region of Tamriel, itself a larger region covered in other games. Players can interact with non-player characters, explore caves and dungeons and complete quests, including saving the world. Like all recent Elder Scrolls games, the player starts as a prisoner, who is thrust into a larger than life situation. Players can use swords, bows, maces, magic and more to defeat foes, which range from wild animals to evil warlocks. There are 15 factions if you own the Dragonborn downloadable content, including thevies, fighters, vampires, vampire hunters and mages. There’s a massive amount of content, well over 230 hours and up to 500 depending on who you listen to. Because of the radiant quest system, which generates new quests, the game literally never ends. There’s always another person to help, another camp of evildoers trying to summon demons (deadra) to smite and another warlord to appease. Oh and there’s dragons and many of them need slaying too.
Skyrim has enjoyed great success since it’s 2011 release by Bethesda Game Studios. It has technically been released 17 different times on ten different platforms. It has made well over a billion dollars and is currently the 7th best-selling game of all time. Since it’s release, GameStop (where I bought my 2011 copy on Xbox360) has become largely irrelevant, Sears has gone almost completely out of business, and perhaps most significantly, Microsoft bought Bethesda. It’s a popular game and even today stands at number 82 on the top 100 Steam best selling games list, which puts it ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2, considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time. When I bought my Steam Deck, it was one of the first games I purchased, even though I had already bought it three times on other systems. It was a no-brainer.
So what exactly makes Skyrim such an enduring success that still gets mentioned daily in Reddit and Facebook gaming groups? As a lifelong gamer, I’m going to take a crack at explaining. First and foremost, it provides freedom. To be a mainstream gamer in the 2020s is to be coddled and shown exactly what to do next. Games are big business, and the big gaming companies want as much of their players’ time and attention as they can get. If you play long enough, you are likely to give them some microtransaction money. Games that are too hard or too niche may lose attention, and Big Gaming can’t have that. Skyrim lets the player explore and inhabit it’s world as long as the player likes without making it feel like the developers are reaching into your pocket every ten minutes. Elden Ring does this, too, as does Fallout. Skyrim is different, though, because there’s a great deal of depth, and it’s a world a person might want to stay in. Both Elden Ring and Fallout are dark and dire, and with Putin threatening Armageddon, maybe that’s not the escape people are looking for. In Elden Ring’s case, there’s also a lack of variety ultimately: the main activity is killing and when you are tired of that, and you will be because while the game is excellent, it’s also very grindy, there’s more killing to be done. Skyrim allows the player to engage in politics, steal items, fish, explore, make potions and enchant items…there’s killing too of course but usually for a purpose, unless you want to play as a chaotic evil character and rampage, you have that option. In short, it’s a living world, with its own lore, customs, and look and feel. It’s kind of like Chicago in that way, cold, windy, and grey, but there’s no doubt where you are. Stay as long as you like without being hastled to buy the latest battle pass.
Bethesda recently released Starfield, although it seems like much of the gaming community has already forgotten. It’s okay, and that’s a shame because Bethesda is capable of so much more than “ok.” I looked forward to it and have put a few dozen hours into it, but it falls way short, due in the greatest part to the overuse of fast travel and procedural generation. I know it’s what the devs wanted to make, and I respect that, but I’m happy to hear they are working on Elder Scrolls 6. Looks like I’ll have a good long while to wait, so in the meantime, I think I’ll grab my Steam Deck and play some Skyrim.
****
I am always grateful for any contribution towards my journalistic endeavors: https://www.paypal.me/trivalmaster