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This is RetroSpective, where I go back to a game with a fresh perspective and really pick it apart for the first time… again. Today, I’m finally awake and diving back into the province of Skyrim.
Like everyone, their mothers, and their neighbor's dog, I have played an absolute ton of Skyrim since it first graced our unassuming fantasy-craving minds. Oblivion before it was a huge game, and so people had high hopes and expectations, but no one could have been prepared for just what Skyrim was going t🦂o be, for fans and for the entire industry. Despite its still clunky, somewhat broken nature.
With about 143 playthroughs as a stealth archer, and maybe a couple here and there as something that wasn🐓’t supposed to be a stealth archer but then ended up being a stealth archer anyway, I realized it had been a good while since I’d actually played the game, and that mos𓂃t of the experience was now a distant blur.
Well, that’s just not going to do, so I had to jump back in and make sure that Skyrim is an everlasting part of my very existence and at least 14 percent of what I dream about at night. With it having been a while, I wanted to make the most of this newfound-oldfound excitement, a🐟nd really look at the game 12 years later - so, let’s do it.
What Is It?
The fifth game in The Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim was released in November of 2011, in a time when you could see trailers hyping fans up for this Viking-esque fantasy world, and🐼 huge billboards with dragons on them. What a good time that was.
Released by Bethesda Game Studios, fans knew what to expect with another open-world RPG akin t🅠o Oblivion, Morrowind, and even Fallout 3. Still, despite any sort of expectations or ideas of the foundation, this game would go on to do so much more than any fan or even Todd Howard himself would expect.
It was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, then going on to get a re-release. And another re-release. And another re-releas🐻e. And even a version you can play on your Amazon Echo, if you really want to. Now, with it on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and even the Nintendo Switch, the likelihood of you being an innocent non-Skyrim player has dwindled more and more in the last decade.
And if you actually haven’t played it… well done. But Bethesda will visit your house and release it onto your Roomba to make sure you do, so don’t worry too much, Skyrim is coming for you.
Players instantly fell i🌼n love with the game and it was a hit, as expected. What wasn’t expected, however, was the lo𒁃ng-lasting effects and seemingly eternal life this game would have.
Looking At The Game Now
So, if we’re taking a look at the game now, in 2023, and what you’re actually getting as a new player - 𝓰howꦇ does it hold up?
Visually, the game is still excellent and serenely beautiful - but that can be attributed to the countless re-releases and updates in hardware. Of course, you can go back to the old consoles and play the original for a nice, grey, drab experience through a was-pretty-but-now-looks-more-like-the-UK landscape, but with Skyrim: Anniversary Edition being the latest and most accessible version, you can see everything in stunning color, with shiny god rays, and even put on those 4K big pants and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:go do some fishing for good measure.
Even as a new player to𓃲day, the story will still be as entertaining as ever, and while it doesn’t do too much that breaks any narrative boundaries, it still offers up an incredible and in many ways unparalleled experience of feeling like the hero of a larger-than-life fantasy tale.
In fact, you can go ahead and be the hero of just about everything. Work your way up the ranks and become the leader of the Companions. Take to the shadows and become the head of the Dark Brotherh🧜ood. Pick your side and clash with steel until you are a champion of the civil war. Or just walk into the College of Winterhold and they’ll practically hand the keys over to you.
The heart of Skyrim’s story 168澳洲幸运5开奖网🍒:has always been the side quests and the woꦉrld, as is the case with just about any of Bethesda Game Studios’ games. There is plenty to get absolutely lost in here, and with long-time players still finding new things to discover, a fresh experience is guaranteed to last you for a good while, ꩲto say the least.
Aside from being a stealth archer simulator, Skyrim’s gameplay is actually quite simple - but that’s what makes it so eternal. It doesn’t rely on convoluted sys🅺tems, learning curves, or on trends of the time and inventive new ways to play. It just gives you the ability to do what you want, play around with some magic, smack some Draugr with a stick, and just says “Have fun!” And have fun you shall.
It is, at the heart of all things, a sandbox - and there’s so much freedom in how you can play that makes it so good, both back in 2011 and still today. Place a bucket on an NPC’s head while you steal their wares, continuously escape the wrath of enemies until they forget you ever existed and develop new anxieties about the trickery of the wind, and drop two dozen cheese wheels onto the ground in the town center for all to see. It really is a playgꦡround of fantasy, even if that fantasy is purely dairy-based. Everyone loves a Cheddar-Build.
