The Magic of Skyrim: 9th Year Anniversary

HeyDaniko // December 23rd, 2020

It’s not quite old news just yet but, for those who don’t know, the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim turned 9 years old early last month. Maybe that’s not a big deal to you, but for some of us… wow, it makes us feel old.

Whilst many of the old school Elder Scrolls players may have found Skyrim to be a little lacking, or perhaps too casual, for many of us it was our first real venture into the world of Tamriel. And I say ‘real’ because, like many other players of my ilk, I certainly gave the earlier titles a go, I just was not cut out for the challenge of them. Morrowind was a little too lax on the reins for my personal taste, and after a few hours of wandering around aimlessly, unsure when the fun would begin, I just gave up. It’s certainly a game that I would love to revisit though, now that I have a little knowledge of the local starting area thanks to ESO. And I’ve also heard good things about the mods out there that bring the game a little more up to date. I would also like to revisit a modded Oblivion, although I did get somewhat further in that game before giving up when I got stuck trying to save Kvatch and couldn’t progress beyond.

And so, there were plenty of concerns I had around the time of Skyrim’s release. So many, in fact, that I actually didn’t plan on playing it at all. Had it not been for my love of Fallout 3 and friends likening the games so heavily, I may never have actually picked it up.

Sure, to so many gamers out there, there is no greater sin than a game becoming more casual-friendly, but when so much of the market would willingly identify as casual, it’s really not surprising that more difficult games are now considered cult or niche.

But the thought of a life without Skyrim actually bewilders me a little – a game I have sunk so much time into on two platforms and several play-throughs. A game that I feel has been an absolutely enormous landmark in my most beloved hobby.

So, what makes Skyrim the game that it is today? What keeps people playing 9 years down the line? Well, if your impulse was to say, “the mods,” you certainly wouldn’t be wrong. Mods have been a huge breath of life into the aging Skyrim and something that keeps the PC community playing for thousands and thousands of hours. But not everyone can, or wants to, play with mods. There is a distinct portion of the player base that either play on platforms without mod support, such as the Xbox 360, or just don’t want to “ruin” the fidelity of the game with unofficial content. And yet, so many of these players still play or revisit regularly. But what keeps them playing?

So, before we delve into the modding world, let’s talk a little about the vanilla game. Proving that vanilla is a perfectly delicious flavour, Skyrim really does have an incredible amount going for it. Game worlds are seldom as grand as Skyrim, and I don’t just mean in terms of size. Sure, the world is big, but in the 9 years since we’ve seen games released that are much, much bigger. The world is extremely rich for a barren tundra, the sky box is a work of art, and the environments are incredibly well realised. It’s impossible to not find anything to do in Skyrim. Everywhere you go, something will be happening, or someone will appear, most of the time interrupting whatever quest you’re already on. The freedom to explore and quest at your own pace is truly liberating and something that the Elder Scrolls series has become well known for.

I still fondly remember my first play-through back on the Xbox 360 – two generations ago now. No mods, no console commands – just good old-fashioned questing and grinding. My 360 character must be on around 400 to 500 hours of sheer, joyful, vanilla questing.

But mods are, quite literally, a game changer. For those of you here who are very new to modding, or not entirely sure what the verb is at all, mods are essentially community made content that can either be added to a game or alter something already present. And this content ranges in size and scope from new armours and characters, completely original land masses and community made expansions, to ludicrously ambitious new games made using the base game’s assets.

Suffice to say that once you start modding, it is damn near impossible to return to the vanilla experience. Just the thought of playing without my entourage of followers is a painful experience. Skyrim just wouldn’t be Skyrim without Sofia, Recorder, Lucien, Kaidan and Inigo. And of course, I’m aware that this is way too many followers but they’re just all so charming it’s impossible to choose between them. I also tend to have a modded Serana and Kharjo running with me too. But crank the difficulty to legendary, and this army of followers really begins to do some work.

Skyrim also wouldn’t be the same without my town and village overhauls, my realistic animations, belt mounted quivers, multiple follower mod and, of course, excessively revealing armour.

But shut up, you have some too!

The modding community have truly, for most of us, turned Skyrim into something utterly timeless, and no amount of revamping by Bethesda will even come close to topping what has already been made or modified. For many players, there are modders who have become extremely familiar names and essential to their catalogue. Everybody knows Elianora for her amazing housing mods, Deserter X for some of the greatest armour mods we’ve seen, Caliente for the curvaceous bodies nearly all of us are working with, and Apachii for some really creative, anime-esq hair styles. And then we have the followers such as Joseph Russel’s Lucien, one of the best follower mods available for download right now; Potastic Panda (or Jeannie Lee if you’re a Krewsader) for Recorder – the lovable, if moderately psychotic, universe traveling scholar; DJJohnJarvis’s Sofia, one of my all-time favourite, fully voiced and fleshed out followers, and there are honestly just too many more to keep going.

But all of this shiny, silver tongued praise for modding does, of course, come with a downside, and I can completely understand those who would rather avoid mods all together and simply play the game in its vanilla format to avoid the hassle. Crashes and mod collisions are extremely common, sometimes requiring hours of troubleshooting to fix and, in the worst-case scenario, completely destroying saved games all together. I must have spent as long fixing mod related crashes on my last save game as I spent actually playing the game itself. Not to mention the save games that I have lost due to bloated, buggy scripts cluttering up their data. Thankfully, for us casual mod users out there, the latest iteration of the Nexus Mod Manager, named Vortex, makes things quite a bit easier when trying to track potential issues with your mod catalogue. That being said, plenty of more experienced mod users would still recommend that you make the switch to Mod Organizer 2 for all your Bethesda modding needs.

Safe to say that whether you play with or without mods, there is something extremely special about Skyrim. It may not be the best of the Elder Scrolls series but its quite possibly the best fantasy sandbox that we currently have. If the wait for Elder Scrolls 6 has you stressed out and impatient, well there is simply nothing stopping you from replaying Skyrim all over again, or even tackling Enderal – one of Skyrim’s most ambitious and critically acclaimed total conversion mods.

And if just modding Skyrim over and over again for the better part of a decade has you wiped out – well my honest recommendation would be to check out Elder Scrolls Online, where you will find more than enough content to keep you occupied in Tamriel for another few years.

Thank you kindly, fellow adventurers. I have been Daniko.