For many games, longevity is commonly a bumper sticker claim from developers, but rarely do they experience the type of relevancy that Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has seen over the past decade. With the ten year anniversary of Skyrim coming up in 2021, it's important to look back and understand what made the game so successful. Beyond having great gameplay and story, Skyrim is a perfect example of how community is just as important to a game's lifespan.
Over the last ten years, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has managed to become a best-seller on every platform it was released on and many fans would purchase multiple copies for multiple platforms. Despite the fact that the core game has never changed, Bethesda's focus on creating an immersive experience has allowed Skyrim to feel like the first, truly open-ended RPG. As a result, the possibilities for Skyrim feel endless yet still rewarding ten years later.
The Modding Community
Despite the number of platforms that Skyrim has been released on, there is no platform more crucial to its success than PC. Skyrim has a great base game with a massive amount of content on any platform, but PC mods enable its infinite replay value. Perhaps the biggest reason that Skyrim is still so successful is Bethesda's willingness to develop modding communities around its games. While some developers frown upon modding or even sue for copyright infringement, Bethesda openly supports modding and even offers players the Creation Kit, a program to create custom content with the game's files.
The modding community is extremely active to this day and is perhaps the biggest reason for Skyrim's longevity. Most games will feel outdated a few years down the line whether it's because of graphics, gameplay, or something else. However, modding exists to circumvent that issue allowing players to play Skyrim any way they please. The sheer number of existing mods covers everything from 4K textures to revamped UIs to entirely new combat systems. If a pre-existing mechanic is unenjoyable for a player, they can easily modify it to their preference. As a result, Skyrim rarely feels like an outdated game nearing ten years. Instead, each new save file can bring a different experience for players, and the endless possibilities is a major reason for Skyrim's continued success.
The Core Game
Of course, having a dedicated modding community around a game doesn't necessarily guarantee its longevity either. There are plenty of games with a great modding community behind them that don't come anywhere near the level of success of Skyrim. While having an active modding community is the biggest reason that Skyrim has been successful for so long, it's just as important to acknowledge how well-crafted the base game is.
The greatest appeal of Skyrim is how immersive the experience feels. Back in 2011, Skyrim was a huge shift in how open-world games played. With the giant map, players were free to explore anywhere at any given time and were not restricted by the mainline quests. Even today, games still attempt to recreate the immersive feeling that Skyrim offered with the scale of its open-world freedom.
Moreover, thanks to the inclusion of radiant quests, Skyrim has an endless amount of randomized quests allowing for different experiences during different playthroughs. Each faction in Skyrim offers randomized questlines that change components such as location, enemy type, and reward. These quests can be repeated infinitely and offer players a new experience every day. Of course, these quests might appear redundant or stale after a while, but Skyrim features a lot of richly developed sidequests to go along with them.
Accessibility and Portability
When Skyrim was first released, there was some criticism from longtime fans of the series that the mechanics were too simplified. Compared to its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, there were fewer armor slots, less customization, and the combat was no longer stat-based. The learning curve for previous games had been removed, consequences and limitations were minor, and the combat system was revamped and simplified. Over the years, however, it's become evident how important accessibility is for Skyrim.
The base mechanics of Skyrim are fairly simple and don't require any sort of learning curve. This means that new players or players less accustomed to RPGs are able to pick up the game and start enjoying it right away. At the same time, veterans of the series are able to utilize the skill development system to give themselves a challenge. The variety of skill builds and combinations are huge, and this is also another factor in Skyrim's longevity. It might be more accurate to describe Skyrim as a sandbox with RPG elements rather than a RPG with sandbox elements. The RPG mechanics aren't the biggest draw of Skyrim, it's the ability for any player to pick up the game and immediately start immersing themselves into its world.
This design philosophy is evident when Bethesda decided to release Skyrim again on the Nintendo Switch. In most cases, a six-year-old game should not be expected to sell well on a brand new console. Yet the Nintendo Switch offered a new form of accessibility for Skyrim that it hadn't seen before: portability. Releasing the game on the Nintendo Switch allowed Bethesda to tap into another market of gamers that might not have originally found Skyrim interesting. All of a sudden, players were able to take Skyrim wherever they went, and this new accessibility turned the game into another best-seller for the Nintendo Switch. Even without any sort of modding support behind it, the Nintendo Switch version was able to sell incredibly well because Bethesda was able to recognize the potential of a new audience.
The Future of The Elder Scrolls Series
The fact that Skyrim has lasted ten years is a testament to not only the game itself but the community that's been built around it. As for future plans, Bethesda has mentioned that Skyrim's longevity means that its successor will have to last just as long. It seems that Bethesda plans to make The Elder Scrolls 6 last for at least a decade and judging by their track record, this seems more than plausible. After all, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion have both been around longer than Skyrim, and with the amount of mods available, show no sign of slowing down in the future.
Bethesda has managed to create an open-world adventure that not only features stellar gameplay, but also allows players to customize their experience through its communities. As Skyrim closes in on its tenth anniversary, it's interesting to see how Bethesda's development of the modding community and accessibility has shaped the lifespan of the game. With its continued success, Skyrim is one of the few games that can claim relevancy for more than a decade.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.