Skyrim is back, nerds!!
Just yesterday, Skyrim: Special Edition arrived for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC! Praise Talos for this glorious day! Thanks to this, Bethesda’s acclaimed medieval role-playing game will not fade away as the previous generation of consoles gathers dust on our shelves and in our basements.
I won’t lie here, guys. I harbor blatant favoritism for this game. Ever since getting it for Christmas in my junior year of high school nearly five years ago, it remains to be one of my all-time favorite games. It captivated me in a way no other game ever had, and to be honest, I don’t think any game ever will in quite the same way. So, in honor of Skyrim’s re-release, I’d like to tell you why you should dive into Skyrim to explore it again, or to discover it for the very first time.
The Plot
To begin with, Skyrim’s various plotlines immediately pull you in and weave you into the story being told, making you a part of conflicts that already feel ancient and lived-in. In the first moments of the game, in the 201st year of the 4th Era, you find out that the land you’ve been thrust into is in a state of civil war. The empire that has ruled the continent of Tamriel for centuries has begun to fall apart after a long and bloody war with the Elven Dominion to the south. The total destruction of the empire was only avoided by one highly-disputed treaty that stated that in order to keep the peace, the empire could no longer worship Talos, the mortal hero that was elevated to godhood after death. Sensing the growing weakness of the empire and threatened by the looming presence of the Dominion, radicals in the northern province of Skyrim that call themselves Stormcloaks revolt against the authority of the empire and fight to make Skyrim a free and independent nation for the first time in hundreds of years. The empire hopes that the recent capture of the rebels’ leader, Ulfric Stormcloak, will put a swift end to the rebellion. But just as you and Ulfric are about to be executed, a dragon rips through the air for the first time in over a thousand years and lays waste to the town. You barely escape with your life, now faced with the choice to either strengthen the empire and reunite it with Skyrim, or abandon the empire and help prepare Skyrim to stand alone for the wars to come. And if that wasn’t enough, you’ve also got to figure out why dragons have returned and why they are determined to set fire to everything they see.
The World
One of the things about this game that absolutely blew me away was the sheer size of the world that lay before me to explore. For the first time in my gaming experience, I was not locked into one specific course of action, only free to follow the main storyline of the game. Instead, I could literally walk in any direction and explore wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted to. See the outline of a ruined mountaintop keep on the horizon? You can walk to that mountain, climb it, and explore that keep. Want to hunt a sprinting stag through a forest? Pull out your bow and take chase, because you can go right ahead and do it—just keep an eye out for bears while you’re at it. From cloud-piercing mountains to snowy drifts to rolling plains to forest bursting with color—the world of Skyrim is a work of art in and of itself. Nearly every still shot of the game could be printed and framed on the wall, especially now that it’s been so beautifully remastered. It is a living, breathing world. And it’s not just the world that’s alive, either—it’s the people that fill it. The computer-generated characters make the open-world experience complete with in-depth interaction and masterful voice acting (even if the same actors are used over and over again).
Also, I don't even know what I'd need to bring any emphasis to this point, but--
FREAKING DRAGONS
Kill 'em, ride 'em, talk to 'em, make armor out of 'em--you can do it all. That says it all right there, doesn't it? I mean, seriously. You get to play in an open-world game with a killer score where you get to hunt freaking dragons. Tell me that doesn't sound cool. G'head, try. I'll wait.
Just some thoughts on why I think you should pay Skyrim a visit--whether for yet another time or for the very first.