With the pandemic disrupting everyone’s lives and keeping people at home, finding something to entertain yourself with can be a challenge. I spent some time playing an old role-playing game (RPG) called “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” and had a blast playing it. The gaming genre has a lot of unique titles, and I feel like Skyrim is a good entry point for new players.
“Skyrim” is an open-world action role-playing game, which means that the game gives the player the freedom to do nearly anything they want. The fantasy world of “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” is set in the northern province of Skyrim in a time reminiscent of the late Middle Ages. The protagonist is called the Dragonborn, who was granted the ability to slay dragons and is tasked with stopping the dragon Alduin from devouring the world.
Unlike other RPG games, “Skyrim” has no definitive class system, meaning that you can switch playstyles on the fly: transitioning from wielding a two-handed war hammer to blasting your enemies with fireballs to any number of other techniques. The game gives the player freedom to play however they want and doesn’t force the player to commit to one playstyle. Also, unlike many traditional RPGs, Skyrim has no level requirement for using weapons, so any weapon is immediately viable as soon as you receive it, further adding to this sense of freedom.
This dedication to player agency and freedom is further echoed by the world and quest design. “I never really ran out of things to do in the game. Even when quests forced me to travel to new areas, I always encountered something new every time. No specific quest was really required to enjoy the game, so I could always switch to something new if I got tired,” says Niels Voss, a freshman from San Mateo High School. This dedication seems to have paid off as well, as when “Skyrim” was released in 2011, it sold over 3.4 million copies in the first two days of the game’s release. In the years following, “Skyrim” would garner over 200 Game Of The Year awards.
Almost a decade later, “Skyrim” still has a passionate and incredibly active modding community that has spawned thousands of mods to improve the game even further. These mods encompass details such as revamping the look of the game, adding new items, storylines, and removing unwanted features. These changes allow players to customize their experience to whatever they want, making the game truly your own. The modding community is always making new addons to the game all the time, so there is always something to do in-game even if you have finished the base game.
“I think the only reason I kept playing was because I got mods to make the game more fun or more difficult. I remember one, in particular, that was good, like a big issue with the central plot I think, is that they say there is a civil war going on… and as you are walking through the world, you never really see anything happening in terms of the war. So I got a mod that made those skirmishes happen and that made the game significantly better,” says Mr. Odom, a science teacher at San Mateo High School.
“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” still retains its massive influence on the RPG genre and its passionate community as a whole and while not for everybody, it also retains its thoroughly entertaining nature all these years later.