I honestly feel like Jeremy Soule’s soundtrack is about half the reason I still desire to return to Skyrim. It’s just such an incredible and comforting atmosphere
I feel the exact same way. Every time I get the Skyrim itch I get bored after a few dozen hours because of the shallow and boring combat/quest design, but I can’t deny that it might have the best soundtrack and atmosphere of any game. The slow burn/immersion elements are skyrims biggest strengths
Yup same experience. I've always liked Skyrim's atmosphere. Wondering around the world and listening to the fantastic music. After 10 hours though you've essentially seen everything the game has to offer. This can be said for every Bethesda game really lol. Still think Fallout series is better gameplay wise and has a much more unique premise with the futuristic 1950's apocalypse compared to a yet another Tolkien-like high fantasy setting.
It's a big part of it. The soundtrack, environment and sound design, and the goofy but lovable characters all come together to create this world that just feels cozy, comfy, and familiar. I feel like I'm home every time I open Skyrim.
I always fall into the top .5% of listeners every year I think since Skyrim came back. It is my go to background noise, reading music, and sleep music. I also ALWAYS listen to Dragonborn anytime I need to hype myself up. He is so talented.
Skyrim was so popular, they thought the series was actually called Skyrim. “When is the new Skyrim coming out?” “I love Skyrim. What is the elder scrolls?”
It just has a beautiful soul. The nordic/medieval vibe. The stunning architecture of the buildings and landscapes. The fantastic soundtrack. On top of that rhe interactivity of the world is unrivalled to this day. And on top of that its an epic power fantasy were you play as an almost god like figure. A dragon slaying medieval super hero. Yes the combat could be better but everything else is so good it doesn't really matter
@@danthemann7 I do love me some cyberpunk. It does have an amazing vibe and aesthetic. No doubt. Probably the best looking game I've ever played. Sometimes I'll load it up just to have a drive around and enjoy the sites. I wouldn't say it rivals Skyrim for interactivity tho. You can't interact with most objects. Like 99.9% of NPCs don't have names and wont talk. Still a truly amazing game though.
Skyrim kind of feels like a dream. You even wake up at the beginning. You can stay as long as you want, do whatever you want, nothing has real consequences, it’s the ultimate escapism
@@TheJoshdenton23 TES lore hints that the world is a video game, I think. The Dwemer disappeared because they found that out (it's a theory, I think). I hope they expand on that in TES 6.
Yall ever just spend an hour meandering through town doing normal chores? I play with survival aspects, and some days are literally just wandering around town, picking up supplies and talking with NPCs to get quests to go on the next day. Usually end them in the local inn with my favorite mod followers Inigo and Lucien It's a very relaxing experience and a nice break from constant action, which I think helps keep the game "fresh" for a long time.
to me the success of skyrim also comes from the ability to ignore vast parts of the game and still feel like you are doing what you are supposed to do, which makes it easy to appeal to a lot of demographics. i was interested in the world so i took a two handed weapon and clumsily smashed my way to the cities and dialogues, my friend took a bow and went hunting after leaving helgen and didnt enter a city for the next 10 ish hours.
On my first playthrough I was obsessing over being recognized by every towns Jarl so I went and did that, mainly because I noticed that you get a get out of jail free card for doing so and I stole so often lol
10 hours of just shooting animals with a bow and arrow. That is exactly the kind of person I figured is enjoying Skyrim. But me saying that makes me sound like an elitist snob snubbing at game design that just isn't my jam, people should be able to enjoy what they like how they like. And I'm allowed to be absolutely baffled how anyone can sink hundreds more hours after spending hundreds already in such meh world with meh gameplay and meh depth.
I agree with this and feel there is a plague in modern game design that Bethesda thankfully ignores. That plague is the idea that players missing content is bad. You get these open world games that fail to feel like actual worlds because everything gets signposted for you. Hogwarts Legacy is the most recent example I have played. The world, particularly the castle, was crafted so meticulously and well that I could not wait to start exploring. But my exploration quickly turned into a checklist as nearly everything of value is revealed to you immediately. All the towns are marked, and all the challenges, dungeons, and dens show up with a quick Revelio. Just totally killed my wonderment turned it into a grind. I'd had introduced my friend to the Elder Scrolls series through Skyrim and a couple years later we are talking and he tells me about this dungeon he found high in the mountains in Eastmarch near Morrowind where you encounter this glowing light. I never had and was amazed to find that after several years, the game still had secrets beyond funny skeletons. Even in my current Starfeild playthrough, there are quests and locations I know exist but have just never encountered naturally, and that's great for someone who plays these games for decades. Heck, I still feel like Fallout 3 is hiding some secrets in all the rubble and ruin.
I'm on my first (and very comprehensive) playthrough and I didn't do Dragon Rising until some quests demanded it and I couldn't progress in the game further due to lack of shouts. I spent almost 100 hours in this gamestate. It did, however, make the world feel incredibly serene when there isn't a dragon annoying you every few minutes.
The amount of effort into world building is what really drags me back. I loved watching videos where people discussed little details they'd found that added into something bigger. People uncovering the lore of a certain person or object or place. The gameplay itself is lackluster, mid at best, but I remember standing by my father's shoulder as he started a playthrough of it, specifically the part in the beginning where you choose a stone after Ralof tells you about them. Walking down that path, being able to grab some thistle and a butterfly hovering around some wild flowers. It felt magical, and even after so many years it still does.
For people that dont wanna think much, dont engage with their character or the world as it is all superficial s hit. A perfect game for mouth breathers to praise
As the primary video editor who worked on that main gameplay trailer for Skyrim, I appreciate your kind words. It has been a long time since I worked for Bethsoft, but I still have fond memories of the time I spent working on the marketing for Skyrim. I spent my time there embedded with Todd’s BGS team and worked closely with many of them to make the trailer happen.
I think it's that trailer that did a lot to set the tone for my own role-playing experience with the game. It formed the basis of what my own imagination filled into the gaps that the game couldn't provide with its limitations with the engine and the writing. Scrabbling over craggy cliffs and mountains, breathlessly fighting off epic encounters, growing in power and legend, and eventually working to become an epic hero in a classical sense. Thank you for helping to plant the seed that became my own personal Beowulf story.
A note on the Sven/Faendal quest, if you marry her during the quest, both Faendal and Sven get mad at you, but if I'm not mistaken, Faendal says "better you than sven" or something like that
There is some way of screwing over both and still getting the free arrow lessons.. I think it has to do with pickpocketing the letter back and showing both to her? ..but the reason I know that is because I googled it to find out the right choice. That is largely my failing, not that I feel any guilt, but also a result of the apparent choices not being fun.
I married Camilla once and now Faendal lives in my house :/ But a dragon corpse materialises every time I fast travel home, so of the two, I still prefer Faendal
Skyrim is the kind of game we remember about as if it was a previous episode of our life, not like a game we played. It almost feels like Ive walked the roads of whiterun myself, I almost can feel the chill air present in the scene. I agree with you, it does have a lot of problems, but the thing is just magical. I can only attribute that to the passion of every developer involved.
I had a friend that had over 100 hours in skyrim. She would rarely leave whiterun, had sneak and pickpocketing leveled to like 80 or 90, and basically just enjoyed being the town pickpocket thief, and would occasionally kill characters that made her mad. On the occasion she left town, she'd try to find an enemy to knock off a cliff, or just mess around with the open world. She was the one that introduced me to the game, and was completely blown away when I started showing her the daedric quests, potions, enchanting etc, but never really enjoyed playing that content herself. That's what makes the game great imo, you can play it ANY way, when so many games back then gave you little freedom to make your own story.
And honestly, including mods, you can make this game WHATEVER game you WANT, Skyrim is your game, most companies/games these days don't do that kind of thing anymore.
Oh, she played videogames the way I used to play as a kid. Like, making up scenarios without actually progressing in the game. Just using it as a playground. That's awesome
One time I was at a party at a friend's house and there was this guy who was clearly feeling out of place/ socially anxious. My friend and I were talking to him and he told us how he was feeling, then he saw that my friend had Skyrim and asked if he could boot it up, because it helped him relax. We sat and watched him play for a while, and he really opened up and seemed much happier. The game never really clicked with me, but because of this experience I will always have respect for it.
This is one of the only games that truly feel “alive”. Anything can happen at any time, the world reacts to what you do. It feels like you’re actually apart of it and masters that aspect of the game. Skyrim is my favorite single player game!
The soundtrack is one of if not the most fitting and atmospheric of all times. The game itself is the only game I’ve ever played that on retrospective does not feel like a game I played but a place I visited/ lived in
For me a big draw is the music and the way the game can build atmosphere. It's one of very few games I play where I don't turn off game music and pop on a video or podcast while playing.
@@ggadams639 I own Oblivion, it's good but very much limited by budget. Skyrim's OST is an evolution on the older soundtracks and imo does more for building atmosphere matching the visuals than Oblivion does (and Morrowind, from what I've watched in other people's playthroughs). It's OK to just not like it as much you know, music being good or bad is highly subjective.
@@ggadams639you just listed 2 of my other top soundtracks. (Rounding out top 5 would be kingdom hearts II , and final fantasy 7 remake - order not defined) “Road most travelled” and “through the valleys” perfectly capture my memories of those games/worlds The “Skyrim atmospheres” track/loop though is just my favorite piece of video game music. I listen to it while working, to help sleep, to relax in the car - instantly transports me to a simpler time exploring Skyrim.
and don't forget about the gaming grandma that still plays Skyrim and uploads videos of her telling stories through different characters she creates in the game
She had a stroke around a year ago and had to relearn the game because it affected her muscle memory and game knowledge, but fortunately Bethesda invited her to have her say some lines and have some face tracking done so she could be a character in Elder Scrolls 6
Another aspect that keeps me hooked to Skyrim is a feeling of never getting even close to "ready" or "finished" with the game. There's a never ending plethora of things to mix to find out new effects of each and every ingredient. You can learn smithing but it takes forever. So I can't quit Skyrim yet as I'm only smithing level 45 - way too low to experience what it feels like to be a smithing pro - same with enchantments.
“You see that mountain? You can climb it.” 😴😴😴 “You see that fork? You can pick it up.” 🤩🤩🤩 But yeah real talk, this is the aspect of Skyrim (alongside the overall vibes and exploration) that really makes Skyrim and Bethesda’s overall approach to open world games still stand out to me in a big way even when the roleplaying and combat elements fall far behind its competitors.
It's something all the Skyrim competitors (The Witcher, Kingdoms of Amalur, maybe Avowed?) haven't gotten right yet. It's about having a living world. A lot of modders who make houses also don't understand this. They make amazing display pieces, but it feels like everything is superglued in place because they won't let you move around their assets.
@@pesky19 Not really. They're better at faking a word, like Witcher having hundreds of nameless NPCs going around at Novigrad, but they're not better at simulating a world. Skyrim has named NPCs with their own jobs, schedules, families, houses, whole lives... That's something only Bethesda does, really, especially in their Elder Scrolls games.
@@PedroGomes-cx7ku there have been games that have TRIED to do this at a similar level, but none have done it like skyrim has for me. No other game feels so alive and vibrant with its npcs and systems working together, no other game is so simple to play yet so enthralling the entire time. Skyrim is just special in all of the ways that can't be easily put into words. The combat may be incredibly rough, the questing may be far too simple, but none of that matters to me when I actually sit down and play
One word: atmosphere It's a beautiful game even on low res because its just so pretty, those mountaintops and forests and northern lights, just looks amazing. That's what put me on a one week time sink, because i got brought back in by the landscapes.
when I saw Lake Ilinalta for the first time (the southern lake north of Falkreath) I snapped my first "landscape" screenshot and thought "damn, this game is beautiful". Some 200 hours and almost 300 screenshots in... I still think to myself "damn, this game is beautiful" on a regular basis.
I bought Skyrim again to play in VR, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was cool to fight giants that you had to look up at, and get nervous looking over the edge of a cliff. But just to be on top of a mountain at night while it was snowing, with that music playing…
I legit think it's the best looking TES game, phenomenal art direction. I love Any Austin's videos in Skyrim, like when he found the source of every river in Skyrim. It's just so beautiful in that world. The MW style also really speaks to me, but I still think Skyrim's game world is breathtaking + exhilarating just to traverse + hang out in. The trees! Mmm.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I kinda binged his channel a few days ago lol. The fact he was able to do all those interesting little surveys and censuses (censi? censae?) just shows how immersed you can get in just really the background details alone. Heck, the games been out thirteen years, and there's still people making original content about it. Few games can boast that level of longevity.
I’ve been playing Skyrim since release, when I was 11 years old. Now, as a 24 year old man with a family, I still revisit Skyrim at least annually. It’s like coming home to your old home town. It’s not perfect, but its mere existence brings comfort and joy.
When Skyrim came out I was 12 years old. I never heard of the Elder Scrolls Series or played alot of RPGs. My parents were rather strict. But the HYPE around Skyrim was INSANE. All the trailers and promos really got to me. And when I finally got to play it after my parents gifted it to me on christmas, it was everything and more I could ever have wished for. Skyrim was an experience for me which I will never forget and treasure for the rest of my life.
my favorite skyrim mechanic is that every Named Location is a fast travel option, which makes getting around kinda okay once you've discovered enough locations. my second favorite skyrim mechanic is that the horse doesn't experience physics the way everything else does and could probably walk on the ceiling if it wanted to.
Spider-horse, spider-horse, does whatever it thinks it can. Climbing cliffs, any pitch! Uses hooves to end a b**ch! Look out! Here comes the Spider-horse.
I once did a cinematic finisher throwing an old woman over my shoulder and through the wall, clipping outside of the building. Some imperfections are quite charming😂
@@michaelofbuhl1315 honestly as long as they're not actually breaking/crashing the game? I love Bethesda bugs. They're part of the charm, they're often hilarious. I hope they continue in TES VI. I sometimes miss the backwards-flying dragons from the first Skyrim DLC patch, but they would also almost never land so I'm glad they fixed it quickly.
Something I’ve noticed on more recent playthroughs is the way you go and check out a cave and it’s like being in another world within Skyrim’s world. It’s smaller and more intimate than the massive go anywhere overworld, and in a way acts as ‘levels’ if you will in a traditional video game. When you finally emerge back on the surface, it feels substantial, like you’ve been swept away on a little adventure and now you’ve arrived back home to familiar surroundings
I will always advocate for Bethesda's approach of keeping the 'innards' of their games locked away behind a loading screen rather than have everything simply be one fully cohesive world. From a technical side, it allows them to put a lot more within these 'innard' areas, but also as you say, it makes them feel like 'levels' and something distinct and exciting(even if they get samey after a time). Even The Witcher 3 never comes close to achieving this sort of feeling.
