4.5/5 ★ – jackohdee's review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

I don't even know where to start on this one. I must have spent over a thousand hours in Skyrim over the past 14 years. I vividly remember when it was announced on the (then-Spike TV) Game Awards – I shrieked in response to the reveal of which province of Tamriel the Bethesda boys would bring us to next. It was probably my first Steam game pre-downloaded for launch. I have been here for Skyrim from the beginning, and I've lived countless lives through the expansions, mods, and special editions. I love this game and I hate this game. The strange thing is that the list of things that bother me about the Elder Scrolls V is definitely longer than the list of things I enjoy. I’ve never cared from the Norse-inspired setting. The dragons are lame and janky as hell. Braindead civilians squawk the same 10 banal observations at you over, and over, and over. Combat straight up sucks. The main quest’s cataclysmic stakes are constantly undermined by the game engine’s complete inability to choreograph drama at any scale. You have to steal so many Jeweled Flagons for the Thieves Guild. So many fucking Jeweled Flagons. And yet, I keep coming back. Even as I wrap up another near-100 hour playthrough, I’m already plotting out my next approach. Who will I be next time? The question never gets old. I continue to return to Skyrim for…the trees, I guess? The music? It’s hard to put the feeling of exploring this map into words. There’s been so many open world games since 2011, but Skyrim remains one of the best. The autumn foliage of the Rift, the pagan crags of the Reach, the all-too-familiar streets of Whiterun – it’s so easy to settle back into life here. My recent Elder Scrolls runs have taken a straight-down-the-middle, mod-free approach, choosing a character native to the land and taking on the main quest in a fairly conventional fashion. Here, I’ve taken the mantle of Beirir Black-Mane, a sword-and-shield wielding Nord approaching his Dragonborn destiny with a quiet dignity. After climbing the ranks of the Companions, I travelled to Solstheim (a first-time visit for me) to defeat Miraak before making the sojourn into Sovngarde to finish off the incredibly dull main villain, Alduin. I maxed out my smithing stat and enjoyed working my way up the armor ranks. I finally collected every Daedric artifact in a single run, a long-time goal of mine. I built my Lakeside home and enjoyed gazing at my collection of armaments and items from my questing. I actually considered trying to make this a near-100% run – including finishing off the dragon priests and completing all the faction quests. I got burnt out about half-way through the Thieves Guild. Your character just gets so powerful, and you run out of “next step” items to satisfy that need for self-improvement. It’s hard not to lose steam after level 40 or so. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it all on a single save file, but part of me is dying to start up a new character to revisit the Dark Brotherhood for the first time in 10 years. It's Skyrim, folks. It’s so ubiquitous, suffered so much meme abuse, and remained so eminently available across platforms that it’s hard not to take it for granted. But it cannot be denied – this is a landmark title in the history of gaming. In 2010, the Elder Scrolls felt like an oddball RPG fantasy series that existed for a very specific type of nerd. (I played Oblivion off of a bootleg DVD burned by my friend’s PC-gamer uncle.) Skyrim blew the hinges off that narrow gate and made character-building and exploration something that could be enjoyed by DnD geeks, FIFA jocks or, famously, your grandmother. It is a turning point in the kinds of games that can have mass appeal. You didn’t need to have a gun. You didn’t need to have an ending. You didn’t even need the game to work all that well. All you needed was player freedom, endless reward cycles, and a real sense of place. It’s not perfect, but Skyrim knows what it is. The real question – who, are you?