Returning to Tamriel

I’m getting back into Skyrim for the first time in a month. Perhaps this will be immediately indicative of the lesser captivation it has had on me compared to its enrapturing predecessor, Oblivion: from release, there was rarely a week in which the game didn’t amass hours of my time.

Hopefully, once re-invested into Skyrim, there will be something as-alluring to me.

Oblivion, after countless hours of play, began to repeat, and then drag; soon it was a laborious chore to play- grinding facsimile dungeons lost its reward; the delight of such a convincing and fantastic setting was overshadowed by just how dull it was to explore. For some reason, Skyrim didn’t click with me as Oblivion did: a great number of improvements were there, but perhaps in the presentation or execution, something was lost. Seams soon showed, and before long the game seemed to become a system to cave-fort-tomb; spiders-bandits-draugr.

The gameplay, though, was never what -at best- failed to light my Nirn on fire or -at worst- irked me for not matching up to the compulsive addiction of its father. Before suffering some level of fatigue, Skyrim had given me seventy hours of rewarding exploration, delightful interaction and satisfying combat. Towards the end, however, patterns began to emerge, dungeons began to repeat, revealing a sense of manufacture, and disrupting the illusion. This was Oblivion main offense, undoubtedly, but it seemed to take longer to arrive at that point, before a sense of depletion set in.

In Skyrim, I merely seek those small little surprises which were so instrumental to  my enjoyment of Oblivion, reinvigorating it and extending its life: incidental detail and unique, unusual encounters. For all the bland, repetitive design of Cyrodiil, where areas were copied wholesale, and encounters soon grated, there were true gems of narrative; rare treasures, inciting delight and eliciting enjoyment. I’m still seeking this province’s Hackdirt: standalone vignettes which left memorable impressions. Skyrim has had some outstanding moments in its distinct, albeit brief quest lines; in a matter of quality over quantity, the pleasure of unearthing the history of a guild or betrayal in a brotherhood is regrettably undermined by the brevity of their scope.

Skyrim has held many surprises- some pleasant, some less-so. Below are my remarks on aspects of the game that I found either compelling or deductive. I don’t present them in some yay-or-nay format; they’re merely submitted for your scrutiny and reflection.

Bethesda seems to have paid less attention to Skyrim’s score. Oblivion’s score, to my mind, is fantastically-composed orchestral videogame music. I regularly listen to it out of game, and appreciate it wholly. Some of the motifs, as it was from Morrowind to Oblivion, have been incorporated into Skyrim’s suite, yet overall there are fewer, stand-out tracks.

Evidentially, lessons have been learned from the development of Fallout 3. A far cry from Cyrodiil’s dull, repeating, rolling hills, Skyrim, like the Capital Wasteland, features more visually-interesting landscapes. The epic mountains are an obvious example, but smaller touches such as natural bumps and hops in the earth enhance the world. Where a tree seems to have been uprooted, or particular erosion has occurred, the land is imprinted in a unique way.  Aside from the landscape, other lessons seem to have been learned from Fallout. Tonally, Skyrim feels closer to the post-apocalyptic title than to a fantasy forefather: the colour, interface, killcam and companions all lend from Bethesda’s adopted orphan; an aping of the better seller has betrayed, in my eyes, some of the series’ own flavour and digesis.

An initially-daunting skill system soon became an easy-access, one-glance chart of your character- their strengths and weaknesses; specialisations and downfalls. Perks, another carry-over from Fallout 3, have found their niche in the Elder Scrolls, guiding your character down a filtered and refined path. The ludicrous skill system of Oblivion, enabling any character to master literally every aspect, is replaced with a more conservative and focused approach, where one may craft a formidable specialist, or blend to their heart’s content.

Ultimately, a tiresome aspect of Oblivion was the acquisition of adventures. Chance encounters, featured in Fallout, have blossomed in Skyrim, where storytelling emerges through incidental detail. Not every quest or adventure must be a plea from a distressed villager: many diversions come from a discovered thread and decoded plot on the player’s part, through found text or overheard dialogue. Many caves and ruins speak for themselves, without a directional introduction from a non-player character.

My gripes with Skyrim are petty, specific niggles that may not apply to every player. For me, the hope of this game equalling the enjoyment I received from Oblivion was not entirely met: playing Oblivion was a revelatory experience, which expressed to me how immersive, expansive and deep a videogame could be. Five years later, Bethesda did what they do best, and delivered a staggering amount to see, do and experience. That said, I had expected greater strides to be made in the field of open-world games from game to game. Instead I saw a parallel, but not a new line. Skyrim has, in my mind, done many things very right, vast improvements upon lacklustre systems, exhibiting lessons learned since Oblivion’s release. Minor disappointments exist, for me, but few enough to avoid detracting from its overall strength. I now value not as a failed attempt to iterate upon Oblivion, but as what it is: an effort to reconcile past flaws in a differently-flavoured package.

Simon O’Connor