Dont you mean when you get in a cave then you feel like uncomfortable but in different way, after you reach to the surface, you feel safely like "ohh that was close", dont you?
every dungeon/cave/fort/catacombs handcrafted and unique. skyrim has become a meme over the years, and people (even bethesda) have taken it for granted. and have forgotten what made it special it is the breathtaking nighttime skybox, it is jeremy soule's music, it is the vision of "Epic reality" aesthetics but not necessarily a "hyper fantasy" aesthetics in its world design
For me it’s not abt the gameplay, it was fun when I was a kid but these days it’s the lore, music and atmosphere. I’ve never connected with a media as much as Skyrim and I have my doubts I ever will. It is the perfect world to me, and everything about it makes me feel at home and at peace. What I would give to experience it again for the first time, to be so immersed in a world and to be so envious that I couldn’t be there for real. Just standing there in the environment listening to the ambient music and watching the beautiful night sky to me is an experience unparalleled. I don’t play it as much anymore because of how much I’ve played it, probably thousands of hours collectively and I know all the quests like the back of my hand. I often find myself wishing for a dedicated sequel or some kind of expansion but I know it would never feel the same to me, so even though I can’t enjoy it like I did as a kid playing it, I will always find joy in just experiencing the moment to moment, just existing in the world is more than enough for me. It’s definitely my favourite game but also the one I’m most critical of, I love ranting about how much the game means to me and how much I adore it but if you asked me what it’s short falls were I’d probably talk just as long. TLDR I want to inject the game into my bloodstream I am so normal abt this game I swear
I got stuck at that exact same Master Vampire once, I scoured my inventory for anything I could use to turn the tides, when I found an invisibility potion I picked up before. I used it, snuck up to him (which was impressive for my 2 handed, heavy armour warrior build) and managed to pickpocket the enchanted Orcish War Axe he'd been wrecking me with (for some reason it was in his inventory and he only equipped it when he detetced me) and I mopped the floor with him. There are few other games that make me remember otherwise insignificant moments like that, and none that I have as many memories of than Skyrim. My tip for a fun playthrough - any time you enter a new area (i.e. going into/leaving a dungeon), you aren't allowed to use any of the equipment you have in your inventory and have to scour for new gear in the area. Extra hard mode: don't use bound weapons
The way I make Skyrim more fun is by playing on legendary and only allowing 4 skill trees until lvl 30. That way build choices actually matter. Otherwise literally every build should always have smithing, alchemy, and enchanting.
Skyrim has atmosphere. The way everything flows together just works in a unique way. The music, ambiant sounds, load times, npc chatter, quests, it all flows together into this weirdly relaxing and intricate experience that sucks you in. Skyrim hasn't sucked me in like that for some time, but I truly hope I can experience it again one day.
If you have a pc, mod it. Or even just an Xbox. I can name 5 or so graphical mods and that’s all you need to breathe completely new life into the world. As far as gameplay, enai Sian. I think that’s how you say it? Has a few gameplay mods that are out of the box compatible with just about every other mod. As far as story and expansion mods those are well documented and acclaimed as well, one won an actual writers award. There’s so much to discover through mods it’s insane, I have thousands of hours in it over 8+ years and still have not even come close to completing everything.
Modding is fun. When I discovered how to modify and insert new music, linked to areas and events, I had lots of fun! Secretly messed with my daughter's game. Favorite gags were recording a ton of silence, with just an occasional, very echoey fart and tying it to dungeon and cave situations. The old tv batman theme for the vampire main boss fight. "The hills are alive with the sound of music" when exploring in the mountains. Also for mountains, recording a bunch of silence with random echoey yodelling... Other combat music... kung fu fighting, Various Led Zepplin, The matrix, Kill Bill, etc. Was amazing watching a Skyrim sunrise and the soundtrack was Edvard Griegs "morning". Hall of the mountain King for combat and tense situations.
*Skyrim feels like home.* That's why. It feels like a time when things were simple. Nowadays, we use the same escape mechanism. When the game loads, we escape to another dimension, without life's real challenges, to a world where you can do just about anything. You can prove this, by just walking around, appreciating the perfect ambience, with mesmerizing sights everywhere. It's just perfect.
This is literally every game. I think the most important point Razbuten makes is at the beginning: Casuals. Skyrim is a simple game with overall simple mechanics and is often played exclusively. To put it harshly: Casuals like Skyrim because they never saw an actually good game.
Stumbling across so many random locations which can give you cool stuff is what keeps me there for hours I am heading to location 1 but end up on 25 random fun side quests along the way I actually enjoy
I feel like the importance of Jeremy Soule’s soundtrack and the “every frame a painting” atmosphere of the game cannot be understated here. It is arguably the best video game OST of all time, and I keep coming back to hear it while seeing the wonderful views the game has to offer. More than a decade later, and the main theme still makes me want to boot up the game every time I hear it
i used the soundtrack to study when in uni and doing my designation, fast forward 13 years and i use the soundtrack to put my kids to sleep. literally a timeless soundtrack. The GOAT and its not even close. Its truly one of one
I thought this the moment the big 'Why Skyrim' title came up. Like 'whoops you've invalidated any negative criticisms you have by playing one of the best videogame themes of all time over the top of it.'
But most of the ost is iterations on his previous work. The soundtrack was just as good in Oblivion and Morrowind (better in my opinion) and those games arent nearly as lauded.
For me, Skyrim (and fallout) have a special place in my collection because they’re kinda a mix of RPG and Immersive Sim. How many RPGs let you take everything from a dead enemy? Clothes, weapon, jewellery, even the piece of bread that they were slowly picking away at since that morning? Then on top of that, you get to take all the plates, forks and spoons they were using to eat. The bucket they were using for… well you know. Most RPGs have these things as set dressing that may not even have physics, but in Skyrim they’re lootable items. They may not be worth looting but the fact you can take them with you makes the game feel much more immersive. Aside from that, it’s just fun to explore these worlds, kill the things inhabiting them and loot whatever you want from its locations.
the reason for me is that on top of what you said they're the perfect moddable sandboxes, hope the "new" game starfield becomes something like that, then you'd have a great fantasy medieval sandbox to mod, a somewhat futuristic but not really post nuclear apocalyptic sandbox to mod and a futuristic space sandbox to mod
I played Witcher III after Skyrim and was so perplexed when in the very beginning Gerald comes on this fresh battlefield with all manner of swords and axes and shields scattered about. I was salivating for all the loot only to find out you *could not interact with any of it*. Completely destroyed my immersion.
I've been playing New Vegas recently, and it's sorta surprising that that's something that ocasionally bothered me in the game. Sometimes there was an item that I wanted to pick up but I couldn't. Sometimes even a named item. It wasn't frequent, but it bothered me.
for me, it was the first open world game that I spent a large amount of time in. You can just run across the whole map essentially from the beginning of the game. That, paired with the tangible feel of the world made it a real place in my mind. I first played it at around age 12/13 and spent so many hours there. It sounds so cheesy but going back to skyrim is like going back to the camp you spent all your summers in, or going back to the house you grew up in. Playing games from my childhood is nostalgic, but you dont just play skyrim, you visit skyrim, which make the nostalgia hit even harder
Those are my favorite aspects too! I recommend it all the time, but Whitelight talks about those aspects a lot in his video about Skyrim. It's worth checking out if you haven't!
Skyrim is the perfect realization of a theme park in a video game. If you have ever gone to six flags or disney world or anything like that and loved it, you'd like skyrim. It's built on the same principles, it's fun in the same ways. Towns are a pastiche facade. Dungeons are rides on a single track and drop you off at the entrance. They don't sound like good things on paper, but you experience it and understand. There's a reason people love theme parks.
For how many dungeons there are in Skyrim, I found them to be just a little too simple. Once I understood the logic of their dungeon design, it did start to break my immersion which was annoying because being immersed in the world was one of the reasons why I like Skyrim and Bethesda games in general.
I would say the primary thing I like about Skyrim is that it seems like no matter where I go or what I do, there is going to be something there. I’ve sunk a lot of hours into the game but there was always something else to find. Basically every single NPc is part of some quest somewhere, or has their own little implied story going on. And no matter what I do, I feel like I’m making progress. Constant skill and level ups. The feeling when the next level of gear starts showing up. When higher level enemies start showing up and kick my ass but I gradually out pace them. But at the same time lower level enemies don’t go away and I just chew through them. And just helping random people with seemingly countless task. Also the music is extremely iconic and just hearing it brings me into the head space of wanting to play again.
It helps that the vast majority of content is kind of just suggested to you as you come across it, you're not suddenly shown a list of several activities of which there's a dozen each in that area and you almost feel compelled to 100% it because the list has a completion marker. You're just doing things because they peaked your interest and want to know what happens next, even if you deep down might know it will culminate with some gold and maybe a couple skill levels in rewards.
@@Verchiel_ yep, the biggest positive about Bethesda game and the biggest flaw with Starfield is that sense of just exploring. Being able to wander in any direction, you going to find something. You running around, you see a massive statue on the peak of a mountain, thats planned for us to see. So we go on a journey to go see it and then we stumble upon more locations, new enemies, caves, nordic ruins etc. 10hrs later, you still wandering around the statue and never got to it
@@imo098765 exactly. The only places where starfield has that similar kind of exploration is the cities, which are fun to spend a few hours walking around every street. The rest of the game's maps were just depressing to walk around.
The world of Skyrim is honestly very densely packed, too. It doesn't always look like it, but the way they put so many dungeon areas and whatnot behind a simple cave or floor door or something with a loading screen is huge for this. There's stuff EVERYWHERE. So little actual empty, unused space.
@@maynardburger absolutely, a minute of exploring doesn't go without finding something to do, and you feel like you actually discovered something because unlike most open world games, it doesn't have a counter for content completed, or generic "enemy camp" markers.
I didn't see any ads or trailers, I went to my friend's house and he was playing the game, then I saw the atmosphere and I thought: "Alright, I'm buying this." I'm so used to games that are made to look like a game and not a place, Skyrim is one of the few games that when you play it really feels like you've been transported to somewhere else. I think the only game I've played before this that had the same effect on me was the games from the Diablo franchise.
I like how you can have a boss fight at any given time due to a random dragon flying by. In my current game a dog perished in defense of Riverwood*, and one of the NPCs said "I lost my friend today." I realized that Skyrim's best moments usually happen on accident, which keeps it fresh.
@@JustinLiden-q4c Some people like fun bugs in a game. Like how you can fall through the ground sometimes in Borderlands 1 into a surreal grey underspace. It's a mistake, not intentional game design, and yet one of the more interesting gaming moments I've had. Glitches are very fun when they line up in unlikely ways. Skyrim has that. Also, I'm old and just have a nostalgic attachment to it, doesn't matter if it's bad.
Exactly. It's emergent storytellibg in a sandbox setting. Even the quests are just providing you with the groundwork to experience and tell your own stories. I think the biggest misunderstanding with people who say Skyrim is bad and for the casuals, is that it's actually a hardcore roleplaying game.
The game design just keeps sucking me straight out of any immersion I try to do. It's such a gamified experience, and yet I can't properly roleplay in a game that is meant to let me roleplay.
The thing that Skyrim does that no RPG (aside from Oblivion kinda) has done since is player immersion. For example, being in first person. 3rd person is better for combat oriented games but being in first person makes you feel like you're there, to the point of them even making Skyrim VR. You can use 3rd person in Skyrim but it's not great. Your character is a blank slate that can play as anyone, so you get to imagine what you want to play as and can live a virtual life / power fantasy inside the game with your own story. You can also do quests in any order, and overall interactivity with the world. If there's a door you can't go in, other games like GTA 5 will just not let you enter, no prompt, nothing. Things like that make the world feel like a game world and not a real one, where as Skyrim will tell you that you need a key, so you know that it can be opened and you wonder what's inside. Little things like that in Skyrim make you curious about the world and why people spend hours exploring it. I don't think anyone has really put this feature into words which is why there's no game like Skyrim. They don't even know how to replicate it because "immersion" isn't something that tangible and takes doing a ton of little game mechanics right to achieve.
Skyrim just hit me at exactly the right time in my life. I was 21, just moved to a big city for university, pretty alone, living alone,... i remember i bought a couple frozen pizzas and just played 11h of skyrim straight without a break one weekend. Open world fatigue wasn't really a thing yet, everything was new and surprising. Especially to me, since I'd only really played jrpgs and dragon age origins before, and skyrim was VERY different than those. It felt like anywhere i went, there was something new i could discover. That sense of exploration and discovery pulled me, organically, from quest to quest, from mountain to mountain, the map seemingly neverending. I cherish that memory. Skyrim is like a nostalgic fever dream from a simpler time.
I just feel like at home when in Skyrim. It's been with me for half of my life, the environment is just so familiar and cosy, I know all about the game and it still comforts me and amuses with all of the random, memey guard quotes and silly "must have been the wind" type observations by enemies. And perhaps most importantly, even after 13 years and countless playthoughts, there's still always something new that you can find in Skyrim that you've never done or seen before.
Great analysis! One other thing that I think has always been a part of Skyrim's continued success and relevance is how funny it is. Not just the intentional jokes (which often really do work), but the unintentional humor have really helped carry it. There's the unnatural character interactions, awkward dialogue trees, bizarre physics (e.g., ragdolling into space after a giant hits you). "Arrow to the knee" was an immediate meme that helped it become a real moment at release, and the janky character interactions continue to be memed.
Yeah, meeting five Louis Letrushes standing outside the Whiterun stables, or seeing a mammoth materialize in the sky and fall to the ground is funny! :)
@clejinn9521 Nothing will ever top the voice actress that flubbed her line, asked for a redo, started from the top and BGS just left the entire take in the game.
I’ve put between 2000-3000 hours into the game, bought it on 3 or 4 separate occasions for various consoles, etc, and I have never even finished the main quest line. Sometimes it’s ok to turn it on and just…be there.
my lifetime goal is to basically 100% the game in one playthrough, even though i've seen all skyrim has to offer I never managed to complete it fully without switching to a new character
It becomes a part of you. Morrowind was the same for me growing up. It's like... It was my white whale. Vvardenfell became my home. The music plucked at my soul. Skyrim... I've beaten it several times now. Learned the tricks of power leveling... And the music... It's pretty much the same score.
I remember reading a comment on some video that said 'there's a difference between thinking a game is good and having fun with a game. Since the purpose of a game is to have fun, it doesnt really matter if the game is good.' I think that applies to Skyrim at least a little.
Two of the reasons i love skyrim is: 1. The fact that while youre the dragonborn, youre still you. In the witcher, youre geralt. In Mass Effect, youre shepard. In Dishonored, youre corvo or emily. No other game really gets close to allowing player freedom as i feel skyrim does. Its not me playing some character, its me in the game. 2. The blandness effect. Its the same kind of thing minecraft has going for it. The game is a nice bed for mods to be built upon, because a lot of people think "theres a spot for me to improve this here", which improves its longevity.
I think that's the reason I've never been interested in self-insert games, honestly. I inhabit "me" all the time - I'm more interested in playing a character and deciding what they would do than just playing me and doing what I would do.