And then there’s the music. Someone starting up Skyrim for t⛎he first time is going to have that amazing moment of awe as the chanting of the Nords kicks in, and their unrecognized-until-now desire to pack up everything material and move their life to the northern reaches of Scandinavia comes to fruition. Actually, wait no, that experience is not exclusꦜive to new players, that’s just what happens whenever anyone starts the game up, even for the 100th time.
And then there’s that gentle and soothing music that plays as you explore the world, the instruments dancing on the breeze in synchronization with the aurora borealis decorating the stars, the hopes of adventure 🍬and a world yet undiscovered parting the noise🐷s of modern life and making way for a new sense of wonder.
And then the drums kick in again as yet another peace-hatin⭕g-Mudcrab approaches from the shrubbery, here to defeat the Dragonborn. Ah, they never learn.
What Does It Still Do Well?
So, what is Skyrim actually doing well by modern standards 𓆉- no Nexus mods or unofficial patches, but just the game you can download from the storefront and the experience you can have as a newcomer? Well, if we’re counting the Anniversary Edition content, you can do fishing now. That legally makes it a good gꩲame.
Outside of that, however, Skyrim still manages to grip you and immerse you in its world, but never so much that you take it too seriously. You can get invested in some excellent stories, but the narrative likely won’t have you sat on the edge of your 🌜seat eager to see what Alduin’s next move is. It uses dialo🌼gue and branching paths to a masterful degree, but never reaches beyond offering a relatively light-hearted and downright enjoyable experience.
It’s not all lig�🦩�ht-hearted, though, just to be clear.
Oh, Meeko, your sto♎ry is up there with the best of them.
Even though I have played♔ this game time and time again, now after an extended period of time away from it, I still find myself naturally exploring off the beaten path, eager to see what that icon on my compass is just over there, what’s in that cave atop that mountain, and what that movement is that💃 I can see in the shrubs- oh for god’s sake it’s another Mudcrab.
There’s a reason - or many reasons, in fact - that fans still play this game to this day. Even without the incredibly active modding community, the game continues to push on and be exactly what people still want to sit down and play, regardless of how many new, interest🃏ing, and incredible ti🌠tles are released each year.
What Hasn't Aged Well?
However, Skyrim is by no means perfect. By n𝓰o means, at all.
Bethesda Game Studios has something of a reputation for buggy, glitchy ga🌃mes - I mean, make worlds this colossal and sandbox mechanics to play around with, and it’s to be🐼 expected. It’s almost part of the charm of these games now. Almost.
Even 12 years and approximately 547 re-releases later, Skyrim is still a bit of a broken mess in many places. Much of the game has just never worked the way it really should, and it still doesn’t - which is something most peoꦚple look past at this point, but it can be easily acknowledged.
Now there are definitely things that weren’t great in the beginning but have since been addressed, but other things just still don’t feel very fun - and if you were to dive into the game for the first time now, they wou🐼ld probably get in the way quite a bit.
Literally, in the way - how are these folꦍlowers still just standing in doorways and staircases, completely stopping yꦗou or anyone else from getting past without absolutely barging into them or... did that NPC just teleport?
There’s also the dialogue and the ways the NPCs interact with the world, each other, and with you. Sure, it’s a huge game and all of these people go about their daily lives and routines to make it seem like you’re amongst them, on a perpendicular-but-often-crossing path. Bu𒅌t when you keep hearing about how some guy works for Belethor, how a little girl isn’t afraid of you even though you’re her elder, how some guy ain’t done nothing, and being mocked about never going to the Cloud District every t⛄ime you’ve just come from the Cloud District… it gets very old, very quickly, and sometimes all you want is to hear a new line of dialogue or hear no dialogue at all.
Even in scenes where the story plays out, characters just… stand there. No unique animations, no moving performances, just Nords talking over each other while idling in a dimly lit room going on about🎉 one thing or another. What’s also jarring is the range of performances - some characters really do sound great, and others sound൲ as dry as an overcooked sweet roll. It can be such a jolt between moments, and leave you underwhelmed in many cases.
Look I know the game is old, so I don’t expect these things to be perfect or fixed up in the re-releases - some things would require a much larger overhaul and rework to be able to amend, I get that. These are just some things that have really not aged too well in the years p🍃ast, and despite the whole experience of Skyrim still being fantast🦂ic, these more stale aspects take up a large portion of it.
How Has The Game Evolved?
Still, despite all of the remaining issues and shortcomings that can still get in the way of the overall experience, it’s clear to꧂ see that plenty of Skyrim has evolved over the years, visually, mechanically, and with plenty of additional content.
