Opinion piece
The 11th of November 2021 marks the 10-year anniversary of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and with it, yet another release of the open world fantasy epic. Skyrim and it’s many, many releases have become a meme within the gaming community, with gamers everywhere craving the next entry in The Elder Scrolls Series.
The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced to be in ‘pre-production’ at E3 2018 with a short CGI trailer that potentially teases location. Still, fans of the franchise (myself included) are going to have to wait a few more years with Todd ‘Godd’ Howard and team firmly focused on Starfield, scheduled to release on Skyrim’s 11th anniversary 11th of November 2022.
Why Skyrim again?
The re-release of Skyrim then, is obviously a way of trying to appease fans of the franchise, by scratching their The Elder Scrolls itch but also keep new people coming to the franchise. While I understand the logic to this move, I can’t help but wonder if it couldn’t have been achieved and to greater effect (and side stepping the meme that is the re-releasing of Skyrim) by remastering/remaking The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and/or The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. I would argue, in fact, that this would have been a much better idea.
Before I proceed, I want to put in a disclaimer that no Skyrim hate is intended with this. Skyrim is definitely in my top 3 favourite games, maybe even my number 1. As I said before, I am a big fan of The Elder Scrolls, and I will definitely be one of the many people who buys this game again for the 50th time. I will however make my case as to why my idea of remaking Morrowind and/or Oblivion (in the same vein as the Mafia remake) would be better received and tick the same boxes as releasing Skyrim Anniversary Edition.
The Giant Skyrim problem
Okay, now with that out of the way I may as well start with the mammoth in the room. The meme. I know it is still one of the most played games on Steam, thanks to the modding community, role playing capabilities and sheer volume of quests, but the fact that it is a meme in the first place suggests that the gaming community is suffering from some kind of “Skyrim sickness”. The same goals could be achieved for the franchise by a remake of Morrowind or Oblivion. Both exist in some capacity already, as mods… Skyblivion for example.
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Skyblivion screenshot Source: https://skyblivion.com/press-kit/
Nostalgia sells
As the gaming industry grows older, so does the age of the gamers. One thing that is irrefutable is that nostalgia is one hellava drug, and The Elder Scrolls is a franchise that has that nostalgia factor. Morrowind and Oblivion are high up there too. People want to play old games they are nostalgic for and buy games for their kids that they are nostalgic for.
Having been released many times over the past 10 years on almost every device that can run it, Skyrim must surely be close to market saturation. I know that Microsoft wants to reach billions of gamers out there but Skyrim Special Edition is new enough not to need another release for this bigger target market. Morrowind and Oblivion will certainly have a much lower market saturation and will be like brand new games launching to many people, Morrowind especially, being an OG Xbox game. This is playable through the wizardry of the Xbox backcompat team. I do think though, that it will struggle to gain much traction with such outdated mechanics and visuals. Oblivion does hold up a lot better (mechanically at least) but visual upgrades would breathe new life into it.
After the ‘E3’ 2021 Todd Howard made an appearance talking about the upcoming releases Starfield there was a snippet of information dropped that I was very happy about, Starfield is more of a role play experience, something that Skyrim started to go softer on, potentially to hit mass market accessibility. The fact that they are doing this with their new IP could be risky though and remaking/mastering Oblivion and Morrowind could have been a great way of softening people up to this prospect as well as getting good feedback, as Morrowind and Oblivion have heavier role play mechanics.
Morrowind and Oblivion have the best main and faction quests
Getting into the meat of the subject, let’s talk about main questlines. This includes the main factions and guilds in the game. I take nothing away from Skyrim here, it has some truly brilliant quests that have me on the edge of my seat with each play through. But I think that the quest writing is just better in Morrowind and Oblivion. This is achieved mostly with pacing in guild rankings. In Skyrim, too often you advance to the guild master too quickly. In The Dark Brotherhood, you almost immediately become The Listener, in The Thieves Guild, Brynjolf “just sees something in you” and you very quickly advance to the saviour of the guild, in The Companions, after one quest you immediately become a werewolf… I could go on. Despite being the chosen one, NPCs within the guild still treat you the same and talk down to you. Apart from being bad for role playing, it takes away from the story of the questline, and how you get from just starting to the final epic part of the quest. It gives you immediate urgency to do everything, instead of building slowly up to one epic climax. In the Thieves Guild in Oblivion for example, and most guilds in that game, there is a really slow build up to it. The rankings within the guild give you a real sense of where you stand and give the questlines really good pacing, so that by the end of it you are performing ‘The Ultimate Heist’, stealing an Elder Scroll discovering the story of the Grey Fox and eventually getting the Grey Cowl of Nocturne.
I could make very similar comparisons for a lot of the main questlines in Skyrim vs Morrowind/Oblivion. As I said before though, I don’t want to bash Skyrim, it’s a great game, one of the best ever made. It’s just not what anyone is asking for at the moment – see Twitter poll.
Before signing off, I want to let my readers know that I know gaming is all subjective, we all have our own preferences in games. I am biased towards Elder Scrolls 3 and 4 because I am so nostalgic for them. Despite all of my arguments as to why they should remake/master one of the earlier games over a Skyrim re-release, I would not want them to do any of this if it would delay Elder Scrolls 6 in any way (or Starfield), that, I think we could all agree on.
Which would you prefer? Let us know in the comments or on Social Media.
Profile – Xbox Series X. I enjoy both single and multiplayer games but the majority of my gaming hours are spent on MP games. Genres I enjoy most: platformers, Battle royal, RPGs and twin stick shooters and survival/basebuilders. Some of my favourite games are Elder Scrolls games, PUBG/Warzone, Sonic, Minecraft and Deep Rock Galactic.