Interesting this captured the exact reason i don’t like Skyrim. 1. I love playing games where every character including (the one i control) have a distinct personality and interact with each other in a curated way as envisioned by the developer. I want my pacing to be exactly as the author wanted it to be so i can see his vision. (Final fantasy and Persona). 2. Instead of being generic accesible (Tolkien world). I prefer a world that i need to uncover and understand how it works, falling in live with what is reality in these uncharted lands. Think Nier, Xenoblade and Dark souls I guess this explains why i tend to love JRPG games which focus on Narrative, Character development, and diverse music.
@@QuiksilverX7 you hit the nail on the head for me. Ive always vastly preferred the approach of JRPGs over WRPGs. I like good narratives and likeable characters, and the boring self insert protagonist just doesnt give me that.
Because of that, it is a world that you feel you could live in because you are no one else. The narrative is the world, not the character. Skyrim is the character. That's why I find it so replayable, whereas ME is great a few times, then it's meh. I like a good story, but good stories end, whereas your time in Skyrim doesn't.
Skyrim was one of the last big releases of the Pre-digital download era (The last i can think of being GTA 5). This was a big deal to me as a kid. I remember the big crowd at my local gamestop, the raffles and swag giveaways, and people talking, making friends, and playing the game at the store. It was really fun and an experience that doesn't happen anymore.
This wasn't the case in all countries, was it? Because I firmly remember how I bought Skyrim in spring 2012 when I finally had saved enough money, excitedly entered the CD-ROM into my computer, and then quickly learned that not only did I need a Steam account to play, but also needed to download a lot (either the full game or a big patch, I don't remember), and with my countryside internet connection needed to wait TWO MORE WEEKS before I could finally play it.
I worked at GameStop when this game came out and it was my first big midnight release as an employee. The energy there was just electric. For the few years after that, nothing ever touched it, and then midnights started dying slowly. It’s a shame. I think they were a really special way to bring people together.
@@daniel_361 same everywhere, at least on console. also consoles having a higher market share pretty much everywhere, esp in 2011. and yes it was one of the last big "physical" games, for most people at least. but yes, on pc steam was required. if you didn't download cracked versions obv. and thus you had to download massive day one patches (game itself is on disc).
at least where i'm from pokemon sun/moon, and smash for 3ds were also big. looked like everyone owning a 3ds was in line, afaik most stores were actually out of stock after an hour. but 3ds has a much lower user base, than ps3, or 360 but not gta v, skyrim big
For me, it's always been the atmosphere. You mentioned several times about the "slow" nature of the game between interactions, but after my first playthrough of the game, I stopped using fast travel. I would just walk from place to place, because the soundtrack and the atmosphere are SO enjoyable. Others mentioned that rather than feeling like a game I've played before, it feels like a place I've visited.
I never played Skyrim at launch. I played it for the first time somewhere around 2016 on my good ol' Xbox 360. It came in my life when I hit a mental low after hearing I was chronically ill... Skyrim was my escape from real life and it still is to this day.
I remember playing this on my old box tv in my room on my 360. I remember it being Saturday, having my door open and window, feeling the cool breeze while trying to drown out the sound of my mom vacuuming the carpet outside my room. It’s so nostalgic. It depresses me sometimes I can’t find that magic anymore. I’m trying to replay Skyrim as a Khajit whose goal is to pickpocket all the crowns off all the jarls. His name is Kiiti.
What are you doing here Mr. Souglas Souglas also you said you were good at typing off stream I see you are lying again Doug or should I call you by your real name DIABLO THE CHEATER.
It's crazy to think that skyrim is getting close to 15 years old, and it's still one of my most anticipated games of the year. I will be reinstalling it as soon as the newest version of nolvus releases. It even surprises me to see how hyped I am to play it again.
This. Literally this. I played N5 last year and easily put 100+ hours into it before I knew it. Now I'm anticipating it as if it's a new release and even slowly building a new pc over the year to handle it at its best. All these new games coming out and I care more about a mod release for a game over a decade old 😂
I love it because my brother and I used to pull up chairs from the dining table on either side of our father as he played his "wizard only" run on Skyrim. We'd all sit there for hours and watch our dad play Skyrim. When we finally got computers of our own, Skyrim was the first game we both downloaded and sank several hundred hours into the game we'd only ever seen our dad play. I remember coming across a giant for the first time, I had stopped it from a mountain away and kept firing arrows at it, too terrified of it to actually go fight it and eventually ran away once I realized the giant who return to its start location and heal between arrows. Ten years later, I'll still find my dad playing the game sometimes and it inspired me to go play another run of becoming a cat assassin in my own world.
I'm currently 18 and still vividly remember at about 7-9 watching my friend play Skyrim on his xbox 360 and thinking how cool the game was. It definitely wasn't my first choice in game choice when I finally got a computer that could run it, but once I did get it man it was exactly what I thought it would be back then and was so much fun.
I have a skyrim binge every holiday season. Not only is it around the anniversary of the games release but skyrim makes that time of the year feel so wholesome, warm and cozy.
I was around 30 when this came out and it felt like what people my age have been waiting for since playing the first Zelda on NES. Until Skyrim, only LotR really captured the feel of fantasy and Skyrim had that same vibe of vast exploration and melancholy. Yes it has many flaws and I cant really remember many quests or characters, but I just love wandering and man do I feel that music.
Skyrim has a special place in my heart . I was in a very dark place in my life and I needed a way out of it . I always played games for fun and leisure and sometimes as a way to forget about the real life and I really needed to play something to get me out of the said dark place . I searched the internet and the recommendation was Skyrim . I had no idea about the game , at first it really looked like I made a bad decision as I usually play games from start to finish as much as possible and the game looked dull. BUT , once I reached riverwood and started getting a grasp for it , I couldnt stop playing , I sat through hours of gameplay at times , thinking about every single choice I made , looking through reddit constantly to know I am making the right decision etc . Skyrim pulled me out a dark place , the game just makes me feel cozy , I played it in medium graphics on low res and it still looked so beautiful , it feels like a place I have lived before , the atmosphere , the soundtrack , the characters , all fit so beautifully , not perfectly but beautifully . Skyrim taught me that things dont need to be perfect to be beautiful , there is beauty in imperfection , there is beauty in being enough , the game it is like a comforting hug , and that is Why Skyrim , for me personally
I love the start of autumn and winter here in Finland because it is the perfect setting to properly enjoy Skyrim. My dad sometimes opened the balcony door to let the cold breeze in during winter just so he could immerse himself into Skyrim and the nords while playing.
I have no idea the amount of hours i have on skyrim. I have gotten 2 accounts to about level 90 and i still love the game. The freedom of skyrim was a big thing for me.
I think you make a really good point at the end about Skyrim being a great introduction to video games. So many of my friends experienced Skyrim as their first "video game-y" video game and while they aren't necessarily hardcore gamers now, they definitely have a much stronger appreciation for the medium than they would have otherwise
i played it when it came out, probably when i was like 7-8, maybe a little younger, and its always just felt like a second home. Growing up and playing it every now and then, getting interested in different quests each time and using different builds, discovering fun and awful glitches. All of that added up to a world that as I grew up, I learned more about. Not in the way it was made or how it worked, but just learning about the world in general. Just like my real hometown, I’ve always lived here, moved a few times but always that same town, different jobs, friends, etc. To me, the parallel it has to learning more about the real world growing up, along with how much the game has for you to learn about, really add up to give me such a peaceful, fun, thoughtful experience that I don’t think I could get sick of as long as there is more for me to learn.
just to add, we have guys figuring out exact npc paths, breaking world barriers to find out even more about the world, and calculating unemployment rates. there is just so much you can keep thinking about and learning
I actually agree with pretty much all of your criticisms at the beginning. I consider Skyrim one of my favorite games of all time because it was my "gateway drug" to Fantasy RPG's and RPG's in general. Being 13, I'd never played anything like it before and it hooked me on the genre(s) for life. Edit: just finished watching and I agree with your conclusion as well. Great video!
Morrowind did that for me all the way back in 2003. Unfortunately, I have only played a few games that scratch the same itch since: Dark Souls 1, Fallout: New Vegas, The Witcher 2. I still haven't played Outward, The Witcher 3, or Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but they look like they might be on my wavelength. If not, I'll just stick with Morrowind and New Vegas.👍
100^ with you as well, thankfully modding is able to improve the combat somewhat but i uderstand/agree with why it was designed the way it is, at the end of the day skyrim is just a really nice game to exist in and im so glad that it does that so well
@@thefranken-thing It was oblivion for me. I wonder if Skyrim on top of all the things mentioned in the video also kinda like hit the beginning of videogames becoming mainstreaming? So a ton of apt-age people were getting into gaming and it caugh them nust right
Razbuten made a great point, although Skyrim had some faults, there are things that Skyrim did great that other games have failed to replicate: 1. Unmarked quests - In Assassin's Creed clones, every object on the map is marked. So when you see a hut on a small island and it has no marker, you know there's nothing there and there's no point going out of your way to visit it. In Skyrim it's worth exploring every corner of the map. 2. Powerful loot scattered across the map - In Far Cry clones, every chest is randomized so you get the same bracelet, underwear, and spoon as junk in very chest. You see a chest on top of a mountain and you think it has something special, but you get a spoon. In Skyrim you can stumble upon a cave and get a powerful weapon that was deliberately placed there and not randomized. 3. Night and day cycle / NPC routine - Other games have tried to implement this, but I don't think any of them have equaled Skyrim yet, that's why people still think Skyrim feels the most lived-in world. 4. NPC reactions to your actions - Yes Skyrim doesn't always react to everything you do, but it's still better than other games who have tried it. Even in recent RPGs there are NPCs that don't react when I save their village from cannibals.
@@thefranken-thing i played morrowind long after i played skyrim for the first time and i do think I like it a lot more from a critical standpoint. but its sort of… niche, i guess. i still play more skyrim than i do morrowind, because as much as I love morrowind I kind of have to be in the right “mood” to play it. fallout new vegas is the only game ive played that really captures the best of both worlds in that aspect, having the appeal both for hardcore rpg nerds and casual players.
So weird seeing two guys I’m subscribed to talking to each other. I hope you mention the power of the modding scene and just how *dense* the world is. Probably the most dense world in any open world game.
I have a friend who, any time I talk about games, asks me about them in the context of skyrim, ie "is that like skyrim?" I don't think she has ever or will ever play another game but she has thousands of hours in skyrim I find endlessly facinating.
@@TheGallantDrakewhile I agree with you games that are considered casual is not an insult, I have to disagree that Skyrim is the ultimate casual experience. It has a large barrier of entry into the game, but it's not definitively casual. To clarify, casual experiences to me are ones that don't ask too much from the player. Just a simple game loop on a gameboard (figuratively) that never changes. Like candy crush, City Skylines, and Fall Guys. Skyrim just has too much to offer for it to be casual. There is a sense of constant exploration, while not always unique at times, still offers moments of different gameplay. One mission you'll be stealing something from someone's home, next you'll be fighting alongside one of the companions, next you'll be trying to acquire all dragon masks, next you'll be investigating a haunted house, and so forth. We're not even getting to how you have a bunch of skills to explore that definitely changes your playthroughs, all the storytelling in the game, and such. But I'll leave it there so you can respond before there's too much to respond to
@@CommanderCodyChipless I think all your points are actually what make it casual. That being, you have all those things you COULD be doing but because this is an RPG you can choose which ones you do and that choice makes it casual. In games, like the ones you mentioned, you have to do the actions or you simply lose the game....making it stressful and therefore not casual. When I play Skyrim I can do what I like and take as much time as I like. I can ignore 90% of the game if I want and still have hours of gameplay. Everything is a choice and I am not rushed to interact with anything. When I play Candy Crush , or worse still Fall guys, I cannot take my eyes off the screen, cannot relax for a second and must be deeply focused at all times. That to me is most certainly NOT a casual experience.
@@CommanderCodyChipless everything you said makes it casual. Barrier to entry is actually super low, and you don't need to engage with ANY of the systems. everything is optional. Nothing is challenging if you don't want it to be, and most challenges are down to pure numbers.
I've a friend... She's only played CoD zombies, fallout 4, Skyrim, and Helldivers 2... And I think some racing game... And I'm pretty sure she's sunk more hours into Skyrim than any other.
It's really hard to explain to people who don't like it, because all of their criticisms are always completely valid. You feel it or you don't. I've loved Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall, and that FEELING has always been there. Something magical about stepping into that world that goes beyond the mechanics.
I feel like this is a large part of why Starfield flopped so hard--not necessarily as far as commercial success goes, but in it's lack of cultural staying power, the lack of people talking about it and enjoying it long-term. It's got a lot of the same flaws and drawbacks that are real valid criticisms of the Elder Scrolls games, but Starfield lacks the FEELING that drew people in and keeps drawing them back to Elder Scrolls games. Even after watching this video and agreeing wholeheartedly with every flaw he mentioned, and even after Bethesda has pissed me off so much over the past decade, I still feel a little urge to go back and try Skyrim some more. It's an intoxicating world.
24:45 Yeah, that's one explanation I give when people ask me why is Skyrim still popular: monopoly. No other game gives you all the elements Skyrim does. They give you some of those elements, and they often do them better, but all of them together? Funny enough, the only real competition for Skyrim comes from its predecessors...
Honestly, I think Skyrim's graphics are a big part of its staying power as opposed to, say, Oblivion. While Skyrim's graphics are definitely outdated now, it came at a time when the diminishing returns of graphical improvements was just starting. So even if it's a bit outdated, it's high res enough that I think most people can still give it a shot, whereas Oblivion's graphics are much harder to accept.
@@peterlewis2178 That's a fair point. Although I think much of Oblivion's visual elements still hold up. There are mainly two things that drag it down visually: 1. Character faces 2. The design of most dungeons, which is fairly bland and empty.
@@peterlewis2178I think that something that kind of makes it more accessible is the ease of use, specifically when it comes to the UI. In oblivion, I remember when playing it the first time, the menus for crafting used to confuse me (especially since I'm not a native English speaker), while the menus in Skyrim are much more straightforward, which is maybe a bit detrimental to some of elder scrolls values, but in the end seems like something that won't drive people away
What the hell is the point of trying to be everything at the same time if you don't excel at anything? Many open world games don't have a stealth mechanic like Skyrim does, but let's be honest ... The stealth is absolutely terrible and poorly implemented. It was the first build I ever tried and I had to change it because of how unimmersive it was. If you think stealth is the only mechanic with this problem then you haven't been paying attention.
When autumn starts when the temperature drops and leaves turn orange. I return to skyrim and it almost feels like coming home. There is something about the atmosphere in that game that keeps pulling you back in!!
While Bethesda did publish dishonored and dark messiah they did not work on the game. It was developed by Arkane studios. Same goes for fallout new Vegas developed by obsidian.
@@it2spooky4me79getting into the pedantics of saying Bethesda and BGS are different is like to just invite people to get mad at you because you know what they mean when they talk about Bethesda making a game lol
@@rabidwolf252 sometimes it's confusing, I mean for example, Arkane Lyon and Arkane Austin, people get worried now when Arkane Lyon makes a game, because of Redfall, even though it was Arkane Austin that made it. Some don't really see the difference, well now they do since Arkane Austin doesn't exist anymore, but it still puts a blunder on the studio that had no involvement in something. People look at a game published by Bethesda, and say "oooh it's going to be buggy", just because one of their owned studios is more infamous or famous.
