Skyrim: The RPG for the Rest of Us

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Like millions of others, the game I’ll play more than any other this year is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The only reason this is worth mentioning is because I really, really don’t like RPGs.All that leveling up, those tiresome stats, all those dreary fantasy tropes, the endless tinkering with skills and items. Yawn!

Quasi-Medieval fantasy leaves me cold. When I trouble myself to read George R.R. Martin, my eyes roll at his absurd olde worlde lingo. I’ve never been tempted, not for one second, to actually play World of Warcraft. There are very few people in the world less qualified than me to write about RPGs.

But this Skyrim? This one is different. It’s an RPG for the rest of us. It’s a land made for you and me; we innocents who care little for warlocks and wizards, guilds and ghosts.
The guys at Bethesda are no mugs. Every single time you see Todd Howard or Pete Hines or Craig Lafferty talking to a journalist, the first thing out of their mouths is the line about Skyrim’s accessibility, its universal appeal, its ability to be all things to all men, and women. And this isn’t merely a marketing-made dogma shaped for the masses. It’s the game’s central design principle.
The reason why I can’t wait for Skyrim is that it is not an RPG, it’s an escape-hatch to another world. All games, especially RPGs, offer this possibility of escape, but Skyrim’s detail, realism and the sense of wonder it exudes makes it more tempting for non-RPGers than stat-heavy, graphically-limited rivals.

Here are six reasons why Skyrim will break through to the RPG ambivalent masses.Take a walk through those opening scenes of the game and compare this world with anything else on current generation consoles or even PC.





As the game progresses, you’ll wander through valleys, tundra, cave-scapes, cities and mountains. The music, composed by Jeremy Soule, adds to the grandeur.

When Oblivion came out, I used it to show off ‘how amazing games look now’ to older family members. They were blown away. Skyrim represents a high point in video game universe creation. It’s the sort of game where you wander around, just taking in the scenery, reveling in the detail of every shrub, rock and broken tree.

Bethesda loves for players to just wander off and pick flowers or chat with washer-women and blacksmiths. This is what makes the game so special.
Lead producer Craig Lafferty recently said, “We make these huge open world games so you can go where you want, be what you want, play what you want, so if you don’t ever finish the main quest you’re still having a great time.”
Executive producer Todd Howard explained, “We really try to give you a big vast world to play in. Be who you want. Do what you want. We don’t know what you are doing to do. We just want to give you a load of tools.”




Freedom is the central promise of the game. It’s not built as a straight line. And there’s no shortage of stuff to do: 280 perks, five major cities, 300 books, 150 unique dungeons and 500 individual activities.

The main quest is probably going to be about 30-40 hours long, but that’s just a tiny part of the experience, which also includes guild activities, experimentation with potions, herbs and foods, crafting and working. Skyrim is about wandering off and stumbling across caves and abandoned towns and just stuff the designers have placed there on the off-chance that you’ll stroll by. Most games still do not behave this way. They don’t invest in wanderlust.
And if you really are the sort of person who likes to be taken by the hand, there’s a ‘Clairvoyance’ spell that draws a path along the ground to your next quest objective.