Skyrim’s Lingering Legacy on The Elder Scrolls

It needs no introduction, but for those who haven’t played it, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim from Bethesda Game Studios is among one of the greatest role-playing games (RPGs) that you’ll ever play. Its follow-up title has also been long awaited (more on that later). 

Skyrim is a game that so many people have played, and it’s heavily discussed in gaming circles. Many players have re-bought the game, and its follow-up, currently titled “The Elder Scrolls VI,” is right up there with The Witcher 4, Grand Theft Auto 6, and the recently released Hollow Knight: Silksong as one of the most anticipated games of the decade.

As it currently stands, the Special Edition of Skyrim is the likely version you’ll buy if you own a PC, PlayStation, or Xbox. There is a Nintendo Switch edition, too. If you own Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service that hosts Xbox games, then you already have easy access to the Special Edition of Skyrim. This game is also available in virtual reality if you’re curious, as well as on the Amazon Alexa (yes, that actually is a real thing!).

Skyrim has maintained its popularity all of these years due to its bevy of high-quality content, though user-generated content has kept it fresh since. The modding community, aka the group of players that create said content in Skyrim, is among the cream of the crop (as is often the case with Bethesda games.)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim didn’t become the most ported and moddable game for no reason. It includes a large open world that doesn’t feel bloated with filler content, balances quantity with quality, and has plenty of loot to find, resources to craft with, guilds to join, and epic stories to experience.

Skyrim is set in the fictional world of The Elder Scrolls, within a 9-province empire called Tamriel, filled with different races, cultures, history, and stories. Skyrim (besides being the colloquial name of The Elder Scrolls V) is one of such provinces.

This game is set in a snowy tundra in the north of Tamriel, featuring biomes of swamps, glacial coasts, pine forests, and plains, amongst mountainous geography. Its cities vary from epic medieval castles to small lumber towns. Dungeons and caves blanket the whole map, including ancient ruins, vampire covens, and bandit sites.

There are hundreds of quests and locations for the player to discover, including 5 guilds and 2 factions when including the civil war. There are about 15 Daedric quests (side quests focused on the Daedra deity) to explore the mythology of The Elder Scrolls. The main quest explores the world’s unique take on dragons.

Two marquee guild quest lines here are the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild. 

The Thieves Guild involves the player becoming a lowly thief, stealing loot from civilian homes (without getting caught or killing anyone) to restore the guild to its former glory. 

The Dark Brotherhood is for anyone who wants to role-play as an evil contract killer, as the player takes contracts to kill influential citizens, as well as a particularly massive contract that this article won’t spoil.

Lots of these quests involve player choice, where one can choose who lives and who dies. Players will combat enemies with swords, bows, and magic, gather information from characters, and more. All of that is not even covering the DLC (downloadable content) included with the Special Edition, which delves into vampires, the province of Morrowind, and even house building.

Mods for Skyrim include everything from new loot, locations, companions, and gameplay overhauls. Players will find the most mods on PC (and Nexusmods.com,) though even on Xbox and PlayStation, players can access quite a few from the in-game menu. 

Some of the classic mods here include Sophia and Inigo (each introducing a companion for the player), Ordinator (a perk overhaul), many player homes, as well as Wyrmstooth and Beyond Reach (each expanding the explorable territory), and more. All of the mods that I’ve previously mentioned are free. The Forgotten City, a mod adding a detective tale in an underground city, was celebrated to the point that the team remade it into their very own game years later.

One of the best mods is the Bard’s College Expansion, which expands on the story of the Bard’s College guild, along with several new gameplay mechanics. Although this is where Skyrim has kicked the hornet’s nest in controversy. This mod (unlike most) is not free and costs $10. It’s certainly a high-quality mod worth the price of admission, but paid mods have always been a controversy, given their precedent of largely being free.

That being said, there are some truly massive mods in the works for Skyrim from the community that promise to be the size of whole games when they do eventually release. These include Skyblivion and Skywind, which remake The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind into Skyrim.

Skyrim was released in 2011, and fans have been waiting for its follow-up title since then. The Elder Scrolls VI only started full production in August of 2023, as former Bethesda Publishing Head Pete Hines said in an interview with the Spanish gaming news site Vandal. It likely won’t be released for at least a few more years.

There have been Skyrim spin-offs to varying degrees of quality, including 3 mobile games: Legends, Blades, and Castles. The Elder Scrolls Online has been a roaring success since its overhaul in 2017, and a remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released in April 2025 and is one of the top-selling games of the year.

Regardless, Skyrim’s legacy is that of being one of the greatest RPGs in gaming history. If you love RPGs, give Skyrim a try. It’s a truly incredible experience that one can easily sink hundreds of hours into and become enraptured by its incredible story and lore.