Mustn't forget that all of those games including skyrim use different engines, which is why the games are tied to what the engine can and can't do. Dishonored was made in Unreal 3, Dark Messiah was made with the Source Engine, New Vegas was made with Gamebryo and Skyrim was made with the Creation Engine.
Yeah, he knows they didn't work on those games. That's why he didn't say they did. He was just listing examples of other games releasing around the same time that had better systems than Skyrim.
As someone who heavily mods skyrim I think the last point you made was absolutely perfect. The fact that the game does so much, with so many different systems and things going on, along with bethesdas openness to people modding it, has turned it into something that people can extend and change in almost whatever way they want. Its something that I think can massively help fix some of the things that are a bit weaker about the game. The best way I can describe it is like a sandbox for someone to essentially choose what kind of experience they want to have with the game, tailor suited(for the most part) to their desires.
@@ZhorichsFootages Some of the puzzles are made hard by the UI. For example, I had to look up the solution for the golden claw because I didn't know that you have inspect the items because there's no affordance in the UI. For example, Fallout 4 does show a button to press to inspect the item but Skyrim uses invisible UI for the same thing so I never guessed it has the feature at all. Similarly some of the puzzles only accept one specific solution and there may be invisible walls to prevent any alternative solution. The reason e.g. Half-Life speedrunners have invented really creative solutions is that it doesn't have invisible walls forcing just a single solution for each puzzle. And some of the puzzles are hard only because the game forces such a limited FOV which makes it harder to find all the switches in a dungeon.
@@MikkoRantalainen Hmm... I think they actually teach you to inspect in-game, but it was so small moment in the beginning you forget it. Or I just made it up right now, idk.
A big part of Skyrim for me was the way the material in the books/lore that you read along the way was what stuck with me. For example, actually read The Mirror or The Cake and the Diamond. Great, short, contained stories that had no discernible connection to your gameplay that just stuck with you. You felt a deeper connection to the world.
Skyrim is THE fantasy cozy game. It allows you to step into another world for a moment, the same way we used to when we played make belief as kids. I truly believe it has the same appeal as Stardew Valley or Power wash simulator. You can live as someone else for a little while and get lost.
The main difference, is that Stardew Valley looks simple and is fairly simple, and Skyrim looks deceptively lifelike and ends up being way more primitive. I don't expect branching dialogue when I look at Stardew Valley. It is a farming sim with a surprising variety of extra activities. Everything outside of farming is a nice surprise on top. When someone who looks like a real-life person says something about a thing they would like someone to do - I do expect to be able to discuss it with them. In my less than 2 hours in Skyrim, I met way more giant spiders than I did people to talk to.
@@jost914 mods aren't a good argument - they can enhance experience if you already enjoy the game, but you won't go looking for them if the game's not for you in the first place. You won't even know that it's wide as an ocean - only its lacking depth will be visible.
@@SashaS-s2z not true. I know plenty of people that never played Skyrim and got into it with mods from the get go because others told them the vailla game is dated, which it is. Skyrim works more as a canvas to customize than a competent game in its own right.
@@jost914 I played lots of really old games, and the only two issues with them were less-refined interface and compatibility. Sometimes, graphics are visibly dated. Skyrim looks perfectly fine, and interface seems adequate. It's just bad at being a game.
For me what made me fall in love with Skyrim was the freedom, the dark fantasy and the world. What made me come back every few years and even buy multiple versions of the game (which I have never done with other games) is the Mods. Modding the game and thus creating my own version of it that changes the game in a way that specifically caters to my wants, needs and likes is what makes it truly amazing. And when it comes to mods, there is no game like it. I've played countless of games since then many of which are objectively or at least subjectively better. But none of them have me come back as often as skyrim.
Part of what makes Skyrim so good is that none of the systems are outright bad; at worst they are just ... fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. The combat for example is floaty and without much skill expression, but it looks cool and does it's job. It's not great but it does what it needs well enough to support the fantasy of the game.
I think one of the most underrated aspects of The Elder Scrolls that other fantasy RPG lacks is that they're first person. It increases immersion and makes the exploration feel more upfront and real.
For me i'm not a big fan of the first person, which is why I never got super far with oblivion despite thinking it was good. But skyrim had the ability to switch between. so wondering about and combat i'd do in 3rd person a lot of the time, but i'd flick to 1st person when I needed to check for items, tight spaces and during convos.
@@Popjaksound The ability to switch -- and especially to switch so seamlessly -- is definitely one of the game's huge perks. I don't like first person; I play 99% of Skyrim in third (even when playing archers haha). But the fact that I *can* flick my mouse wheel forward to take that one important shot in first person, or to temporarily exist in that space, means that the entire game feels very "accessible." At any moment, if I say "I want to be there," I can be.
Because it was an awesome, epic, open-world game which everyone was waiting for after Morrowind and Oblivion. And Jeremy Soule's music was UTTERLY PERFECT. No questions about that.
Jeremy Soule getting cancelled really sucks for the future of music in ES6, future GW2 expansions and any other games he could have potentially composed.
@@cattysplat I didn't know that he was cancelled. But since *I* have been cancelled, mocked, blocked, trolled, and cajoled (despite being an award-winning author of 600,000 words and 350+ non-A.I. illustrations)... well, I can't say that I'm surprised.
Darn Raz, how'd you know that I just fell back into a Skyrim abyss this month after not touching the game for years? The best explanation I've got for "why Skyrim" is that I picked it up as my first "proper" game, when I had no gaming experience or muscle memory, and then again this month after a decade of gaming being a main hobby of mine and... It got me both times. It's both profoundly accessible and a testament to creating a truly open world. The moment you're out of Helgen, you're free to go where you want (though I'd argue that sentiment is really true once you've done bleak falls barrow and killed your first dragon). There is a lot of it that can be rote, but it has these intense flashes of brilliance that capture your imagination like truly nothing else. More than maybe any other game I've played, Skyrim manages to evoke that same feeling of being a kid on summer holiday - a mix of tedium, but also of having all the time in the world, and a couple of moments so perfect they lodge behind your ribcage and stay with you a long time.
I think the reason Skyrim is so unbelievably loved can be summed up in one word: personality. The game OOOZES personality from every aspect, and building a connection with its quirky and buggy features becomes not only easy to do but becomes a core lovable aspect of the game. Its just filled with character from the repetitive silly lines of followers to its magically immersive soundtrack. A game with just the right amout of seriousness without taking itself too seriously, it ends up hitting that perfect balance, making the title so easy to be loved. Oblivion does the exact same thing, which is the reason for its success as well. Skyrim isn't just a game. Its a beautifully goofy experience that never fails to lift your spirits.
Skyrim is my favourite game of all time. I envy people that play Skyrim with fresh eyes. I wish that I could “total recall” my memories of this game and re-experience it all again. Skyrim is a game that I’ve played thousands of hours in and there’s very few games that gave me that much enjoyment. Even with all the flaws from the PS3 version of the game and the bugs, Skyrim isn’t any other game. The scope of the game and design, and scale of the world is rare.
This made me want to reinstall with Ordinator mod and alternate beginnings all over again. It was never about the mechanics or the quests. It was about being someone who was somewhere. No game has captured it since for me.
What's funny about Skyrim is I know people who don't even know it's a part of the elder scrolls franchise. I find some people asking, when Skyrim 2 is coming out lol
Fun fact: my first start in skyrim was a mess. While heading to helgen, the wagon turned over and drove upside down. I couldn’t even create my character because ralof was stuck on a horse standing randomly in his way lol
I restarted playing skyrim after 3 years yesterday, I I just finished the dungeon with the master vampire presented in this vid a few hours ago that I did randomly while exploring with my lvl 10 character. This game is such a gem, I love everything about it (except vanilla illusion spells and Tod 😄) and I think I will continue getting back to it a few many times in the future.
Interesting retrospective on Skyrim! I only discovered the game 5 years ago, and I LOVE it. I love the simple combat style because it lets me focus on exploring the world without much hindrance. The exploration is what keeps me coming back to it. There is so much to keep me interested.
Simple answer is, the same reason Harry Potter and Star Wars are so popular, despite many writing flaws: good world-building based around "The Hero's Journey" writing template. (also I got roasted hard 7:08 literally the only 3 games on my PS4)
There isn't anything wrong with that. I play a variety of fantasy games, and there isn't else out there like Skyrim. You may like Fallout 3 or New Vegas though.
You seen that short of a guy (green screened), walking up a mountain in Skyrim and at the top he pauses and just looks out? Appreciating the view and the night sky, while he lights one up and just soaks it all in. Spending the whole night completely derailed from whatever task he was on. That guy gets it.
skyrim
skyrim
Skyrim indeed.
fallout 3 without guns
skyrim
ryskim!
I honestly feel like Jeremy Soule’s soundtrack is about half the reason I still desire to return to Skyrim. It’s just such an incredible and comforting atmosphere
I feel the exact same way. Every time I get the Skyrim itch I get bored after a few dozen hours because of the shallow and boring combat/quest design, but I can’t deny that it might have the best soundtrack and atmosphere of any game. The slow burn/immersion elements are skyrims biggest strengths
Yup same experience. I've always liked Skyrim's atmosphere. Wondering around the world and listening to the fantastic music. After 10 hours though you've essentially seen everything the game has to offer. This can be said for every Bethesda game really lol. Still think Fallout series is better gameplay wise and has a much more unique premise with the futuristic 1950's apocalypse compared to a yet another Tolkien-like high fantasy setting.
It's a big part of it. The soundtrack, environment and sound design, and the goofy but lovable characters all come together to create this world that just feels cozy, comfy, and familiar. I feel like I'm home every time I open Skyrim.
I always fall into the top .5% of listeners every year I think since Skyrim came back. It is my go to background noise, reading music, and sleep music. I also ALWAYS listen to Dragonborn anytime I need to hype myself up. He is so talented.
Yes.
That soundtrack is the kind of stuff I put on while studying.
After traveling with Lydia for 70 hours we came across cave number 997 and she said "Oooh, I wonder what's in THAT cave..." and that is why skyrim.
Right before walking in front of an arrow, taking it directly to the head and dying from the crit. Forcing you to reload.
@@rainbowkrampusJust accidentally hit Serana with Marked For Death, and had to go back twenty minutes. 😮💨
Yeah but you already know the answer to that question, a lot of draugrs and an underwhelming reward at the end
@@manuabasto6325 Hey now, it could be an elaborate warren with nothing in it because you haven't advanced a side quest yet.
Gah damn this boy was running 14.242857 caves an hour that’s about .2373810 caves a minute 😱
Skyrim was so popular, they thought the series was actually called Skyrim. “When is the new Skyrim coming out?” “I love Skyrim. What is the elder scrolls?”
Skyrim IV: Oblivion
Skyrim III: Morrowind
has each ES game been named after a location of the land?(besides Arena)
@@Will_-it3mh yes
@@Will_-it3mh Oblivion is mostly set in Cyrodiil
It just has a beautiful soul. The nordic/medieval vibe. The stunning architecture of the buildings and landscapes. The fantastic soundtrack. On top of that rhe interactivity of the world is unrivalled to this day. And on top of that its an epic power fantasy were you play as an almost god like figure. A dragon slaying medieval super hero. Yes the combat could be better but everything else is so good it doesn't really matter
I thought this until cyberpunk 2077 which is the best game of all time. Second is Skyrim.
@@danthemann7 I do love me some cyberpunk. It does have an amazing vibe and aesthetic. No doubt. Probably the best looking game I've ever played. Sometimes I'll load it up just to have a drive around and enjoy the sites. I wouldn't say it rivals Skyrim for interactivity tho. You can't interact with most objects. Like 99.9% of NPCs don't have names and wont talk. Still a truly amazing game though.
Skyrim kind of feels like a dream. You even wake up at the beginning. You can stay as long as you want, do whatever you want, nothing has real consequences, it’s the ultimate escapism
That is the point of fantasy
@@victorkreig6089not completely, its much more broad than that.
like an isekai thing?
It... actually is a dream. Sort of. The in game lore breaks the 4th wall more, the deeper you dig into it.
@@TheJoshdenton23 TES lore hints that the world is a video game, I think. The Dwemer disappeared because they found that out (it's a theory, I think). I hope they expand on that in TES 6.
To me, Skyrim is the coziest uncozy cozy game
Yes! I always list Skyrim as my favorite unintentionally cozy game
Yall ever just spend an hour meandering through town doing normal chores?
I play with survival aspects, and some days are literally just wandering around town, picking up supplies and talking with NPCs to get quests to go on the next day. Usually end them in the local inn with my favorite mod followers Inigo and Lucien
It's a very relaxing experience and a nice break from constant action, which I think helps keep the game "fresh" for a long time.
That makes no sense, but we all understand what it means
@@AHungryHunky Yes!!
@@AHungryHunkyNo, only shoot arrows, get money, buy arrows, repeat
to me the success of skyrim also comes from the ability to ignore vast parts of the game and still feel like you are doing what you are supposed to do, which makes it easy to appeal to a lot of demographics. i was interested in the world so i took a two handed weapon and clumsily smashed my way to the cities and dialogues, my friend took a bow and went hunting after leaving helgen and didnt enter a city for the next 10 ish hours.
On my first playthrough I was obsessing over being recognized by every towns Jarl so I went and did that, mainly because I noticed that you get a get out of jail free card for doing so and I stole so often lol
10 hours of just shooting animals with a bow and arrow.
That is exactly the kind of person I figured is enjoying Skyrim.
But me saying that makes me sound like an elitist snob snubbing at game design that just isn't my jam, people should be able to enjoy what they like how they like.
And I'm allowed to be absolutely baffled how anyone can sink hundreds more hours after spending hundreds already in such meh world with meh gameplay and meh depth.
I agree with this and feel there is a plague in modern game design that Bethesda thankfully ignores. That plague is the idea that players missing content is bad.
You get these open world games that fail to feel like actual worlds because everything gets signposted for you. Hogwarts Legacy is the most recent example I have played. The world, particularly the castle, was crafted so meticulously and well that I could not wait to start exploring. But my exploration quickly turned into a checklist as nearly everything of value is revealed to you immediately. All the towns are marked, and all the challenges, dungeons, and dens show up with a quick Revelio. Just totally killed my wonderment turned it into a grind.
I'd had introduced my friend to the Elder Scrolls series through Skyrim and a couple years later we are talking and he tells me about this dungeon he found high in the mountains in Eastmarch near Morrowind where you encounter this glowing light. I never had and was amazed to find that after several years, the game still had secrets beyond funny skeletons.
Even in my current Starfeild playthrough, there are quests and locations I know exist but have just never encountered naturally, and that's great for someone who plays these games for decades. Heck, I still feel like Fallout 3 is hiding some secrets in all the rubble and ruin.
I'm on my first (and very comprehensive) playthrough and I didn't do Dragon Rising until some quests demanded it and I couldn't progress in the game further due to lack of shouts. I spent almost 100 hours in this gamestate.
