Skyrim: It's Complicated

Strap yourselves in, this is gonna be a big one.

Ok I'd like to get one thing straight right from the get-go: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a good game, a solid 8/10, and one of the most undeniably popular games ever made (lord knows they've re-released it enough to keep it alive in our collective consciousness). A landmark in the western RPG genre, and a game that, with the inclusion of mods, has almost endless replay value (for the sake of fairness, I'll be discussing the base version of Skyrim).

That said....

I've been speaking with a lot of friends about this game recently, and I've come to realize that we all feel a similar way; while Skyrim is a very good game, it seems to be lacking something. That magic that made previous games in the series such standouts, that feeling of excitement and intrigue that kept us glued to the screen for hours upon hours. As someone who's played, and thoroughly enjoyed, a decent amount of Elder Scrolls (starting with Morrowind and then logging an ungodly amount of hours in both Oblivion and Skyrim), I feel fairly confident in saying that, while it's certainly the most polished in terms of gameplay, Skyrim might actually be my least favorite of the three.

Why, you might ask? Well obviously I'm going to tell you, so let's begin breaking down what it is about Skyrim that makes it feel so...different.

Story:

Let's start out with the premise. The condensed version plays out thusly:

After narrowly avoiding execution amidst a brutal civil war thanks to the timely arrival of the first Dragon seen in hundreds of years (dragons being immortal, god-like beings in this universe), you discover that you are the fated Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn, the only mortal who can permanently slay a dragon, and it is your destiny to rid the world of the tyrants once and for all.

As far as fantasy premises go, that one's not half bad! As a matter of fact, that sounds like a pretty exciting one when you think of all the crazy things that could happen when all powerful god-dragons return suddenly to a world that is not at all prepared for them. The problem is...none of those crazy things happen, and the dragons barely seem to matter. The appearance of dragons in-game is fairly rare, mostly happening in the wilds away from populated areas, and while the initial fights against them are difficult and exciting affairs, this shine wears off well before you get anywhere near the final story battle.

The story is certainly not helped by the way you can approach it. You see, like other games in the series, the main story is yours to approach how, and when, you see fit. While this was a boon in other games, allowing you to explore the world and come back to a story that still more-or-less made sense in terms of the timeline, Skyrim's story feels like something that the player should be more actively involved in. Not only do you feel no urgency to finish the main quest and stop this allegedly cataclysmic event, the story itself plods along for most of its runtime as you travel incredible distances just to talk to people who will then explain the story to you.

In fact, it almost feels like the game doesn't want you to immediately jump into the main story; after slaying your first dragon, you are tasked with walking halfway around the world (assuming you haven't discovered any landmarks to teleport to, which in the early game, you haven't), climbing a mountain protected by an extremely tough enemy for new players, and then receiving a boatload of exposition (seriously, this dialogue segment takes something like ten minutes to escape from) from some monks who then send you on a wild goose chase in what is possibly the games least-exciting dungeon. I don't think there are any more dragon-centric quests until the story is just about complete, and I almost feel punished for pursuing the main quest at the beginning because it's just a lot of long walks and lengthy dialogue scenes.

Compare this to the opening story beats of the previous Elder Scrolls game: Oblivion. After pure chance allows you to escape from prison and aid the Emperor of all of Tamriel, who is assassinated by cultists right in front of you, you are tasked with finding his lost heir amidst a burning city, which you must save by entering the hellish realm of Oblivion. There is very little exposition compared to Skyrim, and you see right off the bat how dangerous the demonic invasions from Oblivion are. From here, you aid the secret heir from a fortress hidden in the mountains, unraveling conspiracies and even travelling to alternate dimensions to uncover a way to shut the demonic invasion gates for good. The story plays out at a good pace, but is smart enough to let the player feel like they can take a break. Yes, the world is in peril, but the peril escalates only as you further the story, the player never feels odd for ignoring the main quests for awhile.

This comparison is also not helped by the fact that the two biggest plot threads in Skyrim, the dragons and the civil war, feel like they have little to no impact on any aspect of the game. Oblivion's gates and final battle have an actual effect on the area around them, and change the status quo for a lot of the characters that we grow close to over the course of the story. What should be the driving forces of Skyrim not only barely effect the players individual experience, they seem to have almost no effect on the world as you progress through the game. These are the main quests of the game, and neither one feels terribly important; Dragons have little to no effect on the world aside from possibly eating a villager that was too dumb to run away, and the civil war leads to a couple crumbled structures and a few surface level changes to the NPC's you get quests from. You kill the enemy leader sure, but they're so barely present in the majority of the game that it feels like nothing has changed. The player is only partially involved in the civil war, and I'm not sure we even speak to the main villain of the game before the final battle, which is odd considering our character is only alive because the main villain unintentionally saves us from execution. It feels like maybe there's something cool there that we could have worked with, but it's never even an option.

Quests:

All of that having been said, the main story is actually something I can kind of overlook in an open world RPG assuming the gameplay and non-story quests are engaging and fun. This, unfortunately, brings us to my second big problem with Skyrim; the side missions. Let me put it this way: there are very few missions in Skyrim that I remember because of their quality, I mostly remember them because of how many times I've tried playing through the game. The side missions in Skyrim just aren't all that exciting compared to previous fare, with many, many, many missions involving you just going to a place, killing and/or grabbing a thing, and coming back to the person you originally spoke to. Even the guilds, which had some of the all time great stories in previous games, are reduced to "go to this dungeon" or "hey, kill this dude". There are so few standout storylines in this game.