In the early days, 168澳洲幸运5🃏开奖网:Bethesda released DLC packs for 🙈the game, in the Dawnguard, Dragonborn, and ꧒Hearthfire expansions.
Dawnguard offered a notable storyline with opposing factions: the vampires and the vampire hunters. This added an expansive questline wherein you discover a long-locked-away daughter of the Vampire Lord, Harkon. This woman, named Serana, could th🧸en travel with you as a companion. Eventually, you would pick a side - join the vampires and receive the powers of a Vampire Lord, or join the Dawnguard💎 and put a stop to Harkon and his followers in their old castle.
The Dragonborn expansion was even bigger and was the most significant DLC for the game, offering up a new map, new characte🐲rs to meet and enemies to fight, and more entanglements with a villain of old and the realm of a Daedric Lord. This was a big story that you could get really invested in, and added a whole lot more to the game that made it feel super fresh - akin to the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion. Just with less cheese.
Hearthfire gave us perhaps the simplest and most wholesome addition to the gam𒁃e: Buy a plot of land - with three to choose from - and gather the materials as you build your dream home, choosing what rooms 💟to put where and decorating it how you want. It was a bit of a change of pace from the other two expansions in the game, but likely paved the way for the base-building mechanics that Bethesda seems to love now, present in both Fallout 4 and Starfield, and we’ll likely see it in full-glory with The Elder Scrolls 6 when we’re retired and watching our grandchildren play it.
Needless to say, if you’re hopping into the game fresh nowadays, you’ll have plenty to do. All current versions of Skyrim come pre-packaged with all of the DLC, so alon𝓡gside the 🍃extensive game itself, you’ll also get access to all these extra adventures and features.
Beyond the DLC, Skyrim has had a humorous number of re-releases, turning up on various platforms and utilizing the new tech. This has been on PS4 and Xbox One, then PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and also on Nintendo Switch so you can play Skyrim wherever you are. There was also the joke of releasing it on Amazon Echo. I mean, they did it, so it was kind of a joke. Anyway…
Each of these jumps has seen a somewhat significant upgrade in the game and how it keeps up wi𒊎th the times, updating the visual fidelity and the overall performance of the game. Again, not fixing too many of the intricate issu൲es and glitches, but it sure got a whole lot prettier.
Then there was the Anniversary Edition, which added in a bunch of Creation Club content - verified player-created content that could be bought using a special Bethesda currency of some sort, but it’s likely not many people were actually buying it, so it was packaged in༺to this version instead. But hey, it added fishing, so the game got infinitely better.
The biggest evolution of the game, however, ꧒is still continuing to this day: the modding scene. Bethesda has even embraced modding for their titles more and more, with the Creationღ Club content, and even pre-prepping Starfield for years of mods before the game has even come out.
There are tens of thousands upon thousands of mods for Skyrim out there, and it can b♛e overwhelming - bu🍃t this means there is something for everyone.
Want to add in some custom companio♍ns and new quests? There are so many to choose from.
Want to make it photorealistic bey𝔍ond measure? Go for it, though you may have to sacrifice a GPU to do it.
Want to turn every dragon into a terrifyingly-mutated Thomas the Tank Engine? ...Why?
No, I’m kiꦬdding, who doesn’t want that? And good news! Yo♋u can!
The modding scene is the biggest out there, almost putting G-Mod to shame,👍 and has so much ♏to offer for anyone looking to make Skyrim an everlasting part of their daily routine.
If The Game Was Released Now
So, if Skyrim was to release today, as a bra🐼nd-new game, how would it♒ do?
Yes, I know it releases all the time, but I💃 mean if it was comple𒁃tely new and fresh, and we had never seen it before.
Honestly, it probably wouldn’t do nearly as well as it did back then, which is to be expected to an extent with a 12-year-old game. It would still be really popular and be a huge experience that RPG and fantasy fans would get completely lost in, 🐈168澳洲幸运5开奖网:but🍌 it wouldn’t hold the same significance - something that has only develope꧃d as a product of the time, and the times that followed.
I mean, if the game didn’t have Bethesda Game Stud☂ios’ name backing it, it might even be met with extensive criticism as to the shortcomings and the glitches that are present. It’s not entirely fair that it’s to be expected with games from the studio, and we’ve definitely seen worse cases with releases such as Cyberpunk, but it’s easy to imagine Skyrim being slated if it were to be released by anyone e꧟lse in current standards. Not to say Bethesda Game Studios is immune to slating - there's been a fair share over the years - but there’s a certain layer of armor there that others don’t have.