It did, however, make the world feel incredibly serene when there isn't a dragon annoying you every few minutes.
The actual good game design isn't tightly designed sekiro, it's Skyrim, and it's crazy thing to learn tbh
The amount of effort into world building is what really drags me back. I loved watching videos where people discussed little details they'd found that added into something bigger. People uncovering the lore of a certain person or object or place. The gameplay itself is lackluster, mid at best, but I remember standing by my father's shoulder as he started a playthrough of it, specifically the part in the beginning where you choose a stone after Ralof tells you about them. Walking down that path, being able to grab some thistle and a butterfly hovering around some wild flowers. It felt magical, and even after so many years it still does.
Skyrim feels more as a bedtime story or place you visit than a video game. I think that is the reason people come back
For people that dont wanna think much, dont engage with their character or the world as it is all superficial s hit. A perfect game for mouth breathers to praise
@@Kserijaro just because you have a small penis doesn’t mean you have to introduce yourself as a guy with one
@@Kserijaro ? Where is the hate coming from? And are you assuming most players weren't school children?
@@Kserijaroif you don't like the game then why are you wasting your time here hating on people who like it? Lmao embarrassing....
I have the “10 Hours of Skyrim at night” video on my “Sleep music” playlist for this reason
As the primary video editor who worked on that main gameplay trailer for Skyrim, I appreciate your kind words. It has been a long time since I worked for Bethsoft, but I still have fond memories of the time I spent working on the marketing for Skyrim. I spent my time there embedded with Todd’s BGS team and worked closely with many of them to make the trailer happen.
Still a great trailer to this day. Great cinematic feel.
I think it's that trailer that did a lot to set the tone for my own role-playing experience with the game. It formed the basis of what my own imagination filled into the gaps that the game couldn't provide with its limitations with the engine and the writing. Scrabbling over craggy cliffs and mountains, breathlessly fighting off epic encounters, growing in power and legend, and eventually working to become an epic hero in a classical sense. Thank you for helping to plant the seed that became my own personal Beowulf story.
You have our thanks you absolute legend you -_-7
coool dude
That trailer is LEGENDARY!
A note on the Sven/Faendal quest, if you marry her during the quest, both Faendal and Sven get mad at you, but if I'm not mistaken, Faendal says "better you than sven" or something like that
There is some way of screwing over both and still getting the free arrow lessons.. I think it has to do with pickpocketing the letter back and showing both to her?
..but the reason I know that is because I googled it to find out the right choice. That is largely my failing, not that I feel any guilt, but also a result of the apparent choices not being fun.
I married Camilla once and now Faendal lives in my house :/ But a dragon corpse materialises every time I fast travel home, so of the two, I still prefer Faendal
Bro hates the other guy so much he's fine with his own loss
@@tabbitee i mean we're not gonna kink shame anyone, it's ok if he's into that type of stuff
@@parentaladvisory113 lol
Skyrim is the kind of game we remember about as if it was a previous episode of our life, not like a game we played. It almost feels like Ive walked the roads of whiterun myself, I almost can feel the chill air present in the scene. I agree with you, it does have a lot of problems, but the thing is just magical. I can only attribute that to the passion of every developer involved.
It has a great way of immersing the player and that is a seriously important aspect for so many players
I had a friend that had over 100 hours in skyrim. She would rarely leave whiterun, had sneak and pickpocketing leveled to like 80 or 90, and basically just enjoyed being the town pickpocket thief, and would occasionally kill characters that made her mad. On the occasion she left town, she'd try to find an enemy to knock off a cliff, or just mess around with the open world. She was the one that introduced me to the game, and was completely blown away when I started showing her the daedric quests, potions, enchanting etc, but never really enjoyed playing that content herself.
That's what makes the game great imo, you can play it ANY way, when so many games back then gave you little freedom to make your own story.
Im surprised he didnt touch on this. The player can choose how they want to play to a much greater degree than many games these days.
Now I’ve got a new playthrough idea👀 time to be an absolute menace in Windhelm
*over 100 hours* they said. As if 100 hrs was an impressive amount of time to have played Skyrim for 😂
That's beginner hours bro
And honestly, including mods, you can make this game WHATEVER game you WANT, Skyrim is your game, most companies/games these days don't do that kind of thing anymore.
Oh, she played videogames the way I used to play as a kid. Like, making up scenarios without actually progressing in the game. Just using it as a playground. That's awesome
Always why skyrim never how is skyrim :[
skyrims doing well with all those loverslab mods
We know how skyrim is doing. It's still got huge memory leaks, and requires 3rd party patches to run well.
Damn it you stole my joke.
@@marenjones6665 We love Bethesda games :]
@@Ramquesting yah, I know. I'm just bitter that Skyrim VR didn't get the cool update with fishing.
One time I was at a party at a friend's house and there was this guy who was clearly feeling out of place/ socially anxious. My friend and I were talking to him and he told us how he was feeling, then he saw that my friend had Skyrim and asked if he could boot it up, because it helped him relax. We sat and watched him play for a while, and he really opened up and seemed much happier. The game never really clicked with me, but because of this experience I will always have respect for it.
Man that was wholesome...
Great on your friend for not making him feel weird and awkward for asking.
Super cool on your friend. Sometimes people just need to get into their own comfort space to turn into a social person
This is one of the only games that truly feel “alive”. Anything can happen at any time, the world reacts to what you do. It feels like you’re actually apart of it and masters that aspect of the game. Skyrim is my favorite single player game!
We all have the same internal Skyrim binge clock it seems.
So real
this is so funny i literally just reinstalled to try wabbajack a couple days ago
I recently had the urge to get all the Daedric artifacts so I’m doing that rn 🤓
Asmongold was makin fun of us on stream not that long ago. LOL, All in good fun.
so true
The soundtrack is one of if not the most fitting and atmospheric of all times.
The game itself is the only game I’ve ever played that on retrospective does not feel like a game I played but a place I visited/ lived in
YES! I rarely see that point being metioned, the ost is amazingly immersive. No wonder so many youtubers use it on their videos.
For me a big draw is the music and the way the game can build atmosphere. It's one of very few games I play where I don't turn off game music and pop on a video or podcast while playing.
lmao it's the worst of the franchise, go listen to Morrowind or Oblivion
@@ggadams639 I own Oblivion, it's good but very much limited by budget. Skyrim's OST is an evolution on the older soundtracks and imo does more for building atmosphere matching the visuals than Oblivion does (and Morrowind, from what I've watched in other people's playthroughs).
It's OK to just not like it as much you know, music being good or bad is highly subjective.
@@ggadams639you just listed 2 of my other top soundtracks. (Rounding out top 5 would be kingdom hearts II , and final fantasy 7 remake - order not defined)
“Road most travelled” and “through the valleys” perfectly capture my memories of those games/worlds
The “Skyrim atmospheres” track/loop though is just my favorite piece of video game music. I listen to it while working, to help sleep, to relax in the car - instantly transports me to a simpler time exploring Skyrim.
and don't forget about the gaming grandma that still plays Skyrim and uploads videos of her telling stories through different characters she creates in the game
Grandma Shirley!! ❤
@@itsanniedee 🙏
She had a stroke around a year ago and had to relearn the game because it affected her muscle memory and game knowledge, but fortunately Bethesda invited her to have her say some lines and have some face tracking done so she could be a character in Elder Scrolls 6
@@iampierce7474That’s really sad. But also quite heartwarming, in the end :)
@@iampierce7474 Immortalized in the game she loves
Another aspect that keeps me hooked to Skyrim is a feeling of never getting even close to "ready" or "finished" with the game. There's a never ending plethora of things to mix to find out new effects of each and every ingredient. You can learn smithing but it takes forever. So I can't quit Skyrim yet as I'm only smithing level 45 - way too low to experience what it feels like to be a smithing pro - same with enchantments.
“You see that mountain? You can climb it.”
😴😴😴
“You see that fork? You can pick it up.”
🤩🤩🤩
But yeah real talk, this is the aspect of Skyrim (alongside the overall vibes and exploration) that really makes Skyrim and Bethesda’s overall approach to open world games still stand out to me in a big way even when the roleplaying and combat elements fall far behind its competitors.
It's something all the Skyrim competitors (The Witcher, Kingdoms of Amalur, maybe Avowed?) haven't gotten right yet. It's about having a living world. A lot of modders who make houses also don't understand this. They make amazing display pieces, but it feels like everything is superglued in place because they won't let you move around their assets.
@@KyriosHeptagrammaton all those games has way better living worlds than skyrim
@@pesky19 Not really. They're better at faking a word, like Witcher having hundreds of nameless NPCs going around at Novigrad, but they're not better at simulating a world. Skyrim has named NPCs with their own jobs, schedules, families, houses, whole lives... That's something only Bethesda does, really, especially in their Elder Scrolls games.
@@PedroGomes-cx7ku not really mate
@@PedroGomes-cx7ku there have been games that have TRIED to do this at a similar level, but none have done it like skyrim has for me. No other game feels so alive and vibrant with its npcs and systems working together, no other game is so simple to play yet so enthralling the entire time. Skyrim is just special in all of the ways that can't be easily put into words. The combat may be incredibly rough, the questing may be far too simple, but none of that matters to me when I actually sit down and play
I literally just reinstalled it yesterday, perfect timing
HE LIVES
What do you know.
Nice to see you're still alive.
Hope you're doing well.
Same lol, just finished modding it and started a new playthrough yesterday
Never watched your content or visited your channel, but I heard the news and I hope you're doing better now.
The man, the myth, the legend
One word: atmosphere
It's a beautiful game even on low res because its just so pretty, those mountaintops and forests and northern lights, just looks amazing. That's what put me on a one week time sink, because i got brought back in by the landscapes.
when I saw Lake Ilinalta for the first time (the southern lake north of Falkreath) I snapped my first "landscape" screenshot and thought "damn, this game is beautiful".
Some 200 hours and almost 300 screenshots in... I still think to myself "damn, this game is beautiful" on a regular basis.
Yeah, the setting of Skyrim is just incredible! A huge part of it for me.
I bought Skyrim again to play in VR, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was cool to fight giants that you had to look up at, and get nervous looking over the edge of a cliff.
But just to be on top of a mountain at night while it was snowing, with that music playing…
I legit think it's the best looking TES game, phenomenal art direction. I love Any Austin's videos in Skyrim, like when he found the source of every river in Skyrim. It's just so beautiful in that world.
The MW style also really speaks to me, but I still think Skyrim's game world is breathtaking + exhilarating just to traverse + hang out in. The trees! Mmm.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I kinda binged his channel a few days ago lol. The fact he was able to do all those interesting little surveys and censuses (censi? censae?) just shows how immersed you can get in just really the background details alone. Heck, the games been out thirteen years, and there's still people making original content about it. Few games can boast that level of longevity.
I’ve been playing Skyrim since release, when I was 11 years old. Now, as a 24 year old man with a family, I still revisit Skyrim at least annually. It’s like coming home to your old home town. It’s not perfect, but its mere existence brings comfort and joy.
When Skyrim came out I was 12 years old. I never heard of the Elder Scrolls Series or played alot of RPGs. My parents were rather strict. But the HYPE around Skyrim was INSANE. All the trailers and promos really got to me. And when I finally got to play it after my parents gifted it to me on christmas, it was everything and more I could ever have wished for. Skyrim was an experience for me which I will never forget and treasure for the rest of my life.
I was 9!!!
me too!! The music still gives me chills.
Oh Christ I had already graduated from college when Skyrim came out. Fme I'm old.
@@aggonzalezdcI was 31 👴
@@aggonzalezdcunc status: 😎😎
my favorite skyrim mechanic is that every Named Location is a fast travel option, which makes getting around kinda okay once you've discovered enough locations. my second favorite skyrim mechanic is that the horse doesn't experience physics the way everything else does and could probably walk on the ceiling if it wanted to.
Spider-horse, spider-horse, does whatever it thinks it can. Climbing cliffs, any pitch! Uses hooves to end a b**ch! Look out! Here comes the Spider-horse.
@@thomaspalmer1979 Skyrim-Horse!
I once did a cinematic finisher throwing an old woman over my shoulder and through the wall, clipping outside of the building. Some imperfections are quite charming😂
While the fast traveling is convenient it absolutely kills any sense of exploration
@@michaelofbuhl1315 honestly as long as they're not actually breaking/crashing the game? I love Bethesda bugs. They're part of the charm, they're often hilarious. I hope they continue in TES VI.
I sometimes miss the backwards-flying dragons from the first Skyrim DLC patch, but they would also almost never land so I'm glad they fixed it quickly.
Something I’ve noticed on more recent playthroughs is the way you go and check out a cave and it’s like being in another world within Skyrim’s world. It’s smaller and more intimate than the massive go anywhere overworld, and in a way acts as ‘levels’ if you will in a traditional video game. When you finally emerge back on the surface, it feels substantial, like you’ve been swept away on a little adventure and now you’ve arrived back home to familiar surroundings
I will always advocate for Bethesda's approach of keeping the 'innards' of their games locked away behind a loading screen rather than have everything simply be one fully cohesive world. From a technical side, it allows them to put a lot more within these 'innard' areas, but also as you say, it makes them feel like 'levels' and something distinct and exciting(even if they get samey after a time). Even The Witcher 3 never comes close to achieving this sort of feeling.
Dont you mean when you get in a cave then you feel like uncomfortable but in different way, after you reach to the surface, you feel safely like "ohh that was close", dont you?
every dungeon/cave/fort/catacombs handcrafted and unique.
skyrim has become a meme over the years, and people (even bethesda) have taken it for granted. and have forgotten what made it special
it is the breathtaking nighttime skybox,
it is jeremy soule's music,
it is the vision of "Epic reality" aesthetics but not necessarily a "hyper fantasy" aesthetics in its world design
@@btchiaintkidding7837 this is what makes us love SKYRIM
@@maynardburgerthat’s actually what I love about The Elder Scrolls. And yet, I equally love FromSoftware games which employ the exact opposite method.
For me it’s not abt the gameplay, it was fun when I was a kid but these days it’s the lore, music and atmosphere. I’ve never connected with a media as much as Skyrim and I have my doubts I ever will. It is the perfect world to me, and everything about it makes me feel at home and at peace. What I would give to experience it again for the first time, to be so immersed in a world and to be so envious that I couldn’t be there for real. Just standing there in the environment listening to the ambient music and watching the beautiful night sky to me is an experience unparalleled. I don’t play it as much anymore because of how much I’ve played it, probably thousands of hours collectively and I know all the quests like the back of my hand. I often find myself wishing for a dedicated sequel or some kind of expansion but I know it would never feel the same to me, so even though I can’t enjoy it like I did as a kid playing it, I will always find joy in just experiencing the moment to moment, just existing in the world is more than enough for me. It’s definitely my favourite game but also the one I’m most critical of, I love ranting about how much the game means to me and how much I adore it but if you asked me what it’s short falls were I’d probably talk just as long.