- The Dark Brotherhood feels like it's trying very hard to capture the feeling of the Oblivion questline and it just doesn't measure up. It's still one of the more memorable questlines in the game but it's not nearly as intriguing.

- The Companions (this games Fighters Guild) have a decent storyline about unraveling an ancient curse and dying with honor, but unfortunately the entire thing can be wrapped up in about 3 hours and then it's just busy work.

- Both major DLC's add a fair few interesting stories and environments, I loved exploring and solving the mysteries of the new areas, it reminded me a lot of classic Elder Scrolls.

- The questline involving the Imperial conquest of native land in one part of Skyrim is quite good, and is possibly the most interesting story in the base game. The city in which the story takes place has corruption running all the way to the top and the plot takes turns that actually surprised me. More of this please.

- In that same city there's a great quest involving a seemingly haunted house.

Again, let's compare this to some examples from Oblivion, whose popular quests involved storylines such as:

- Joining a crew of vampire hunters and working with them for quite awhile before the big reveal that the head of the group was actually a vampire attempting to wipe out competition.

- Sleeping on a ship (that is also an inn) only to find it out at sea and being held for ransom by pirates.

- Uncovering a massive murder conspiracy within an organizations comprised solely of assassins, with a lot of hilarious dark-comedy hijinks along the way. The questline for the Dark Brotherhood is hands down one of the best ever, in any game.

- Helping a painter escape his enchanted painting.

- Help a paranoid man realize that his neighbors are not, in fact, trying to kill him, and then stop him from going on an axe-murder spree when he doesn't believe you. Or don't and watch him try and take on a dozen guards.

- Rescue a lizard-lady by infiltrating a town of creepy cultists.

- Buy a lovely house in a coastal town only to realize it was a haven for the occult and that you've got a demon in your basement.

- Don't even get me started on the Daedric artifact quests, they're all interesting.

This is just a small sample, there's a ton of great, and goofy questlines in Oblivion, which I think is the main thing that sets Skyrim apart; it's lost that fun-loving quality, it doesn't have that same kind of wackiness that made Oblivion so memorable. Look at any list of the best quests in Elder Scrolls games, and I guarantee most of them will be from either Oblivion or Morrowind.

This goes for the exploration as well; with Oblivion, happening upon a new cave or ruin filled me with a sense of anticipation or dread at what I might find inside. Skyrim's caves and dungeons, on the other hand, quickly began to blend together in my mind, as they all looked and felt so similar, with very few offering anything truly memorable (unless you count thinking "how much longer is this dungeon" to be memorable, because my goodness some of those were really padded out).

Gameplay/Design:

This is another big change: Where Oblivion and Morrowind were more standard, DnD style RPG's with freeform combat, Skyrim is essentially a first person action game with a few RPG elements. I think that, while this certainly made the game more accessible to more casual RPG fans, this change is largely for the worse.

I have nothing against a first person fantasy action game, but I loved Oblivion for finding a smart balance between DnD style stat building and combat that still allowed you to outmaneuver opponents instead of relying on a dice-roll style system. With Skyrim's open perk system laying out every possible ability the character can unlock right from the start of the game, progression feels confusing, and often overwhelming, as opposed to exciting and rewarding. Just look at all the friggin skill trees you're working with in this game.

I'm much more of a traditional RPG fan, so your mileage on this point may vary. I think RPG's in general work better when you pick a class at the beginning of the game and build it up from there, otherwise not only do you lose replay value, but you end up with a character that can do anything at any time, which makes late-game boring and serves to make leveling feel like a slog. How am I supposed to enjoy the experience of playing the game if everything just comes naturally to my character? If my character is the worlds best lockpick, and best thief, but also the best sword fighter, and the best mage on top of it, than nothing is a challenge. This is the problem with Skyrim's leveling system; you have the option to be anything and everything you want to be all in one playthrough. Leveling became a highly unrewarding experience, as I felt like I was just going from place to place and knocking things off of a checklist with my superpowers, or I was just grinding to unlock the one perk I actually wanted from a skill tree.

Aesthetics:

Alright this one's pretty personal, and Skyrim certainly doesn't have a bad aesthetic (much of it is quite beautiful in fact), but it feels much less...fantasy. It looks like you're in a very pretty, but mostly real-world medieval setting (with a few fantastical elements here and there, mostly involving Dwarven ruins), and not in a fantasy world full of ancient Elven ruins and colorful mountainside wizard homes, at least in the base game. It's a little less "Lord of the Rings" and little more "Game of Thrones" in its visuals, if that makes sense.

Skyrim's Nordic aesthetic, while incredibly well realized, just doesn't have the vibrancy and life of the locations featured in Oblivion. It's no wonder that so many visual mods in Skyrim focus on making it more colorful, with much of the game being dark caves, snowy tundra, and flat fields.

So, Where Do I Stand?

Well as I said at the start, Skyrim is a hell of a game, and I still go back and play it all the time. I don't want this list to come off as me saying that it's a bad game, it's very much not. With its solid base game and the very active modding community, Skyrim's life has been extended well beyond your typical RPG, certainly much longer than its predecessors. However, as much as I may still enjoy this game, I cannot deny that I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Elder Scrolls 6 to be much a more traditional RPG, and a little more whimsical in its approach to the Elder Scrolls universe. Skyrim feels like a good game that had the potential to be even more, and I'm really pulling for Bethesda to knock the next one out of the park.