Skyrim came out ten years ago this week, but it also came out earlier this week. In fact, in the 520 weeks since Skyrim first launched, I think it has come out in roughly 437 of those weeks. With remakes, re-re-remakes, ports to the next generation, then the next generation, then the newest line of smart fridges, Skyrim is playable basically everywhere - and everyone is still playing it too. Ten years on, it has endured. But it was never really meant to, and that’s why Phil Spencer’s musings on making The Elder Scrolls 6 a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:“ten year game” worries me.
Skyrim is not a ten year game. I🅘t has lasted for ten years for a variety of factors, but forward planning was not one of them. Ten years ago, when it made its debut, the idea of a ‘live-service’ game was still unheard of. Many series were just figuring out that pumping out a game every year was no longer feasible, and a few still hadn’t caught on. The face of gaming was changing, but no one knew where it was heading. Skyrim is not a precursor to the live-service genre - it’s just a good, decently sized RPG that lets y🦩ou do a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.
You can play through Skyrim in a multitude of ways and make the journey your own, but that’s largely because the underlying story doesn’t ask much of you. Its politics are simple. Its choices are binary. Its world is vast and dense and immersive, but it exists for you to play in it. Compared to its contemporary 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Red Dead Redemption, which came out a year earlier, it’s essentially the opposite interpretation of what a huge RPG should be. R﷽DR is a lived-in world, full of quests, events, and ever-evolving stories, but you can only really play it the Marston way. Conversely, Skyrim lets you do whatever you want, but the world won’t really do anything without you prodding it.
As our lead features editor Cian Maher wrote for Skyrim’s tenth anniversary, no one has copied Skyrim&rs🌳qu🐻o;s way of doing things. While 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Witcher 3, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk, GTA 5, and obviously, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Red Dead Redemption 2 have all built upon RDR’s vision for modern day open-world RPG gaming, Skyrim is without imitation. It will probably continue to be until 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Starfield, or perhaps even until The Elder Scrolls 6. This, along with the fact th🐓at Skyrim is just a very good video game, is part of the reason Skyrim has lasted to this day. Red Dead Redemption is brilliant, but you can play better, more polished versions of it, and not just in the sequel. With Sky🌠rim, well, there’s just Skyrim.
This is not a thing Bethesda planned for. This is not a thing Bethesda could have planned for. You can’t seek out to simultaneously create something new and innovative in a familiar genre while seeking to create something no one will try to copy. Skyrim was meant to be a very good game, played, played, and played again, but ul💛timately, left behind. It was never really supposed to last ten years. Considering we’re three years out from The Elder Scrolls 6 if we’re lucky, I think it’s safe to say on the day Skyrim shipped, the devs were expecting the next one would arrive a lot sooner than it’s going to.
Gaming has changed. Now, some games are expected to last a long time. Fortnite came out in 2017 and shows no signs of slowing down, while it’s generally agreed that Blizzard revealing Overwatch 2 was a mistake - modern trends indicate building on the original Overwatch would be the smart move. Then again, there are significantly 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:worse things happening 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:behind the scenes at Blizzard these days so mayb🉐e Overwatch 2 isn’t such a bi꧟g deal in the grand scheme of things.
It’s a good thing that Bethesda is taking its time with The Elder Scrolls 6. It suggests a l❀ot of attention is being paid to Starfield, and once that’s in our hands, development on TES6 will probably heat up a little. While the Fallout 76 debacle left Bethesda’s reputation with a few dents in it, TES6 is huge enough that it will make money whatever it looks like. That it’s not coming for a while yet is disappointing, but overall, it’s a good sign.
That is, unless it’s because TES6 is being engineered to follow Skyrim and last for ten years. Skyrim has a special place in everyone’s heart, but TES6 will not get away with rereleasing the game every few months for ten years, and then charging people to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:add fishing into the mix. Skyrim became a ten year game by accident. It was never in the script. TES6 might last for ten years, but it won’t if that’s something the developers set out to create from the ground up. It has to happen naturally, if it is to happen at all. Skyrim is not a ten year game - it’s a game we’re still playing ten years later. If TES6 can understand the difference, it could be a masterpiece. If it doesn’t, well. We’ll always have Skyrim𒈔. I mean it. Always. We’re never getting rid of Skyrim.