TLDR I want to inject the game into my bloodstream I am so normal abt this game I swear
I got stuck at that exact same Master Vampire once, I scoured my inventory for anything I could use to turn the tides, when I found an invisibility potion I picked up before. I used it, snuck up to him (which was impressive for my 2 handed, heavy armour warrior build) and managed to pickpocket the enchanted Orcish War Axe he'd been wrecking me with (for some reason it was in his inventory and he only equipped it when he detetced me) and I mopped the floor with him. There are few other games that make me remember otherwise insignificant moments like that, and none that I have as many memories of than Skyrim.
My tip for a fun playthrough - any time you enter a new area (i.e. going into/leaving a dungeon), you aren't allowed to use any of the equipment you have in your inventory and have to scour for new gear in the area. Extra hard mode: don't use bound weapons
The way I make Skyrim more fun is by playing on legendary and only allowing 4 skill trees until lvl 30. That way build choices actually matter. Otherwise literally every build should always have smithing, alchemy, and enchanting.
So basically iron sword and iron armour
that playthrough idea sounds like a fun mod. all stuff grabbed from dungeon is immedeately moved to player home when you enter another dungeon
Playing legendary on survival mode is a good challenge, too.
I never use bound weapons, even tho I always play magic only
Skyrim has atmosphere. The way everything flows together just works in a unique way. The music, ambiant sounds, load times, npc chatter, quests, it all flows together into this weirdly relaxing and intricate experience that sucks you in. Skyrim hasn't sucked me in like that for some time, but I truly hope I can experience it again one day.
If you have a pc, mod it. Or even just an Xbox. I can name 5 or so graphical mods and that’s all you need to breathe completely new life into the world. As far as gameplay, enai Sian. I think that’s how you say it? Has a few gameplay mods that are out of the box compatible with just about every other mod. As far as story and expansion mods those are well documented and acclaimed as well, one won an actual writers award. There’s so much to discover through mods it’s insane, I have thousands of hours in it over 8+ years and still have not even come close to completing everything.
Modding is fun.
When I discovered how to modify and insert new music, linked to areas and events, I had lots of fun!
Secretly messed with my daughter's game.
Favorite gags were recording a ton of silence, with just an occasional, very echoey fart and tying it to dungeon and cave situations.
The old tv batman theme for the vampire main boss fight.
"The hills are alive with the sound of music" when exploring in the mountains. Also for mountains, recording a bunch of silence with random echoey yodelling...
Other combat music... kung fu fighting, Various Led Zepplin, The matrix, Kill Bill, etc.
Was amazing watching a Skyrim sunrise and the soundtrack was Edvard Griegs "morning". Hall of the mountain King for combat and tense situations.
Skyrim is overrated trash
ehh, for me most elements of that game have anti-immersion effect rather than what you describe. It's the ultimate jank.
@@MajinVegeta-t2hok
*Skyrim feels like home.* That's why. It feels like a time when things were simple.
Nowadays, we use the same escape mechanism. When the game loads, we escape to another dimension, without life's real challenges, to a world where you can do just about anything.
You can prove this, by just walking around, appreciating the perfect ambience, with mesmerizing sights everywhere. It's just perfect.
Exactly my feeling about the game, every time i open the game it feels like being home.
I never played skyrims but I feel the same way about all my favorite games :)
Also, the Pace in Skyrim is awesome.
You never feel in a hurry... You can wander the woods, enter a cave e etc without the pressure of the main quest.
Especially the music, secunda and streets of white run just takes me back
This is literally every game. I think the most important point Razbuten makes is at the beginning: Casuals. Skyrim is a simple game with overall simple mechanics and is often played exclusively. To put it harshly: Casuals like Skyrim because they never saw an actually good game.
Stumbling across so many random locations which can give you cool stuff is what keeps me there for hours
I am heading to location 1 but end up on 25 random fun side quests along the way I actually enjoy
I feel like the importance of Jeremy Soule’s soundtrack and the “every frame a painting” atmosphere of the game cannot be understated here. It is arguably the best video game OST of all time, and I keep coming back to hear it while seeing the wonderful views the game has to offer. More than a decade later, and the main theme still makes me want to boot up the game every time I hear it
this
i used the soundtrack to study when in uni and doing my designation, fast forward 13 years and i use the soundtrack to put my kids to sleep. literally a timeless soundtrack. The GOAT and its not even close. Its truly one of one
I thought this the moment the big 'Why Skyrim' title came up. Like 'whoops you've invalidated any negative criticisms you have by playing one of the best videogame themes of all time over the top of it.'
It does so much for the immersion. Bethesda biggest mistake was patting ways with Jeremy Soule.
But most of the ost is iterations on his previous work. The soundtrack was just as good in Oblivion and Morrowind (better in my opinion) and those games arent nearly as lauded.
For me, Skyrim (and fallout) have a special place in my collection because they’re kinda a mix of RPG and Immersive Sim. How many RPGs let you take everything from a dead enemy? Clothes, weapon, jewellery, even the piece of bread that they were slowly picking away at since that morning?
Then on top of that, you get to take all the plates, forks and spoons they were using to eat. The bucket they were using for… well you know.
Most RPGs have these things as set dressing that may not even have physics, but in Skyrim they’re lootable items. They may not be worth looting but the fact you can take them with you makes the game feel much more immersive.
Aside from that, it’s just fun to explore these worlds, kill the things inhabiting them and loot whatever you want from its locations.
the reason for me is that on top of what you said they're the perfect moddable sandboxes, hope the "new" game starfield becomes something like that, then you'd have a great fantasy medieval sandbox to mod, a somewhat futuristic but not really post nuclear apocalyptic sandbox to mod and a futuristic space sandbox to mod
I played Witcher III after Skyrim and was so perplexed when in the very beginning Gerald comes on this fresh battlefield with all manner of swords and axes and shields scattered about. I was salivating for all the loot only to find out you *could not interact with any of it*. Completely destroyed my immersion.
@DragonAoRazor just don’t let the NPCs see you steal their shit bucket…that’s a crime punishable by death
I've been playing New Vegas recently, and it's sorta surprising that that's something that ocasionally bothered me in the game.
Sometimes there was an item that I wanted to pick up but I couldn't. Sometimes even a named item. It wasn't frequent, but it bothered me.
@koloblicin4599 Geralt wouldn't have a reason to pick them up. If anything it's immersion assisting.
for me, it was the first open world game that I spent a large amount of time in. You can just run across the whole map essentially from the beginning of the game. That, paired with the tangible feel of the world made it a real place in my mind. I first played it at around age 12/13 and spent so many hours there. It sounds so cheesy but going back to skyrim is like going back to the camp you spent all your summers in, or going back to the house you grew up in. Playing games from my childhood is nostalgic, but you dont just play skyrim, you visit skyrim, which make the nostalgia hit even harder
For me it just comes down to atmosphere and freedom
For me its the atmosphere and exploration. It somehow makes it a relaxing and exicting game to play at the same time
Those are my favorite aspects too! I recommend it all the time, but Whitelight talks about those aspects a lot in his video about Skyrim. It's worth checking out if you haven't!
Skyrim is the perfect realization of a theme park in a video game. If you have ever gone to six flags or disney world or anything like that and loved it, you'd like skyrim. It's built on the same principles, it's fun in the same ways. Towns are a pastiche facade. Dungeons are rides on a single track and drop you off at the entrance. They don't sound like good things on paper, but you experience it and understand. There's a reason people love theme parks.
Exactly. Much like a theme park if you “buy in” and let imagination bridge the gap it’s magical.
For how many dungeons there are in Skyrim, I found them to be just a little too simple. Once I understood the logic of their dungeon design, it did start to break my immersion which was annoying because being immersed in the world was one of the reasons why I like Skyrim and Bethesda games in general.
Resident Evil Village is the same way, but smaller with a more focused theme, narrative, and gameplay loop.
Eh this is too reductive
@@ikninja1hdI agree. There should be a little more thought into this statement.
I would say the primary thing I like about Skyrim is that it seems like no matter where I go or what I do, there is going to be something there. I’ve sunk a lot of hours into the game but there was always something else to find. Basically every single NPc is part of some quest somewhere, or has their own little implied story going on.
And no matter what I do, I feel like I’m making progress. Constant skill and level ups. The feeling when the next level of gear starts showing up. When higher level enemies start showing up and kick my ass but I gradually out pace them. But at the same time lower level enemies don’t go away and I just chew through them. And just helping random people with seemingly countless task.
Also the music is extremely iconic and just hearing it brings me into the head space of wanting to play again.
It helps that the vast majority of content is kind of just suggested to you as you come across it, you're not suddenly shown a list of several activities of which there's a dozen each in that area and you almost feel compelled to 100% it because the list has a completion marker.
You're just doing things because they peaked your interest and want to know what happens next, even if you deep down might know it will culminate with some gold and maybe a couple skill levels in rewards.
@@Verchiel_ yep, the biggest positive about Bethesda game and the biggest flaw with Starfield is that sense of just exploring.
Being able to wander in any direction, you going to find something.
You running around, you see a massive statue on the peak of a mountain, thats planned for us to see. So we go on a journey to go see it and then we stumble upon more locations, new enemies, caves, nordic ruins etc.
10hrs later, you still wandering around the statue and never got to it
@@imo098765 exactly. The only places where starfield has that similar kind of exploration is the cities, which are fun to spend a few hours walking around every street.
The rest of the game's maps were just depressing to walk around.
The world of Skyrim is honestly very densely packed, too. It doesn't always look like it, but the way they put so many dungeon areas and whatnot behind a simple cave or floor door or something with a loading screen is huge for this. There's stuff EVERYWHERE. So little actual empty, unused space.
@@maynardburger absolutely, a minute of exploring doesn't go without finding something to do, and you feel like you actually discovered something because unlike most open world games, it doesn't have a counter for content completed, or generic "enemy camp" markers.
I didn't see any ads or trailers, I went to my friend's house and he was playing the game, then I saw the atmosphere and I thought: "Alright, I'm buying this."
I'm so used to games that are made to look like a game and not a place, Skyrim is one of the few games that when you play it really feels like you've been transported to somewhere else.
I think the only game I've played before this that had the same effect on me was the games from the Diablo franchise.
I like how you can have a boss fight at any given time due to a random dragon flying by. In my current game a dog perished in defense of Riverwood*, and one of the NPCs said "I lost my friend today." I realized that Skyrim's best moments usually happen on accident, which keeps it fresh.
*Riverwood
Yup, I love those kind of moments. Skyrim's flaws are beautiful
Yea that's not a good thing literally every open world rpg has this and does this better
@@JustinLiden-q4c Some people like fun bugs in a game. Like how you can fall through the ground sometimes in Borderlands 1 into a surreal grey underspace. It's a mistake, not intentional game design, and yet one of the more interesting gaming moments I've had. Glitches are very fun when they line up in unlikely ways. Skyrim has that. Also, I'm old and just have a nostalgic attachment to it, doesn't matter if it's bad.
Exactly. It's emergent storytellibg in a sandbox setting. Even the quests are just providing you with the groundwork to experience and tell your own stories.
I think the biggest misunderstanding with people who say Skyrim is bad and for the casuals, is that it's actually a hardcore roleplaying game.
The game is just so immersive. Especially for when it was released. Hearing the music in this video instantly took me back.
The game design just keeps sucking me straight out of any immersion I try to do. It's such a gamified experience, and yet I can't properly roleplay in a game that is meant to let me roleplay.
@@ChristopherCraven sadly true. the world and art are so great but then you get into a dialogue with someone and its all done.
The thing that Skyrim does that no RPG (aside from Oblivion kinda) has done since is player immersion. For example, being in first person. 3rd person is better for combat oriented games but being in first person makes you feel like you're there, to the point of them even making Skyrim VR. You can use 3rd person in Skyrim but it's not great.
Your character is a blank slate that can play as anyone, so you get to imagine what you want to play as and can live a virtual life / power fantasy inside the game with your own story. You can also do quests in any order, and overall interactivity with the world. If there's a door you can't go in, other games like GTA 5 will just not let you enter, no prompt, nothing. Things like that make the world feel like a game world and not a real one, where as Skyrim will tell you that you need a key, so you know that it can be opened and you wonder what's inside. Little things like that in Skyrim make you curious about the world and why people spend hours exploring it.
I don't think anyone has really put this feature into words which is why there's no game like Skyrim. They don't even know how to replicate it because "immersion" isn't something that tangible and takes doing a ton of little game mechanics right to achieve.
Skyrim just hit me at exactly the right time in my life. I was 21, just moved to a big city for university, pretty alone, living alone,... i remember i bought a couple frozen pizzas and just played 11h of skyrim straight without a break one weekend. Open world fatigue wasn't really a thing yet, everything was new and surprising. Especially to me, since I'd only really played jrpgs and dragon age origins before, and skyrim was VERY different than those. It felt like anywhere i went, there was something new i could discover. That sense of exploration and discovery pulled me, organically, from quest to quest, from mountain to mountain, the map seemingly neverending. I cherish that memory. Skyrim is like a nostalgic fever dream from a simpler time.
I just feel like at home when in Skyrim. It's been with me for half of my life, the environment is just so familiar and cosy, I know all about the game and it still comforts me and amuses with all of the random, memey guard quotes and silly "must have been the wind" type observations by enemies. And perhaps most importantly, even after 13 years and countless playthoughts, there's still always something new that you can find in Skyrim that you've never done or seen before.
Great analysis! One other thing that I think has always been a part of Skyrim's continued success and relevance is how funny it is. Not just the intentional jokes (which often really do work), but the unintentional humor have really helped carry it. There's the unnatural character interactions, awkward dialogue trees, bizarre physics (e.g., ragdolling into space after a giant hits you). "Arrow to the knee" was an immediate meme that helped it become a real moment at release, and the janky character interactions continue to be memed.
It's the Star wars prequels of video games in terms of memes
Another commenter noted smthg like "bugs that are funny or add to it but don't break your game".
I love Oblivion even more for that reason...
I can't play it 30 min without crying of laughter😂
Yeah, meeting five Louis Letrushes standing outside the Whiterun stables, or seeing a mammoth materialize in the sky and fall to the ground is funny! :)
@clejinn9521 Nothing will ever top the voice actress that flubbed her line, asked for a redo, started from the top and BGS just left the entire take in the game.
I’ve put between 2000-3000 hours into the game, bought it on 3 or 4 separate occasions for various consoles, etc, and I have never even finished the main quest line. Sometimes it’s ok to turn it on and just…be there.
Similar, my current playthrough is always the one where I'm definitely going to finish the main quest line.
my lifetime goal is to basically 100% the game in one playthrough, even though i've seen all skyrim has to offer I never managed to complete it fully without switching to a new character
Same.
@@revan2241 if we're talking about truly 100% the game that's actually impossible xD
It becomes a part of you.
Morrowind was the same for me growing up.
It's like... It was my white whale.
Vvardenfell became my home.
The music plucked at my soul.
Skyrim... I've beaten it several times now. Learned the tricks of power leveling... And the music... It's pretty much the same score.
