I will begin, as Nick did before me, by pointing out that Skyrim is an enormous game. It is quite literally impossible to do it justice. To do so would mean putting hundreds if not thousands of hours in on multiple characters, all of whom chose different paths through a rich and vibrant world and were fully maximised in different ways. The most important thing to know is that it’s nearly impossible to stop playing, even if, for any reason, you want to do so.
There is no shortage of conflict in the Nordic homeland of Skyrim, which is as violent and barbaric as the people who inhabit it. In addition to the rebirth of the legendary dragons, signifying the end of time, Skyrim has recently fallen into a bloody civil war between the ruling Empire and rebellious Stormcloaks. In the midst of this comes Dohvakiin, the dragon-born, here to save the world from the end of time. That would be you. Amongst these conflicts, the nine holds, or regions, of the nation of Skyrim, though each has pledged its support to either Jarl Elisif and the Empire or Jarl Ulfric and his Stormcloaks, continue to operate largely independently, and each contains its own unique political and social landscape. Your character remains silent, but this isn’t a bad thing. Skyrim is very much a traditional RPG; the character you play is an extension of yourself rather than a set personality whom you control for a brief period of time, and you control him or her from relative obscurity on your death row to realm-wide fame, fortune and mastery of all of your chosen arts.
More importantly, the world of Skyrim feels much more like a living, breathing world than anything seen previously in the franchise, and indeed, than the large majority of RPGs on the market. For many, the lack of a narrative was one of Oblivion’s largest shortcomings. Bethesda’s new Radiant Story system tackles this issue head-on. The Radiant Story system ensures that the world reacts to how you play. NPCs respond differently depending on the quests you complete, and every action you take in the world feels solid and visceral. The already positive effect of this system is augmented by the moral greys of many decisions in Skyrim. Nowhere is this clearer than your allegiance in the civil war: do you support the autocratic but stable establishment, or the upstart and racist freedom fighters? The game doesn’t punish or reward you with a morality bar; it imbues the very fabric of the story with your decisions. All of these elements combine to make Skyrim’s narrative and setting engaging on a level unseen in almost any RPG to date.
Character development has never been richer in an Elder Scrolls game. The class system which has become such an iconic part of modern-day RPGs, forcing you into set roles and allowing little freedom, has been completely abolished. Following Bethesda’s “You are who you play” moniker, you’ll level up via any skills you use in Skyrim. For example, if you use one-handed weapons, your skill level in using them will increase. Every action you take in the game will level up a skill which will level up your character. This applies to all skills in the game, rather than “major” skills like in Oblivion. The effect of this is that you don’t have to be a mage, warrior or thief; you can focus on Destruction, Speech, Smithing and nothing else, if you so wish, and change focus at any point. The experience is entirely open to you. As each of your skills is levelled up, your experience bar fills. When you have gained enough experience to gain a level, you increase either health, Magicka or stamina by ten points (attributes have been removed entirely, which may come as a disappointment to RPG purists, but which streamlines the experience and removes confusion) and can learn a “perk” in a particular skill tree – for example, a reduction of the Magicka requirement to cast a destruction spell, more damage with one-handed weapons, or lower prices at stores. These perks help distinguish between the skills that you only level because it’s convenient, and those in which you are genuinely invested.
The range of skills has been improved as well. Useless categories such as acrobatics and athletics are gone entirely, whereas spells from the Mysticism tree have been redistributed into the other schools. Melee skills have been switched from Blade, Blunt, and Hand-to-Hand to a more logical selection of One-Handed and Two-Handed, while Block has been overhauled to become an active defence and countering Skill. Crafting gets a boost in this game with Smithing making its debut, allowing the creation of powerful weapons and armour from ore mined and found throughout the world; and an overhaul of Enchanting, previously a brief diversion at the Imperial College and now a full-blown and very useful skill. You now learn enchantments by first disenchanting already magical weapons and armour. The new skills menu, which has your character survey constellations in the sky, isn’t the easiest thing in the world to navigate, especially with a keyboard and mouse, but it looks fantastic and gives a nice overview.
In practice the combat improvements are immediately apparent. Starting with melee, blocking is now an active action. A shield can be assigned to your off-hand while you assign a weapon to the other. Rather confusingly (though you do get used to it), the left mouse button controls your right hand, and vice versa, likely because the left-click is considered the main click, and the right hand the main hand (which is quite an affront to left handers like myself, but never mind). To protect yourself from attacks, you have to actively block your opponent’s strikes, dropping your guard to counter blows with your own weapon. Shields can also be used to bash and charge-down opponents. This new active blocking system extends to two-handed weapons, although the damage mitigated is much lower than that of a shield. You can also dual-wield one-handed weapons, potentially doubling damage, but removing the ability to block entirely.
