Skyrim Predictions

We are now less than a week from the release of Bethesda’s newest addition to the Elder Scrolls saga, Skyrim. Previous installments of this sage, such as Oblivion and The Shivering Isles, immersed gamers in a unique, mystical RPG full of beauty and endless possibilities. There were classes and races to experience, weapons to wield, magic to craft, lands to explore, choices to make, and stories to unveil. Anyone even remotely invested in the Elder Scrolls could easily spend over 100 hours playing them and still fail to experience everything they had to offer.

It seems as though Skyrim will continue this epic sage in much of the same way, adding new possibilities in terms of combat, inventory, and character design. I’ve watched footage of Skyrim released by E3 and G4 and have read a brief overview of Skyrim in Game Informer Magazine. It appears the game is trying very hard to broaden its appeal to non-RPG players and, all things considered, is succeeding magnanimously.

I enjoy RPGs, but have never found myself incredibly invested in them. Games like Final Fantasy, Oblivion, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age are simply too lengthy and too in-depth to captivate my attention in the long run. As an intrinsic connoisseur of video games, I have often considered why RPGs tend to operate outside my preferential dome. The only solution I can procure is that RPGs make it more difficult to complete a video game in its entirety. As a gamer, I like to experience everything a game has to offer, finishing it as close to 100% completion as humanly possible. With games like Darksiders or Bioshock, it’s not impossible to imagine myself accomplishing this within a week.

With RPGs, however, 100% completion is improbable or nigh impossible. There are literally thousands of situations, quests, and skills to experience or hone, some of which take hours to complete. The result is that a gamer must either accept a partial performance or be willing to devote weeks of his life to a single video game. This has always been difficult for me to grasp, hence my reluctance to cling to an RPG.

For other gamers, RPGs are the highest echelon of entertainment. One of my closest and dearest friends enjoys RPGs like Oblivion and Mass Effect more than he enjoys most other types of games. As one might expect, this friend also tends to exhibit a high level of patience and long-term tolerance with video games. I, on the other hand, am often content to operate within the realm of first-person shooters, action-driven games, and more finite forms of entertainment.

Skyrim might just change all that.

Developer Bethesda’s attempts to broaden the appeal of Skyrim to more gamers is impossible to deny. The game’s focus on aesthetic beauty, magic wielding, a functioning inventory system, exploration, expansion, and scope is too incredible to ignore. This doesn’t mean I will buy Skyrim the instant it hits shelves across America, but I admit I am drawn to the potential success of this game as a stand-alone hit and trendsetter.

What exactly about Skyrim has prompted me to so quickly abandon my reservations about RPGs? The better question is what about Skyrim has not prompted this change?

The first thing that caught my attention concerning Skyrim was, as already mentioned, its incredible beauty. When I glanced through the first 15 or so minutes of Skyrim gameplay released on IGN, I couldn’t recollect a game that even came close to matching the visual quality of what I saw. I thought for a while that Rage could have given Skyrim a run for its money and, indeed, it succeeded greatly in terms of visual beauty. Nevertheless, Skyrim will undoubtedly be Rage‘s visual successor simply because it provides stunning graphics over a much larger spectrum of the imagination. Within Skyrim, snow falls, waterfalls bubble, trees sway listlessly in the breeze, magic flashes in vivid colors, and characters move and speak with remarkable clarity. Honestly, I don’t think there exists a game that more closely represents the real world than Skyrim. That is, if the real world had dragons and woolly mammoths.

On that note, Skyrim‘s choice to include dragons is a interesting one, albeit gutsy. Dragons will undoubtedly be the closest equivalent to boss battles the Elder Scrolls has witnessed to date. They appear to be extraordinarily powerful, fast, armored, and generally difficult to bring down. This will provide an added challenge to hardcore gamers that I believe they will enjoy. Furthermore, Skyrim‘s choice to equate the slaying of dragons to the leveling of your character is a unique move that I believe will add an appreciable flair to the game. Because your character in Skyrim is dragon born, you are able to draw upon the souls of slain dragons to reap  a sort of “dragon speak.” By discovering their lost language and then slaying the few living dragons left in the world, you will gain the power to speak special “words” that come with extraordinary powers, such as the ability to cast storms, move with remarkable speed, or breathe fire and ice. It’s a very original idea, and I am definitely a fan of gameplay methods that have never been utilized before.

Of course, the inclusion of dragons and spectacular visuals doesn’t even bring to mention the incredible inventory system and overworld map Skyrim uses. When leveling your character, Skyrim doesn’t simply bring up a boring stat sheet or screen clogged with slider bars and graphs. No, Skyrim turns your character’s eyes to the stars, where your leveling system takes the form of a constellation unique to your class type and build. As you level certain skills – such as blocking, armor, and magic – individual stars contained within your constellation begin to connect and form pathways. The end result is that you are left with your own unique imprint upon the sky that will continue to morph as your skills continue to develop.

The overworld map provides you with a bird’s eye view of the entire land contained within Skyrim. It is simple, yet complex enough to contain an exact depiction of every mountain range, forest, town, and road you can traverse. The developers of Skyrim have promised that “if you can see it, you can go there.” This is hefty promise considering the vast, expansive nature of Skyrim‘s overworld. Furthermore, this doesn’t even include the large number of caves, underworlds, dungeons, and underground passageways Skyrim is sure to contain. Overall, it appears to be a game that you could spend days doing nothing but wandering around and still fail to see everything it had to offer. And personally, that’s fine with me.

Another integral part of Skyrim is contained within the system of magic. As with Elder Scroll games of the past, your character is given a wide variety of spells – illumination, destruction, summoning, etc – with which to experiment. Unlike its predecessors, however, Skyrim has removed the ability to craft your own spells. This worried me initially, seeing as spellcrafting seemed too important to the customization aspect of the Elder Scrolls to consider removing. Nevertheless, Skyrim has filled that void with a spellcrafting element that will substitute just as well in my opinion. This element is the ability to duel-wield any two spells, one spell in each respective hand. This means you can illuminate a dark cavern with your left hand and cast destructive lightning bolts with the other. Combine two of the same spell and you can create an ultra-powerful version of the base spell complete with additional damage and area of effect. I am still unclear as to the level of synergy duel-wielding spells will have, but the potential is virtually limitless. Imagine sending lightning bolts snaking along the ground, seeking out enemies and then freezing them solid on contact. Imagine fire that engulfs enemies and then reanimates their corpses into undead minions. Again, the fact that I haven’t heard mention of this level of synergy means that it probably won’t be included in Skyrim. Then again, it’s possible developers are just keeping it on the down low until November 11, 2011.

I could continue talking about exactly how amazing Skyrim will be, but the fact is that we’re not going to have to wait much longer to see for ourselves. Keep your eyes fixed on your calenders, gamers. Skyrim will be rocking your world with its own before too long.

VERDICT

Skyrim is going to be awesome, no doubt about it. It is being released alongside other incredible titles, such as Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Rage, Skyward Sword, and Modern Warfare 3 (to name a few). Despite the excellence and gravity of theses other games, I believe Skyrim is an apt contender for 2011 Game of the Year. Really, the only thing holding me back from preordering the game right now the issue of money (which is in short supply right now). Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel as though Skyrim is going to sneak its way into my life one way or another. Will it do the same for you?