I remember reading a comment on some video that said 'there's a difference between thinking a game is good and having fun with a game. Since the purpose of a game is to have fun, it doesnt really matter if the game is good.' I think that applies to Skyrim at least a little.
to me it is the nostalgia, the lore, the beauty, falmers, jzargo, dragons, so many reasons it will always be my favorite video game.
Two of the reasons i love skyrim is:
1. The fact that while youre the dragonborn, youre still you. In the witcher, youre geralt. In Mass Effect, youre shepard. In Dishonored, youre corvo or emily. No other game really gets close to allowing player freedom as i feel skyrim does. Its not me playing some character, its me in the game.
2. The blandness effect. Its the same kind of thing minecraft has going for it. The game is a nice bed for mods to be built upon, because a lot of people think "theres a spot for me to improve this here", which improves its longevity.
I think that's the reason I've never been interested in self-insert games, honestly. I inhabit "me" all the time - I'm more interested in playing a character and deciding what they would do than just playing me and doing what I would do.
Interesting this captured the exact reason i don’t like Skyrim.
1. I love playing games where every character including (the one i control) have a distinct personality and interact with each other in a curated way as envisioned by the developer. I want my pacing to be exactly as the author wanted it to be so i can see his vision. (Final fantasy and Persona).
2. Instead of being generic accesible (Tolkien world). I prefer a world that i need to uncover and understand how it works, falling in live with what is reality in these uncharted lands. Think Nier, Xenoblade and Dark souls
I guess this explains why i tend to love JRPG games which focus on Narrative, Character development, and diverse music.
@@QuiksilverX7 you hit the nail on the head for me. Ive always vastly preferred the approach of JRPGs over WRPGs. I like good narratives and likeable characters, and the boring self insert protagonist just doesnt give me that.
Because of that, it is a world that you feel you could live in because you are no one else. The narrative is the world, not the character. Skyrim is the character. That's why I find it so replayable, whereas ME is great a few times, then it's meh. I like a good story, but good stories end, whereas your time in Skyrim doesn't.
The Dragon Age series also lets you design your own protagonist as does Baldur's Gate.
Skyrim was one of the last big releases of the Pre-digital download era (The last i can think of being GTA 5). This was a big deal to me as a kid. I remember the big crowd at my local gamestop, the raffles and swag giveaways, and people talking, making friends, and playing the game at the store. It was really fun and an experience that doesn't happen anymore.
This wasn't the case in all countries, was it? Because I firmly remember how I bought Skyrim in spring 2012 when I finally had saved enough money, excitedly entered the CD-ROM into my computer, and then quickly learned that not only did I need a Steam account to play, but also needed to download a lot (either the full game or a big patch, I don't remember), and with my countryside internet connection needed to wait TWO MORE WEEKS before I could finally play it.
Are you still playing that original release version? 😅
I worked at GameStop when this game came out and it was my first big midnight release as an employee. The energy there was just electric. For the few years after that, nothing ever touched it, and then midnights started dying slowly. It’s a shame. I think they were a really special way to bring people together.
@@daniel_361 same everywhere, at least on console. also consoles having a higher market share pretty much everywhere, esp in 2011. and yes it was one of the last big "physical" games, for most people at least.
but yes, on pc steam was required. if you didn't download cracked versions obv. and thus you had to download massive day one patches (game itself is on disc).
at least where i'm from pokemon sun/moon, and smash for 3ds were also big.
looked like everyone owning a 3ds was in line, afaik most stores were actually out of stock after an hour. but 3ds has a much lower user base, than ps3, or 360
but not gta v, skyrim big
For me, it's always been the atmosphere. You mentioned several times about the "slow" nature of the game between interactions, but after my first playthrough of the game, I stopped using fast travel. I would just walk from place to place, because the soundtrack and the atmosphere are SO enjoyable. Others mentioned that rather than feeling like a game I've played before, it feels like a place I've visited.
two word question: Why Skyrim?
one word answer: vibes
I never played Skyrim at launch. I played it for the first time somewhere around 2016 on my good ol' Xbox 360. It came in my life when I hit a mental low after hearing I was chronically ill... Skyrim was my escape from real life and it still is to this day.
So you were finally awake?
How you doing all right now!
@@TheBlueKing10t LOL! Yup!
@@JaimeBecerra-x1v Fine. Thank you!
I think even tho the systems are all extremely lackluster, it's the combination of them that makes it very fun.
For the love letter quest you can get the third outcome of uncovering the ruse, you just need to pick pocket the other forged letter.
I remember playing this on my old box tv in my room on my 360. I remember it being Saturday, having my door open and window, feeling the cool breeze while trying to drown out the sound of my mom vacuuming the carpet outside my room. It’s so nostalgic. It depresses me sometimes I can’t find that magic anymore. I’m trying to replay Skyrim as a Khajit whose goal is to pickpocket all the crowns off all the jarls. His name is Kiiti.
I HAVENT WATCHED THIS YHET BUT IS AW SKYRIM IN THE TITLE LETS FUCKIGN FGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello Doug! Didn’t expect to find you here.
RIGGED Also DONT YOU EVER INSULT FALLOUT AGAIN
AND PAY US
this vid creator just lowkey trashtalked skyrim and Im triggered
What are you doing here Mr. Souglas Souglas also you said you were good at typing off stream I see you are lying again Doug or should I call you by your real name DIABLO THE CHEATER.
It's crazy to think that skyrim is getting close to 15 years old, and it's still one of my most anticipated games of the year. I will be reinstalling it as soon as the newest version of nolvus releases. It even surprises me to see how hyped I am to play it again.
Agreed, nolvus v6 looks like Skyrim 2 lol
This. Literally this. I played N5 last year and easily put 100+ hours into it before I knew it. Now I'm anticipating it as if it's a new release and even slowly building a new pc over the year to handle it at its best.
All these new games coming out and I care more about a mod release for a game over a decade old 😂
im reinstalling rn because they released ai framework
I love it because my brother and I used to pull up chairs from the dining table on either side of our father as he played his "wizard only" run on Skyrim. We'd all sit there for hours and watch our dad play Skyrim. When we finally got computers of our own, Skyrim was the first game we both downloaded and sank several hundred hours into the game we'd only ever seen our dad play. I remember coming across a giant for the first time, I had stopped it from a mountain away and kept firing arrows at it, too terrified of it to actually go fight it and eventually ran away once I realized the giant who return to its start location and heal between arrows. Ten years later, I'll still find my dad playing the game sometimes and it inspired me to go play another run of becoming a cat assassin in my own world.
I also remember watching my dad play Skyrim. He introduced it to me.
I'm currently 18 and still vividly remember at about 7-9 watching my friend play Skyrim on his xbox 360 and thinking how cool the game was. It definitely wasn't my first choice in game choice when I finally got a computer that could run it, but once I did get it man it was exactly what I thought it would be back then and was so much fun.
I have a skyrim binge every holiday season. Not only is it around the anniversary of the games release but skyrim makes that time of the year feel so wholesome, warm and cozy.
I was around 30 when this came out and it felt like what people my age have been waiting for since playing the first Zelda on NES.
Until Skyrim, only LotR really captured the feel of fantasy and Skyrim had that same vibe of vast exploration and melancholy.
Yes it has many flaws and I cant really remember many quests or characters, but I just love wandering and man do I feel that music.
you mean lotr as in the book or a game? sorry i wan't paying attention and i don't know any lotr games are that good
There isnt a game that has less flaws then skyrim. But skyrim got enough right to be the best.
@@elib9002 Oh I meant the movies. Just the atmosphere of the Fellowship of the Ring I find especially great and similar to Skyrims.
Why not Skyrim?
just you wait...
Because its a bad game lol
@@HuhJuhWuh Wouldn't know, never played it
@@razbuten If only there were a video on yt that could show me the way 🙏
Skyrim
Skyrim has a special place in my heart . I was in a very dark place in my life and I needed a way out of it . I always played games for fun and leisure and sometimes as a way to forget about the real life and I really needed to play something to get me out of the said dark place . I searched the internet and the recommendation was Skyrim . I had no idea about the game , at first it really looked like I made a bad decision as I usually play games from start to finish as much as possible and the game looked dull. BUT , once I reached riverwood and started getting a grasp for it , I couldnt stop playing , I sat through hours of gameplay at times , thinking about every single choice I made , looking through reddit constantly to know I am making the right decision etc .
Skyrim pulled me out a dark place , the game just makes me feel cozy , I played it in medium graphics on low res and it still looked so beautiful , it feels like a place I have lived before , the atmosphere , the soundtrack , the characters , all fit so beautifully , not perfectly but beautifully . Skyrim taught me that things dont need to be perfect to be beautiful , there is beauty in imperfection , there is beauty in being enough , the game it is like a comforting hug , and that is Why Skyrim , for me personally
I love the start of autumn and winter here in Finland because it is the perfect setting to properly enjoy Skyrim. My dad sometimes opened the balcony door to let the cold breeze in during winter just so he could immerse himself into Skyrim and the nords while playing.
Lol this comment is so cool and your dad sounds awesome 💯
I always start a new skyrim playthrough the beginning of each fall, gta and farcry are my summer games haha
When i play skyrim I purposely angle my box fan to hit my face for immersion... So not exactly the same thing but still
It's the opposite for me.
I like to visit Skyrim during the Summer, the sun is burning outside and I get to visit snowy mountains and clear rivers.
1300+ hours later, I still finds things I've missed
I have no idea the amount of hours i have on skyrim. I have gotten 2 accounts to about level 90 and i still love the game. The freedom of skyrim was a big thing for me.
and mf said u see everything in 10 hours
I think you make a really good point at the end about Skyrim being a great introduction to video games. So many of my friends experienced Skyrim as their first "video game-y" video game and while they aren't necessarily hardcore gamers now, they definitely have a much stronger appreciation for the medium than they would have otherwise
i played it when it came out, probably when i was like 7-8, maybe a little younger, and its always just felt like a second home.
Growing up and playing it every now and then, getting interested in different quests each time and using different builds, discovering fun and awful glitches. All of that added up to a world that as I grew up, I learned more about. Not in the way it was made or how it worked, but just learning about the world in general. Just like my real hometown, I’ve always lived here, moved a few times but always that same town, different jobs, friends, etc.
To me, the parallel it has to learning more about the real world growing up, along with how much the game has for you to learn about, really add up to give me such a peaceful, fun, thoughtful experience that I don’t think I could get sick of as long as there is more for me to learn.
just to add, we have guys figuring out exact npc paths, breaking world barriers to find out even more about the world, and calculating unemployment rates. there is just so much you can keep thinking about and learning
I actually agree with pretty much all of your criticisms at the beginning. I consider Skyrim one of my favorite games of all time because it was my "gateway drug" to Fantasy RPG's and RPG's in general. Being 13, I'd never played anything like it before and it hooked me on the genre(s) for life.
Edit: just finished watching and I agree with your conclusion as well. Great video!
Morrowind did that for me all the way back in 2003. Unfortunately, I have only played a few games that scratch the same itch since: Dark Souls 1, Fallout: New Vegas, The Witcher 2. I still haven't played Outward, The Witcher 3, or Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but they look like they might be on my wavelength. If not, I'll just stick with Morrowind and New Vegas.👍
100^ with you as well, thankfully modding is able to improve the combat somewhat but i uderstand/agree with why it was designed the way it is, at the end of the day skyrim is just a really nice game to exist in and im so glad that it does that so well
@@thefranken-thing It was oblivion for me. I wonder if Skyrim on top of all the things mentioned in the video also kinda like hit the beginning of videogames becoming mainstreaming? So a ton of apt-age people were getting into gaming and it caugh them nust right
Razbuten made a great point, although Skyrim had some faults, there are things that Skyrim did great that other games have failed to replicate:
1. Unmarked quests - In Assassin's Creed clones, every object on the map is marked. So when you see a hut on a small island and it has no marker, you know there's nothing there and there's no point going out of your way to visit it. In Skyrim it's worth exploring every corner of the map.
2. Powerful loot scattered across the map - In Far Cry clones, every chest is randomized so you get the same bracelet, underwear, and spoon as junk in very chest. You see a chest on top of a mountain and you think it has something special, but you get a spoon. In Skyrim you can stumble upon a cave and get a powerful weapon that was deliberately placed there and not randomized.
3. Night and day cycle / NPC routine - Other games have tried to implement this, but I don't think any of them have equaled Skyrim yet, that's why people still think Skyrim feels the most lived-in world.
4. NPC reactions to your actions - Yes Skyrim doesn't always react to everything you do, but it's still better than other games who have tried it. Even in recent RPGs there are NPCs that don't react when I save their village from cannibals.
@@thefranken-thing i played morrowind long after i played skyrim for the first time and i do think I like it a lot more from a critical standpoint. but its sort of… niche, i guess. i still play more skyrim than i do morrowind, because as much as I love morrowind I kind of have to be in the right “mood” to play it. fallout new vegas is the only game ive played that really captures the best of both worlds in that aspect, having the appeal both for hardcore rpg nerds and casual players.
I love walking throughout skyrim and watching the occasional mammoth fall out of the sky.
They don't fall out of the sky, man, they run out of energy while they're flying because they are so fat. Fact checkef by Snopes
RAZ I HAVE A SCRIPT ON THIS SUBJECT IN THE EDITING BAY RIGHT NOW. IT EVEN HAS THE SAME TITLE NOOOOOOOOOO
Good job on the video man!
I am looking forward to seeing it! I know you will have different and interesting perspectives on it. Maybe change the title to How Skyrim? though.
@@razbuten Definitely gonna workshop the framing a bit. These will definitely be accidental companion pieces, all the same!
Whither Skyrim
@@goldie819 Whomst Skyrim?
So weird seeing two guys I’m subscribed to talking to each other. I hope you mention the power of the modding scene and just how *dense* the world is. Probably the most dense world in any open world game.
I just came back to Skyrim today. I think the music, atmosphere and it's weird charm is the reason why I continue to go back to it after a decade.
I have a friend who, any time I talk about games, asks me about them in the context of skyrim, ie "is that like skyrim?" I don't think she has ever or will ever play another game but she has thousands of hours in skyrim I find endlessly facinating.
It's the ultimate casual game. Not a bad thing, but it's comfortable
@@TheGallantDrakewhile I agree with you games that are considered casual is not an insult, I have to disagree that Skyrim is the ultimate casual experience. It has a large barrier of entry into the game, but it's not definitively casual. To clarify, casual experiences to me are ones that don't ask too much from the player. Just a simple game loop on a gameboard (figuratively) that never changes. Like candy crush, City Skylines, and Fall Guys. Skyrim just has too much to offer for it to be casual. There is a sense of constant exploration, while not always unique at times, still offers moments of different gameplay. One mission you'll be stealing something from someone's home, next you'll be fighting alongside one of the companions, next you'll be trying to acquire all dragon masks, next you'll be investigating a haunted house, and so forth. We're not even getting to how you have a bunch of skills to explore that definitely changes your playthroughs, all the storytelling in the game, and such. But I'll leave it there so you can respond before there's too much to respond to
@@CommanderCodyChipless I think all your points are actually what make it casual. That being, you have all those things you COULD be doing but because this is an RPG you can choose which ones you do and that choice makes it casual. In games, like the ones you mentioned, you have to do the actions or you simply lose the game....making it stressful and therefore not casual.
