Today I wanted to share my views with you on a game that you have no doubt heard of and maybe even played. It's the latest title in the Elder Scrolls series, namely The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I have put around 400 hours into the game, so the time seemed right to put some of my thoughts down on paper. I want to focus on Skyrim and it's fan created Mods and thereby differentiating this write up from the thousands of others out there, even though I realize that specific theme has undoubtedly been written about before.
I want to emphasize that the "U.A.'s opinion on ... " articles are not reviews, but merely me discussing different subjects that are on my mind. This gives me the freedom to skip certain requirements you would have for a review like in this case summarizing the game's basics like story and mechanics.
Skyrim is a prime example of a sandbox game (feel free to argue with me on this) as you can do almost anything you want, how you want to do it and be 400 hours in like me and still have not finished playing. Although I have to say I'm probably on my 50th character and I'd still be lowballing it. I keep restarting the game with the perfect idea of how I'm going to build my character, but a few hours later I'm back at the starting point with yet another enthusiastic idea. I think that is a sign of a great game; it seems like you could play the game forever. However sometimes it does feel like I'm never making any progress, but that is my own fault for not sticking with one character. It has been around 2,5 years since Skyrim was launched and in that stretch of time I have put in around 400 hours. I think this really speaks for the longetivity of the game which is definately a selling point of Skyrim; I keep going back to the game with fresh ideas and goals.
Since it's launch 3 DLC's have been released; Hearthfire, Dawnguard and Dragonborn. In all the time spent on Skyrim I have only finished the main storyline and not even touched the ones in Dawnguard and Dragonborn. I have not even built my own house yet! Which is something I definately want to do, but I never seem to get to it. Every time my mind wanders to the subject of Skyrim I tell myself: "I'm going to sit down this weekend and really get to it. Finish the storylines and get that house you wanted". But when I do get ingame it takes less than 10 minutes for me to have totally forgotten about my intention. Although this might be telling you more about me then about Skyrim.
You can imagine that, after all that time spent in Skyrim, certain things started to bug me. Like the fact that, while being in a conversation with an NPC, your character would not even face the person they were talking to and just stare into the distance. I'm a big fan (and nitpick) of immersion and roleplaying so this really annoyed me along with other things like great swords 'floating' on your back because of the lack of a scabbard (solved with the "Greatsword sheaths and scabbards" Mod).
Some people might find the realistic approach I took unappealing and I can certainly imagine that. But what I´m trying to show people unfamiliar with the Mods is that you can change the vanilla Skyrim world to anything you would like to see. There are so many changes available and the best part is that it is all user created via the Creation Kit. So if you can think of it then it´s out there.
To give you an example: while reading the A Song of Ice and Fire serie I desperately wanted to see my Skyrim world changed into the world of Westeros and voila! a Game of Thrones Adaptation was created by Kualan. Not only will you be fighting Others but you can even ride your mount and visit the Wall. Guards will no longer walk around in Empire outfits, but will be wearing armor with the colors of House Lannister. And you will no longer be accompanied by Ralof when you start the game, but by Ser Rodrik (with his own appearance of course).
Meet Stannis Baratheon and Lady Melisandre.
Describing this specific overhaul is nothing but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Just perform a Google search for Skyrim and Nexus Mods (and Steam Workshop) and prepare to be overwhelmed. The official statistics on Nexus Mods tell us that there are 31,317 files and 315.89 million downloads for Skyrim alone. This means that aside from the official content created by Bethesda Softworks the additional content is next to infinite thanks to fans all around the globe. And it's not just content that is created; there are also Mods being released by fans that change (I like to think 'perfect') the pillars of the game like the textures, the lighting, the combat mechanics and even the weather.
In closing I would like to suggest that, if you're new to Skyrim, you do play the game at first without any mods. Mainly because you will appreciate the Mods all the more once you are familiar with the vanilla game. You will see what's so great about the game, but also come to the realization that there are minor flaws which Mods are the solution to. Using Mods can't hurt since you can always reinstall. So my recommendation would be to go nuts on the Modding; you never know with what kind of greatness you end up with.
Thank you for reading and I'll see you... next time.
U.A.
The Skyrim Experiment Complete Mod List
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