The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

Skyrim is an timeless, epic game with a massive world, endless possibilities and a very strong replay value.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a relatively simple, but powerful story. Because this game is mainly focused on this story, I will spoil nothing. If you never played the game, this is something that you need to experience for yourself.

You start an empty character from various races, can customize almost every inch of their bodies and then start your adventure in the world of Skyrim. You are free to roam wherever you want, when you want, how you want, all at the very start of the game, after the tutorial. This game is the definition of “nonlinear” and freedom.

Right from the start, you get sucked into its beautiful open world, and can start leveling up your skills, picking some flowers, mine some ore, collect garbage to sell at vendors and finally murdering that bunny that you chased all the way to Riften.

Even today, I still think Skyrim looks glorious. Sure, the textures can be a little rough here and there, animations are not as “flawless” as today’s games and flowers can look like cardboard cutouts, but for its time, this was revolutionary. There is just so much detail in everything. Wildlife, flowers, sunlight, moonlight, grass, mountains, it is all just great. Every cabin, every cave and every ruin is filled with countless items, details and decorations, and you can interact with almost all of it. Sure, this is a Bethesda game, so glitching and clipping is a thing, but that is the whole charm of this game. Seeing a bucket being launched at 320 km/h because it was too close to a table is just hilarious.

Enemies are greatly designed and form a well balanced mix of beasts, monsters, bandits and supernatural beings.

Sound wise, Skyrim is a work of art. The sound effects, voice acting, and (ambient) music is just perfect. When walk around town, just wanting to buy some supplies, a calm and peaceful track plays in the background. When you get ambushed by a hungry dragon and the male orchestra voices play, you now that sh!t just got serious.

The menu’s, controls and interfaces work great and the overall mechanics of the game are pretty realistic. You can become overburdened with all the crap you carry with you, you can attract vile diseases from certain enemies like the Skeevers (giant rats), you can experience serious problems or debuffs when not sleeping enough, it just adds more fun and challenge to the game.

Combat works flawlessly and, with the right fighting style, can be intense and brutal. The beauty of the combat and learning curve, it is that you get nuked in the beginning by a Giant for example, level up your Heavy Armor skill, health and One Handed, come back to him, and shove that club of his so hard into his brown star until he finally gets the message that you are done with his sh!t.

The leveling system is also pretty unique, same as Fallout 3 for example. Instead of killing stuff and earn XP, you level all different skills by performing attacks or action in that category. Crouching past enemies undetected increases your Sneak, forging a million iron daggers improves your smithing, letting yourself get bludgeoned like a baby seal while wearing light armor increases your “Light Armor” skill etc. By leveling up your different skills, you earn general XP for your character level. With each new level, you can increase health, stamina, magika (mana) and choose a unique ability in the skill tree of one of your skills.

I especially love figuring out all the exploits the game has to level up your skills faster, try to move your horse over a 90 degrees slope, trying to get to space with the help of a giant and overall, fully explore (and exploit) everything this great game has to offer.

The best part of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is simply that there is just soooooo much to do. You got a gigantic world map with hundreds of caves, crypts, enclaves, towns, cities, outposts, ruins, tombs and bandit camps, all waiting for you to explore, conquer and plunder. There are (in my opinion) a million quests to undertake and, like many, I got so caught up in the side quests, that I actually reached level 50 and still needed to visit the Greybeards, who almost died of old age when I finally got there. You can experiment with your skills, different weapons, different play styles and overall, this game can hook you up for literal days in terms of playtime.

This is one of those games in which you actually feel really powerful when leveling up enough, and all your hard work is actually reflected through your damage output, constitution and overall feel. This sounds pretty basic, but a lot of games do not actually reward you with power or feeling of might and pride when you reach level 80 for example.

Enemies level along with you, keeping the game and experience gain for your skill balanced, but there simply comes a point that they stand no chance anymore and if you are willing to spend two hundred hours of play in a character, this time is rewarded. With Sneak and Archery leveled to 100, every arrow is a insta kill and five enemies can be killed in five seconds while you are hidden.

This is also the only small problem with Skyrim. At one point, you are so stupidly powerful (all skills maxed) that there is just no challenge and point anymore. It will takes thousands of hours for this point to be reached, but eventually, you are just too strong.

In the end, I think The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the best games ever made, and although it is considered a relic in present days, it’s legacy lives on forever in forms of memes, jokes, punch lines and references. It gives you worth for your money and in my opinion, every gamer is obligated to have this piece of art in their library.

Definitely recommend this timeless classic.

This is the most rpg rpg out there. The only downside it has is that it's old now. The mods give this game so much more than what it already has. I am just waiting for the next game in the series. This game is amazing!

STORY = 10/10
GAMEPLAY = 8.510
ENJOYMENT = 10/10
RATING = 9.5/10