When I play Skyrim I can do what I like and take as much time as I like. I can ignore 90% of the game if I want and still have hours of gameplay. Everything is a choice and I am not rushed to interact with anything.
When I play Candy Crush , or worse still Fall guys, I cannot take my eyes off the screen, cannot relax for a second and must be deeply focused at all times. That to me is most certainly NOT a casual experience.
@@CommanderCodyChipless everything you said makes it casual. Barrier to entry is actually super low, and you don't need to engage with ANY of the systems. everything is optional. Nothing is challenging if you don't want it to be, and most challenges are down to pure numbers.
I've a friend... She's only played CoD zombies, fallout 4, Skyrim, and Helldivers 2... And I think some racing game...
And I'm pretty sure she's sunk more hours into Skyrim than any other.
It's really hard to explain to people who don't like it, because all of their criticisms are always completely valid. You feel it or you don't. I've loved Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall, and that FEELING has always been there. Something magical about stepping into that world that goes beyond the mechanics.
I feel like this is a large part of why Starfield flopped so hard--not necessarily as far as commercial success goes, but in it's lack of cultural staying power, the lack of people talking about it and enjoying it long-term. It's got a lot of the same flaws and drawbacks that are real valid criticisms of the Elder Scrolls games, but Starfield lacks the FEELING that drew people in and keeps drawing them back to Elder Scrolls games. Even after watching this video and agreeing wholeheartedly with every flaw he mentioned, and even after Bethesda has pissed me off so much over the past decade, I still feel a little urge to go back and try Skyrim some more. It's an intoxicating world.
This reply says to me that you simply don't know what makes you like it. Which is fine, but doesn't help us non-enjoyers to understand.
Skyrim has something that draws people in, a sort of X-Factor that other RPGs don’t have
@j.i.nthenobody54 the whole point of this video is determining exactly what that x factor is.
@@maoman4855 No Jeremy Soule soundtrack.
24:45 Yeah, that's one explanation I give when people ask me why is Skyrim still popular: monopoly.
No other game gives you all the elements Skyrim does.
They give you some of those elements, and they often do them better, but all of them together?
Funny enough, the only real competition for Skyrim comes from its predecessors...
Agreed. Also Fallout 3 and New Vegas (and maybe VTM Bloodlines?)
Honestly, I think Skyrim's graphics are a big part of its staying power as opposed to, say, Oblivion. While Skyrim's graphics are definitely outdated now, it came at a time when the diminishing returns of graphical improvements was just starting. So even if it's a bit outdated, it's high res enough that I think most people can still give it a shot, whereas Oblivion's graphics are much harder to accept.
@@peterlewis2178
That's a fair point.
Although I think much of Oblivion's visual elements still hold up.
There are mainly two things that drag it down visually:
1. Character faces
2. The design of most dungeons, which is fairly bland and empty.
@@peterlewis2178I think that something that kind of makes it more accessible is the ease of use, specifically when it comes to the UI.
In oblivion, I remember when playing it the first time, the menus for crafting used to confuse me (especially since I'm not a native English speaker), while the menus in Skyrim are much more straightforward, which is maybe a bit detrimental to some of elder scrolls values, but in the end seems like something that won't drive people away
What the hell is the point of trying to be everything at the same time if you don't excel at anything?
Many open world games don't have a stealth mechanic like Skyrim does, but let's be honest ... The stealth is absolutely terrible and poorly implemented. It was the first build I ever tried and I had to change it because of how unimmersive it was.
If you think stealth is the only mechanic with this problem then you haven't been paying attention.
When autumn starts when the temperature drops and leaves turn orange. I return to skyrim and it almost feels like coming home. There is something about the atmosphere in that game that keeps pulling you back in!!
While Bethesda did publish dishonored and dark messiah they did not work on the game. It was developed by Arkane studios.
Same goes for fallout new Vegas developed by obsidian.
Bethesda doesn't work on games, only publish, only BGS works on the games, but they're basically the same as Arkane, Machinegames, ID, ect.
@@it2spooky4me79getting into the pedantics of saying Bethesda and BGS are different is like to just invite people to get mad at you because you know what they mean when they talk about Bethesda making a game lol
@@rabidwolf252 sometimes it's confusing, I mean for example, Arkane Lyon and Arkane Austin, people get worried now when Arkane Lyon makes a game, because of Redfall, even though it was Arkane Austin that made it.
Some don't really see the difference, well now they do since Arkane Austin doesn't exist anymore, but it still puts a blunder on the studio that had no involvement in something.
People look at a game published by Bethesda, and say "oooh it's going to be buggy", just because one of their owned studios is more infamous or famous.
Mustn't forget that all of those games including skyrim use different engines, which is why the games are tied to what the engine can and can't do. Dishonored was made in Unreal 3, Dark Messiah was made with the Source Engine, New Vegas was made with Gamebryo and Skyrim was made with the Creation Engine.
Yeah, he knows they didn't work on those games. That's why he didn't say they did. He was just listing examples of other games releasing around the same time that had better systems than Skyrim.
As someone who heavily mods skyrim I think the last point you made was absolutely perfect. The fact that the game does so much, with so many different systems and things going on, along with bethesdas openness to people modding it, has turned it into something that people can extend and change in almost whatever way they want. Its something that I think can massively help fix some of the things that are a bit weaker about the game. The best way I can describe it is like a sandbox for someone to essentially choose what kind of experience they want to have with the game, tailor suited(for the most part) to their desires.
modded skyrim is peak gaming
"Simple puzzles"
Meanwhile me having to look up the puzzle to figure it out.
I thought I was the only one lol
Because simple puzzles doesn't always have clear as glass instructions.
@@ZhorichsFootages Some of the puzzles are made hard by the UI. For example, I had to look up the solution for the golden claw because I didn't know that you have inspect the items because there's no affordance in the UI. For example, Fallout 4 does show a button to press to inspect the item but Skyrim uses invisible UI for the same thing so I never guessed it has the feature at all.
Similarly some of the puzzles only accept one specific solution and there may be invisible walls to prevent any alternative solution. The reason e.g. Half-Life speedrunners have invented really creative solutions is that it doesn't have invisible walls forcing just a single solution for each puzzle.
And some of the puzzles are hard only because the game forces such a limited FOV which makes it harder to find all the switches in a dungeon.
@@MikkoRantalainen Hmm... I think they actually teach you to inspect in-game, but it was so small moment in the beginning you forget it.
Or I just made it up right now, idk.
A big part of Skyrim for me was the way the material in the books/lore that you read along the way was what stuck with me.
For example, actually read The Mirror or The Cake and the Diamond. Great, short, contained stories that had no discernible connection to your gameplay that just stuck with you. You felt a deeper connection to the world.
Skyrim is THE fantasy cozy game. It allows you to step into another world for a moment, the same way we used to when we played make belief as kids.
I truly believe it has the same appeal as Stardew Valley or Power wash simulator. You can live as someone else for a little while and get lost.
The main difference, is that Stardew Valley looks simple and is fairly simple, and Skyrim looks deceptively lifelike and ends up being way more primitive.
I don't expect branching dialogue when I look at Stardew Valley. It is a farming sim with a surprising variety of extra activities. Everything outside of farming is a nice surprise on top.
When someone who looks like a real-life person says something about a thing they would like someone to do - I do expect to be able to discuss it with them. In my less than 2 hours in Skyrim, I met way more giant spiders than I did people to talk to.
With mods sure, but without them it is not that good of an rpg. Wide as the ocean deep as a puddle
@@jost914 mods aren't a good argument - they can enhance experience if you already enjoy the game, but you won't go looking for them if the game's not for you in the first place.
You won't even know that it's wide as an ocean - only its lacking depth will be visible.
@@SashaS-s2z not true. I know plenty of people that never played Skyrim and got into it with mods from the get go because others told them the vailla game is dated, which it is.
Skyrim works more as a canvas to customize than a competent game in its own right.
@@jost914 I played lots of really old games, and the only two issues with them were less-refined interface and compatibility. Sometimes, graphics are visibly dated.
Skyrim looks perfectly fine, and interface seems adequate. It's just bad at being a game.
For me what made me fall in love with Skyrim was the freedom, the dark fantasy and the world. What made me come back every few years and even buy multiple versions of the game (which I have never done with other games) is the Mods. Modding the game and thus creating my own version of it that changes the game in a way that specifically caters to my wants, needs and likes is what makes it truly amazing. And when it comes to mods, there is no game like it. I've played countless of games since then many of which are objectively or at least subjectively better. But none of them have me come back as often as skyrim.
Part of what makes Skyrim so good is that none of the systems are outright bad; at worst they are just ... fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. The combat for example is floaty and without much skill expression, but it looks cool and does it's job. It's not great but it does what it needs well enough to support the fantasy of the game.
Wailling your sword around while AI spergs out is cool? No wonder Bethesda had balls to publish Starfield. Their fans are literal bots
Idk but for me, arriving in Whiterun and entering Breezehome will always feel like coming home
I think one of the most underrated aspects of The Elder Scrolls that other fantasy RPG lacks is that they're first person. It increases immersion and makes the exploration feel more upfront and real.
For me i'm not a big fan of the first person, which is why I never got super far with oblivion despite thinking it was good. But skyrim had the ability to switch between. so wondering about and combat i'd do in 3rd person a lot of the time, but i'd flick to 1st person when I needed to check for items, tight spaces and during convos.
@@Popjaksound The ability to switch -- and especially to switch so seamlessly -- is definitely one of the game's huge perks. I don't like first person; I play 99% of Skyrim in third (even when playing archers haha). But the fact that I *can* flick my mouse wheel forward to take that one important shot in first person, or to temporarily exist in that space, means that the entire game feels very "accessible." At any moment, if I say "I want to be there," I can be.
This. I hate 3rd person for almost any game. Even GTA V is so much more immersive with 1st person although it makes driving a nightmare
You say that like you couldn't switch to 3rd person in oblivion when you could.@@Popjaksound
Because it was an awesome, epic, open-world game which everyone was waiting for after Morrowind and Oblivion. And Jeremy Soule's music was UTTERLY PERFECT. No questions about that.
"Dragonborn, Dragonborn, by his honor is sworn" That is the first sentence of the Dovahkiin Theme
How delusional are you to call this shit epic lmao
Jeremy Soule getting cancelled really sucks for the future of music in ES6, future GW2 expansions and any other games he could have potentially composed.
@@cattysplat I didn't know that he was cancelled. But since *I* have been cancelled, mocked, blocked, trolled, and cajoled (despite being an award-winning author of 600,000 words and 350+ non-A.I. illustrations)... well, I can't say that I'm surprised.
Darn Raz, how'd you know that I just fell back into a Skyrim abyss this month after not touching the game for years? The best explanation I've got for "why Skyrim" is that I picked it up as my first "proper" game, when I had no gaming experience or muscle memory, and then again this month after a decade of gaming being a main hobby of mine and... It got me both times.
It's both profoundly accessible and a testament to creating a truly open world. The moment you're out of Helgen, you're free to go where you want (though I'd argue that sentiment is really true once you've done bleak falls barrow and killed your first dragon). There is a lot of it that can be rote, but it has these intense flashes of brilliance that capture your imagination like truly nothing else. More than maybe any other game I've played, Skyrim manages to evoke that same feeling of being a kid on summer holiday - a mix of tedium, but also of having all the time in the world, and a couple of moments so perfect they lodge behind your ribcage and stay with you a long time.
I think the reason Skyrim is so unbelievably loved can be summed up in one word: personality. The game OOOZES personality from every aspect, and building a connection with its quirky and buggy features becomes not only easy to do but becomes a core lovable aspect of the game. Its just filled with character from the repetitive silly lines of followers to its magically immersive soundtrack. A game with just the right amout of seriousness without taking itself too seriously, it ends up hitting that perfect balance, making the title so easy to be loved. Oblivion does the exact same thing, which is the reason for its success as well. Skyrim isn't just a game. Its a beautifully goofy experience that never fails to lift your spirits.
Skyrim is my favourite game of all time. I envy people that play Skyrim with fresh eyes. I wish that I could “total recall” my memories of this game and re-experience it all again. Skyrim is a game that I’ve played thousands of hours in and there’s very few games that gave me that much enjoyment. Even with all the flaws from the PS3 version of the game and the bugs, Skyrim isn’t any other game. The scope of the game and design, and scale of the world is rare.
It's mine too, and I feel this so much. Playing Skyrim again for the first time is every Skyrim fan's dream
i played skyrim ps3 vanilla on a emulator and it was still better than starflop
This made me want to reinstall with Ordinator mod and alternate beginnings all over again.
It was never about the mechanics or the quests. It was about being someone who was somewhere. No game has captured it since for me.
What's funny about Skyrim is I know people who don't even know it's a part of the elder scrolls franchise. I find some people asking, when Skyrim 2 is coming out lol
ES6: SKYRIM 2 letssss gooooo
Fun fact: my first start in skyrim was a mess. While heading to helgen, the wagon turned over and drove upside down. I couldn’t even create my character because ralof was stuck on a horse standing randomly in his way lol
I restarted playing skyrim after 3 years yesterday, I I just finished the dungeon with the master vampire presented in this vid a few hours ago that I did randomly while exploring with my lvl 10 character. This game is such a gem, I love everything about it (except vanilla illusion spells and Tod 😄) and I think I will continue getting back to it a few many times in the future.
Interesting retrospective on Skyrim! I only discovered the game 5 years ago, and I LOVE it. I love the simple combat style because it lets me focus on exploring the world without much hindrance. The exploration is what keeps me coming back to it. There is so much to keep me interested.
3:55 Or… marry her yourself and invite both the guys to your wedding!
That's funny! I've done that so many times!
*james franco spiderman 3 face*
I know we just met... but trust me, I will become the most famous stealth archer anybody has ever heard of.
@@rodeo7clownnot a very good stealth archer if folks have heard of you
Freedom and its not non linear garbage is why. Simply freedom.
Simple answer is, the same reason Harry Potter and Star Wars are so popular, despite many writing flaws: good world-building based around "The Hero's Journey" writing template.
(also I got roasted hard 7:08 literally the only 3 games on my PS4)
There isn't anything wrong with that. I play a variety of fantasy games, and there isn't else out there like Skyrim. You may like Fallout 3 or New Vegas though.
You seen that short of a guy (green screened), walking up a mountain in Skyrim and at the top he pauses and just looks out? Appreciating the view and the night sky, while he lights one up and just soaks it all in. Spending the whole night completely derailed from whatever task he was on.
That guy gets it.
Man, it's crazy to me that the Game of Thrones tv show predates Skyrim's release... I don't remember hearing about it until many years after Skyrim.
the music, the atmosphere, the approachable gameplay, the lore, there are many reasons i love this game