Life is unpredictable. One minute, you’re walking through a quaint little river town, the next you’re about to get stabbed by a cat man on a mountain the middle of the woods. But isn’t that what makes a things interesting… what makes Skyrim interesting.
For all its odd glitches and the frustrating inventory limit, Skyrim has existed for the better part of a decade as an extremely strong open world game. Maybe it’s my love of role play and fantasy, but the wealth of choices this game provides and the way you affect the world is absolutely fascinating.
Despite being a greenhorn Dragonborn, experiencing a game loooong after its initial release (on what is its fifth platform,) I find almost no current open world game has given me the same impression. Random encounters are no stranger these days — Red Dead Redemption 2 and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are two successful titles that cover that ground. But perhaps what gets me is just how massive AND unique Skyrim’s world is.
But enemies aren’t the only encounter in Skyrim, which makes things even more fun. Breath of the Wild has plenty of Hylians in distress scattered about the landscape, but Skyrim has human hunters and nomadic feline merchants. It’s the latter I’ve truly come to love, though they are basically furries that may or may not sell drugs. Still, their dialogue has a unique flavor, as does their story. Instead of simple travelers, the Khajit carry with them a foreign culture and stigma.
I’m reminded of the elves from Dragon Age, who were a similar folk and a small highlight of the world to me in Inquisition, however minimal the encounter was. And though convenient that this particular nomadic tribe remained in one place on the map, I do wish they traveled like the Khajit. Is it annoying to search for your persons of interest when they constantly move camp or travel for large swaths of game time? Perhaps, but to that I’d say this: in Dragon Age: Inquisition, you have spies and soldiers everywhere by that point in the game.
To me, a map indicator with a revolving set of NPCs (for a game several years after Skyrim’s initial launch) isn’t inconceivable; even just having an inquisition scout programmed to answer “where was the Dalish clan last spotted?” could work.
The sprawling landscape of Skyrim itself isn’t all that I praise it for as an open world. Besides the random encounters and sprinkled points of interest, it’s the various towns and kingdoms that beef up the whole setting and civilization for me.
Every major city has its own politics and personal struggles. the jarl of Whiterun is loyal to the Imperials, but still worships an outlawed god and deals with troubled children; in Morthal a mysterious fire killed a man’s wife and child, yet he is suspiciously well-adjusted; Riften is unofficially governed by thieves and a ruthless, wealthy mead-making family.
My copy of the game is the remastered version for Nintendo Switch, so it includes every expansion (Heartfire, Dawnguard, and Dragonborn.) The latter additional content caught me off guard, which not many games do these days, as I was suddenly sailed off to a whole new map.
One thing I can say for sure is that I value a painstakingly detailed open world, especially on a platform like the Nintendo Switch. Exploration on the go seems appropriate after all. And all of this said I won’t fault more recent titles for not having as much freedom and variety as Skyrim — I just hope to see that kind of ingenuity more often. (And admittedly, so far, Red Dead Redemption 2 comes the closest.)
Skyrim will always be my favourite game, pretty much for everything you’ve mentioned in this article! It’s so elaborate and I find it great for getting lost in. It’s also one of those games I always end up going back to. Love ESO as well!
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