Power attacks are still executed by holding down the attack button, and cost stamina (along with sprinting). These attacks can be directed to a certain extent with the mouse. The general feel of melee has been improved in a number of ways as well. Third person, infamously unplayable in Oblivion, is now a viable option for some, though I still prefer first-person view, which ends up feeling more natural on PC. However, the new (zoomable) third person camera and target reticule make a previously useless camera view very helpful for getting a better view of your surroundings, and some players even prefer it. In first person, the camera now dips and moves realistically with the attacks, adding a much stronger connection to the action happening on screen. This serves to resolve the plastic feel melee in previous entries in the series and adds immersion.
But don’t worry if, like me, you favour magic: you haven’t been ignored. Magic sees some of the biggest improvements in this entry. Instead of binding spells to a hotkey and pressing once to cast, you now equip them to hands just as you do weapons and shields. The more than eighty-five spells in the game offer a huge variety of potential load-outs, and you can greatly strengthen a spell by equipping it in both hands and simultaneously casting – or, if you prefer, you can cast a spell with one hand, and use the other hand for a different spell, a single-handed weapon, or even a shield (if you are so inclined). The variety of spells is emphasized by the new secondary effects on Destruction spells. Fire causes a burn to do extra damage, Frost slows opponents and drains Stamina, and Lightning drains Magicka as it damages. However, the other trees have also received some nifty additions. Alteration’s Transmute allows you to turn iron into gold, and shields, previously alteration spells but now called wards and coming under restoration, are again equipped to hands and actively used, like physical shields.
Stealth is improved by the new executions, giving a brutal feel to the silent destruction of your foes. Sneaking also has various status levels, indicated by an eye reticule. When the eye is completely closed the guards have no idea of your presence, but as it gradually opens they become more aware and alert, and search for you. When the eye is completely open they know your exact position and can see you. This, combined with the ability to add spells to your offhand to use with your dagger, makes sneaking is a more interesting proposition than ever. In addition, bows are now far more damaging, but take longer to fire, allowing for long-ranged stealth executions or long-range attacks for characters that are otherwise melee focused.
A new type of magic is introduced to the game in the form of Shouts, which are equipped to the Z button and don’t burn Magicka, but do include a cool-down. These can be used by all player characters, and a very small group of NPCs. There are 24 shouts in the game which range from clearing the weather to breathing fire, and each shout has three different levels of power which you obtain by finding words of power in the world, generally in ruins or dragon shrines. Higher levels increase the effect, but also increase the cool-down, and you can adjust the force of your shout by changing when you release the button. You’ll need to take down dragons and gather their souls to unlock the Shouts, even after you’ve found the Words of Power. There are 72 words in total, which means at least 72 dragon fights.
Dragon fights are absolutely incredible. Remember those irritating random-encounter Oblivion gates that made you groan every time you saw them? Dragons are the equivalent here and seeing them (or rather, hearing their roars echo across the sky) will have you cheering in anticipation, for three main reasons. They provide souls which you need to unlock shouts, and they provide the scales and bones which you need to make the best armour in the game, but arguably the most important reason is that it’s really awesome to kill dragons! These dragons behave almost scarily realistically, flying most of the time to avoid your melee blows, and landing on buildings and other structures often to stay out of reach. You will feel the force of their wings as they swoop past, and the ground shake as they land. Dragons will even bite down on NPCs and animals, ripping them from the ground and tossing them to kill them instantly. Dragons come in multiple types, starting with the weak brown ones and gradually increasing in difficulty to the very strong black-coloured beasts. The types you encounter will depend on your level, and as soon as you’re able to trounce one sort of dragon you’ll start finding another challenging type. They can be found in the main quest, roaming the world, or even attacking towns without warning. They are the enemies of all, and to soothe your worries, yes, you can have two dragons fighting each other.
Among the more general improvements to combat is a removal of Oblivion’s controversial level scaling in favour of a much tamer version, similar to that found in Fallout 3. Enemies have a level range based on type and location, and you won’t find bandits running around in Daedric armour late-game. Your progression is noticeable and marked by how you fare against certain opponents, as it should be. Armour and weapon rewards fare a bit better in this entry as well. Elder Scrolls has always been more about exploration than loot, but the dragon armour is a nice incentive to level smithing, and even mages have some pretty awesome gear to find if you run through their guild quests. There are also a handful of special unique weapon and armour pieces available as quest rewards. One problem is that the inventory is rather difficult to navigate. It auto-sorts in alphabetical order and doesn’t show any statistics unless you mouse over the item, so selling your junk and treasure can be a long and arduous process. Fortunately, however, the wonders of the PC version mean that this has already been modded into a far more organised interface, reminiscent of that of Oblivion. The dungeons you’ll explore are incredibly varied, especially compared to Oblivion, and even the assets that are repeated will never result in direct clones. After dozens of hours you might feel a bit of déjà vu in a few of them, but there isn’t actually much obligation to go inside most of them.
