After nearly being beheaded upon arrival in Skyrim, the lone adventurer sets out on a journey to be a horrible person, shout at people really loud, and slay some dragons. If he can be asked and the game lets him.

Skyrim Special Edition

Day One

Has not been a great day so far, I’ve been captured by some stupid Imperials on the border to Skyrim. Though they’re only hunting Stormcloaks, they don’t care who faces the axe these days. On the way to my death some other prisoner tried to bond with me by talking my goddamn ear off. I guess he’s just not getting, that I’m not interested. But I guess it could have been worse in the end. At least I didn’t get incinerated by the dragon. Oh yeah, there was a dragon! That guy from before, Ralof, helped me escape, so he gets points for that. We made our way through some rotten cave to Ralofs village. All in all, not the best but certainly not the worst day.

Day Two

After a few hours of sleep and some soup, Ralof urged me to report to the Jarl of Whiterun a few miles north to inform him about the dragon-attack. The Jarls kids are little bastards but the guy himself was very nice, he even gave me a house! But there was no time to rest as we got word that the dragon from yesterday is on it’s way and that it’s hungry. The Jarl gave me a little unit to intercept the beast near one of the city’s watchtowers. So many men lost in the massacre, but in the end we were able to slay our pray. What happened next though was kind of weird, some strange glow of light and whoosh, the dragon was gone. Now they all call me „Dragonborn“, whatever that is, and the sky keeps shouting at me. What a weird place.

Day Three

Spent the first night in my new house, could use some furniture. In the morning the Jarl told me to climb some big-ass scary mountain to meet with a group of wrinkly old men about that whole dragon thing. But I was having none of it, too many places I wanted to see. After a brief visit to the „Magical College of Winterhold“, where I quickly realized that they can’t really teach me anything because I’m „Dragonborn“ and overall really great, I just started walking south through the icy wilderness. And then the strangest thing happened: Some guy just walked up to me and handed me some strange magic resistent shield. He asked me to hold on to it for him and tell no one. I don’t really care but I like the shield, so I told his pursuer where the guy was and kept his stuff all for myself, ha ha! Betrayal makes me sleepy, so I’m trying to get to Windhelm before nightfall.

Day Four

Weird things are happening. There’s a giant statue that wants me to do it’s bidding. Also the sky wouldn’t stop shouting. So yeah, great day. I think I’m just gonna go back to sleep.

Day Five

Spent the night in the tavern in Windhelm. Didn’t get much sleep though, took part in a drinking contest that took till morning. Also I decided to stop ignoring the talking statues and give in, which led me into a not at all inviting dungeon, populated by spooky ghosts and a very annoying necromancer who just refused to die for an hour or so. But in the end I got a nice sword that sets everything on fire. Also the goddess that sent me into that cave was very thankful. I’d say it was a good day, let’s see what tomorrow holds.

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Five years, almost to the day, has it been since Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and it is hard to argue with the fact that it has certainly left it’s mark on the genre and the industry as a whole. But after all this time and with a number of games released in the Fantasy-RPG genre, the glaring issues with this one are a lot more obvious these days. Last year for example saw the release of The Witcher 3 by CD Project Red, a Fantasy-RPG with magic, monsters and a giant open-world. While Skyrim is more focussed on full player freedom, through the appearance of your character or how the player decides to behave in conversations and other interactions with NPCs, The Witcher offers a lot more streamlined experience. Players follow the journey of Geralt of Rivia on his quest to fight the oncoming end of the world and are more or less directed through a number of preset paths that lead to the game’s finale. While a more open approach to the story-structure gives a lot of players a higher replay value, it also relinquishes control over narrative pacing, something games that follow a predetermined character’s path don’t have to deal with as much.

For someone who hasn’t looked at Skyrim since it’s original release, it’s easy to say that yes, the game still holds up. The dialogue and voice-acting is absolutely atrocious, but if you just take the whacky quests and exploring the world, it’s still as interesting and impressive as ever. Also Mods on consoles are nice. But when a little Polish studio can put out a game that not only plays better but also has a more impressive world, more interesting characters, and some of the best written dialogue in gaming history, with a team only a quarter the size of Skyrim’s, then we have to hold Bethesda to the same standards of quality. And that’s precisely the reason why I’m not spending fifty hours with this game. Because after just eight hours and not even the first four main story missions it just swallowed my progress. As in my save-file got deleted. Poof, gone.

I’m done with giving Bethesda a „get-out-of-jail“ pass for bugs and glitches as even Fallout 4 pulled nearly the same shit on me a year ago. They deserve the same treatment as any other publisher or developer who puts a poorly optimized and generally buggy game out on the shelf. Especially when it’s a remaster of a five year old game for full price, that’s still littered with the same problems from back then. And on that note, for something to be remastered, it would have had to be mastered in the first place.

Which leads me to this: I’m gonna go play The Witcher 3 again, let’s see how Bethesda plans to come back for The Elder Scrolls VI.

Beitragsbild: Kevin Wendlandt
Bilder: Bethesda Game Studios, CD Project Red