Recently, the player base forSkyrimhas rocketed, once again, to a new high. Everyone has beenflocking back to the gameafter tryingOblivion: Remastered, and it’s admittedly curious.
It makes you wonder: what is it about Skyrim that’s so special? Why is it that, despite Oblivion: Remastered being centre-stage, it all comes back to Skyrim?
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Last month, I was laid off from my day job as a high schoolJAGteacher. While I was lucky enough to then be hired at a different school teaching the same subject, it was still one of the most devastating moments of my life.
Like many others laid off from a job they love,the upheaval sent my mental health into a spiral, with zero motivation or drive to do anything … except play Skyrim.
And I think, to put it simply, it’s because of the world of Skyrim itself.
Skyrim is a Balm
A Bleakness You Can Directly Save
Let’s not beat around the bush: the recession is hitting hard, and layoffs are becoming as commonplace as price increases. It’s bleak, and people, naturally, feel helpless in these situations beyond their control.
But in gaming?Control is the first, immediate thingyou have. The world of Skyrim, when you enter it for the first time, is in just about as much chaos and disarray as you can imagine, but you end up being the one to initiate the positive changes. The flock to Skyrim isn’t a case of causation, but correlation, and it’s something I ended up experiencing firsthand.
And the thing is,autonomy is essential for mental health; so when you’re put in a helpless situation that you may turn around and be directly helpful, it genuinely helps your mental health.
Skyrim as a world ended up being the perfect balm to soothe this need for autonomy and control – a cold, desolate land that, despite all the hopelessness, there’s still richness and warmth.
With a vast web of characters and stories, combined with Jeremy Soule’s gentle, melodic soundtracks, the game becomes fully realised and lived-in; plus, it becomes incredibly comforting. It doesn’t help that the aesthetics of the world itself only add to this comfort, with warm lighting indoors and stunning skies outdoors. Perhaps people just yearn for medieval (or in Skyrim’s case, Norse) pleasantries, but I digress.
It’s this world’s richness that draws you in, and it’s practically addictive. Constantly, you’re enticed to do more, to explore, to simply soak it all in – it draws you in, deeper and deeper, until the next thing you know, you’vesunk 140 hoursinto the game.
In my case, I had also just gotten extended storage for myPS5, so I was able to download thePS4version to the extended storage and play it directly from there, which the system registers as a different game entirely, meaning I was able to work on platinuming the game from the very start. Trophy hunting, the original dopamine-chaser, just makes Skyrim all the more addicting.
This ends up making a game that’s the perfect distraction, and a perfect reminder of why it’s constantly calling for us to return.
Why Do We Keep Coming Back?
Even With Oblivion: Remastered Front and Centre
Sure, when it comes to autonomy, it’s great for mental health – it’s a huge reason why gaming is so beloved overall – but what makes Skyrim so special as a game that makes us keep coming back to it? What is it about a nearly 15-year-old game that has us gripped to it as strongly as the day it came out?
Even die-hardOblivionfans are finding themselves coming back, even after one of their favourite games literally gets a dream remaster. It’s no longer a comparison of games themselves, but rather, the worlds in which they take place.
Cyrodill, as delightful as it is, is small, first things first – being about the size of one of the nine holds in Skyrim itself. Plus, it’s a traditional type of high fantasy that we’re used to seeing in the genre. The vast kingdom of Skyrim, on the other hand, is a unique type of fantasy, one that’s a lot more grounded and almost historical.
But, most of all, it’salive.
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We’re not coming back to the game of Skyrim, we’re coming back to theworldof Skyrim,and there’s a distinct difference in that. They’re connected, sure, but the rich world is directly responsible for this game’s firm grip on the player base.
The world is lightning in a bottle, backed up by decades of lore and immersion. Even then, you don’t have to know anything aboutThe Elder Scrollsin order to dive into Skyrim and become entranced by the world and its many (many) characters.
Plus, many of these characters are unique, with their own routines and schedules, not to mention their own connections and storylines. They’re the potatoes to the meat of the world, and it cooks the most fulfilling and comforting dinner you’ve had in a long while.
Bethesda has always been excellent when it comes to environmental storytelling, but the details that are displayed in Skyrim are unlike any other video game world. Some are clear enough for any player, but other secrets are so well-hidden that you could still be discovering new things over a decade later.
The richness of the kingdom of Skyrim ends up serving as not just the foundation for the entire game (and by extension, the experience), but also as a retreat from a world far colder than theirs.
The World of Skyrim is Timeless
It’s Not Home, But We Know Our Way Around
Sure, it’s funny to joke about the constant re-releases of Skyrim, how it’ll be a game that we’ll still be playing for the next hundred years before we get a crumb ofElder Scrolls VIcontent. Yet, there’s a reason we keep coming back to Skyrim – it’s a home away from home.
By stepping into a different, equally lived-in world as our own, we find comfort in the familiar, but wonder in the newness. We see similarities from our own lives and histories, yet are intrigued with the differences, fascinated to learn and experience more. Just saying, from an anthropological lens, the world and culture of Skyrim is absolutelyfascinating.
Even our problems don’t seem so massive anymore – after all, we aren’t facing the literal World Eater, nor a million other malevolent creatures and entities around every corner.
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Because of this, the world of Skyrim is the perfect escape to many like myself, especially in difficult times like we’re facing in the real world. We go about our lives and work as hard as we can, surviving whatever life has to throw at us – but there’s another world waiting for us from the comfort of our homes, a world that we can fully immerse in and explore.
We can find the moments of relief, of escape, while also reclaiming autonomy of our own. We can pave a future for ourselves in spite of hardship, finding comfort and warmth in what we thought to be cold and inhospitable. Simply put, we can move on – just as I was able to move on with the shattering loss of my career, even if it was temporary.
Because, at the end of the day, there’s still Skyrim.
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