
Back in late 2011, the expansive, lore-filled game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Its massive overworld was nothing like had ever been seen before, with no end of things to do. Bethesda truly outdid themselves, receiving a mass of awards and critical acclaim for Skyrim. Looking back on it, Skyrim had a massive impact on many games to follow. It has become an icon, a point of comparison to open-world sandbox games. Series such as Far Cry, Dragon’s Dogma and even Indie games like Lichdom: Battlemage have clearly taken inspiration from the title. I’m sure I speak for many when I say that Skyrim re-ignited my love for the RPG genre.

The world itself felt very well thought-out, with everything fitting nicely with Elder Scrolls lore. The core mechanics from Oblivion stayed with it, though many skills are more polished and balanced. Most noticeably, the bow combat had been massively improved, making it more favourable a combat choice. To begin with, the player was not given choices of classes, unlike Oblivion. Instead, the game gave the player a chance to use each different kind of combat, which made it much easier to decide how you wanted to play the game. The perk tree system was solid and didn’t feel too grindy, with decent and noticeable rewards. In general, the RPG aspects of the game were very well designed, meaning that inventory management wasn’t a chore, combat didn’t get boring and most enemies levelled with you. The few that didn’t level with you, such as the infamous Giants, were carefully designed too. With this example, after you found yourself in a Giant’s camp for the first time you would be taken completely by surprise as they pummel you into the ground and kill you instantly. Levelling up throughout playing the game and eventually being able to take one of these giants on with a decent chance of winning is ridiculously satisfying.
The PC version of the game had developed a massive modding community, with countless amounts of unique, interesting and frankly strange mods. The amount of customisability that Skyrim offers in terms of ‘modability’ gives it huge potential, and mods range from simple re-textures of different armour sets to entire DLC-sized new lands to explore, with fully-voiced NPCs, various towns and villages and tons of new quests to enjoy. If there’s anything that takes away from your experience with Skyrim, there’s probably a mod to fix it.
'I was once an adventurer like you...'

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