Outside of combat you’ll have plenty to keep you occupied. Ore veins can provide material for smithing, plants harvested for alchemy, and a massive variety of quests and side-quests attempted, ranging from crawling through one of Skyrim's dozens of dungeons to investigating a murder, squeezing debtors for their loans, or joining one of the four guilds in the game. Sneakier players can pick pockets and rob houses, while more upstanding citizens can go do some hunting for more crafting materials and sellable items. Daedra worship is ever-present in case you tire of the boring old Nine Divines and want to do some morally dubious quests (everyone’s favourite guild, the Dark Brotherhood, helps with this as well). Shrines can be located to boost certain stats, and new Shout powers can be hunted down in various dragon shrines and dungeon ruins. You can even get married and buy houses in Holds in which you have a good reputation.
Exploring the world is almost a game in itself. Skyrim features an impressive variety of interesting biomes including lush evergreen forests, swamps, plains, hot springs, frozen wastes, and icy oceans. The insanely massive open world is full of secrets and treasures waiting to be discovered. Worried it’s too big for its content? Don’t be. Skyrim is densely packed with a variety of interesting locations, towns, camps, dungeons, and caves. Lore nuts will find a lot of information about the ancient and mysterious Dwarves among the scattered ruins throughout Skyrim, in the form of fully-written books which can be navigated using the mouse buttons. Ancient temples of the Nords built to worship the dragons during their age of power also await your discovery. Of course there’s always the chance of finding a dragon as well. All of this is much easier to find thanks to an improved 3D map and a much better integrated quest menu. The mildly annoying, and replaceable, inventory aside, presentation on the whole has been improved enormously.
The visual difference between Skyrim and Oblivion is enormous, and Skyrim’s beauty is astonishing. The Creation Engine created for the game provides lush visuals and a believable world, helped along by stunning art design. The amount displayed on-screen combined with the general quality is staggering. The gorgeous visuals don’t hold up quite as well when you get up close, however, and textures can be pretty simple in certain areas. Shadows also look somewhat pixelated, although the dynamic shadows and their ability to react and expand with the game’s plethora of dynamic light sources are impressive. The only other place the engine fails to astound is in facial animation, which fails to convey a lot of emotion. Regardless of nitpicking, the visual presentation is superb. As you would expect, it looks better on PC than on consoles, though the difference isn’t enormous. Most computers should be able to run it on low settings, but maxing out the settings will be very demanding. It’s not technically the best-looking game you’ll have seen this year, but in visual design, it is unparalleled.
Even the visuals, however, are surpassed by the audio. Skyrim’s soundtrack is utterly magnificent. The music blends in perfectly with the visuals, and wandering the world is luxurious synaesthesia, as grand melodies meld with sweeping landscapes. In combat the music ratchets up the intensity, driving the adrenaline rush. This is especially true when the main theme comes blaring through during an epic dragon fight. I dare you to not hear that music blaring in your head the next time you exercise. The voice acting is equally sublime, with appropriate accents helping emphasize the intriguing personalities that populate the world. Bethesda is infamous for releasing buggy and glitched games, but Skyrim is nowhere near as bad as, say, Fallout: New Vegas. Annoyingly, crashes do occur, seemingly at random, but they are rare, and if you set the game to autosave every so often and keep quicksaving yourself, you shouldn’t lose too much.
Are you tired of pre-order bonuses and DLC scams that take away parts of a game and make it feel incomplete without them? If so, you’ll likely find Skyrim’s transparent and straightforward release as refreshing as I do. Not only is it a complete experience, it’s an enormous experience. A single playthrough can quite easily last into the hundreds of hours, and it’s always worth doing it all again, to see the world from another point of view; to be an Imperial rather than a Stormcloak; a paragon rather than a murderer; a Nordic warrior rather than an elven mage.
Although they are not strictly part of the game, it is worth taking mods into account; Bethesda has always been extremely supportive of the modding community, and will even release the full toolkit used to design Skyrim in January, which should lead to some fantastic user-created experiences in addition to Bethesda’s own. Many of those who dislike Oblivion say that mods made it a highly enjoyable experience, so just imagine what they could do to an unquestionably fantastic game such as Skyrim.
Skyrim is a transcendent experience. It may not be perfect, but it excels in almost every aspect of design. There are games that you play and there are games that you experience, and this is the latter. It sucks you in, and you will get lost in its incredible depths. I am almost ashamed of loving Oblivion as I did, now that I know what an open-world fantasy RPG can truly achieve. So go buy Skyrim, and then call your friends and your boss, and warn them that they won’t hear from you for a while. And while you’re at it, get them to buy it too. This is quite frankly one of the deepest, most enjoyable and most inspiring gaming experiences you will ever have had. You owe it to yourself as a gamer to play this.
Portions of this review were taken from the review of the console version of the game.
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