Still, I do believe that Skyrim would remain popular and a fan-favorite even today - perhaps not as big or as impressive, as there have been so many games that have surpassed it in many aspects, and it is over a decade outdated - but even so, it still does a lot that no other game has done yet, and offers an experience so simply enjoyable where others 🔯may reach too far or confine themselve♒s to something more compact.
Why The Game Did What It Did
So, given the number of shortcomings and bugs - not to mention the extensive issues with save files and game slowdown on the PS3 ꦫveಌrsion of the game in its early days - just why did Skyrim do so well?
Skyrim went on to become one of the indefinite games that set a standard for the industry, in the same way titles like Minecra🌊ft and Dark Souls did. Only, Minecraft was a sandbox and is designed to be played with and expanded upon. Dark Souls was somewhat niche, following Demon’s Souls, and led to a new genre and♔ imitation more so than living a long life.
Skyrim was another Bethesda RPG, of which we’ve seen plenty of, and will see plenty more. In many ways, it was missing a lot of what Oblivion and the games before it did; and in other ways, Fallout 4 expanded upon the structure and features following it, further improving the design of thes𒁃e games. So why Skyrim?
The truth is - I don’t really know. There are a number of things that I could praise when it comes to Skyrim, things that it does that make it such an engaging and enjoyable experience - but these are also things that Oblivion did, that Morrowind and Fallout did, that so many other games prior and since have 🍎also done.
Skyrim created a true sandbox without aiming to, and Bethesda offered the tools needed for people to tweak that and add to it as much as they wanted to, in the same way as the Source engine surrounding Half-Life, Portal, and Team Fortress. Only Skyrim was a much bigger and more accessible name, and had much more freedom behind it. A world packed full of ෴inspiring content and impressive immersion, leading people to create even more that they could ✨dream up, adding it to the game, and offering those realizations up to the rest of the community.
But even on the console side of things, way be෴fore mods were made available on these platforms, the game pushed boundaries and expectations, and it became something so much mo🌜re significant than it ever really was. It was the staple game of the times, and was hitting a benchmark that no other games were really striving for, or at least coming close to hitting.
Not to say it was the most perfect game of the generation and everything else should be discarded - we know that Skyrim had issues and problems and wasn’t doing too much beyond what we were expecting - but somehow what it became was way more than those expectations, way more than what the🌸 final product actually was. The final product, as it happens, was not the final product.
What Could The Game Have Done Better?
But what could🐟 Skyrim have actually done better? What could have been different? Beyond just 'fewer bugs' and 'better graphics'.
There’s a lot that you could argue thꦛe game could have done, but there are likely equal arguments as to why they haven’t been done. Well, maybe even just one argument - “Did it neওed to?”
The game succeeded and did so exceptionally, so to say that it should include refined cinematics, improved v💎ariation in animations, and even an expanded pool of characters and voice lines to make everything feel so much more sparse and alive - well, it clearly didn’t need all of that, and it’s hard to say if those things would have been a detriment to the game if included.
Would a larger and less iconic community within a city cause less familiarity and increase separation for players? Would expanded animations feel too much and perhaps take away from the simplicity of the game? To be honest, even when I see mods that tweak the framework of the game and add in all new animations, it almost feels… off. Maybe this is because it’s third-party,ꦉ or maybe it’s just because it doesn’t naturally fit with the game.
It’s hard to say what could have been improved with Skyrim, and everyone will always have their own personal wis𝕴hlists when it comꦦes to what they want - and in a way, that’s what the game allowed, and that’s what the mods actually do. They take this base game, that has everything you could want from it in a normal and enjoyable experience, and then allows you to pick and choose what you want to add to it. If you want a certain activity, a certain outfit, or a feature that was neve🐻r included - chances are, someone has made that fo𓄧r you to add in and personalize, by complete choice.
It’s a game that is what you want it to be, and whether or not that🎉 was the overall intention of Bethesda Game Studios, it is what it became.
In RetroSpective…
Skyrim is a beautiful and broken game, and it has remained both. It’s a game that was never perfect, but it bec𒊎ame a benchmark for the industry, and grew from both community support and as a sign of the times.
It never reached for great heights, only seeking to expand the experiences that previous games in the 𒉰series offered. This has always been the way with The Elder Scrolls, ever since Arena, but Skyrim just hit that sweet spot, complꦺetely unintentionally. Of course, a studio will always aim for success when it comes to a video game, but this level of success is something that you can’t predict, and in most cases, you can’t aim for. You can only really wish for it. It’s just not realistic to try to be the biggest game to last for over a decade, and Skyrim was never meant to be.
But regardless, it remained, and remain it shall.
