It’s been nearly six years since we last saw an entry into The Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion brought Bethesda’s game into the next generation with universal acclaim from both critics and fans. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the next chapter in this epic saga, ready  for players to explore and experience. Skyrim not only offers players new locations, characters, and loot, but it includes the holy grail for any fantasy RPG, those infamous dragons. Does this chapter of The Elder Scrolls burn with great ambition, or does it just fail to impress?

For those of you who are well versed adventurers in the land of Cyrodiil from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, prepare for a new grand adventure that will spans across the Nord land of Skyrim. Two hundred years have passed since the gates of Oblivion were shut, the high king of Skyrim has been assassinated, and civil war between the Imperials and a rebel group called Stormcloaks threatens the land. And to make matters worse dragons return to the land of Skyrim to terrorize and wreak havoc for the citizens that inhabit the land. As usual your fully customizable character is the only person to prevent the destruction of Skyrim, however like all customizable characters, you have to start somewhere. Skyrim begins in  rather a unique way, without wanting to spoil the intro, it starts with quite an epic bang! It does of course have similarities to both Morrowind and Oblivion by taking certain cues from both games. Once that breathtaking starter has subsided you can soon set out on adventures in the land of Skyrim.

Skyrim is set in the northernmost region of Tamriel, where most of the Nords inhabit, and is suitably called Skyrim. In the land of the Nords myths, legends, and rumours are aplenty; one legend that is spoken across the land, and is the main focus of the story, is the tale of the Dragonborn. These unique individuals are born and charged with the duty of defeating the Alduin, the Nordic god of destruction and the many dragons that accompany this god. One part of being a Dragonborns is the ability to speak and shout in the dragon’s tongue. Soon you will discover that you are one of those few mystical Dragonborns, and that you must complete your predestined task before all of Tamriel is destroyed. Even though this may be your destiny, that doesn’t mean you’ve got to go running off down the straight path to the goal, oh no, Skyrim offers you many ways to get to your goal.

Geographically Skyrim consists mostly of mountains, forests, arctic plains, and rural countrysides that weighs in at roughly the same size as Cyrodiil. Having only five major cities, and scattered settlements, most of Skyrim is made up of a huge wilderness to explore, despite its lack of inhabitants it does feature many more creatures to tackle. Among the wilderness, players can explore many locations: caves, dungeons, abandon castles, etcetera, at least in this wide expanse you have the tools to combat the hulking beasts that dominate this landscape.

Before any actual gameplay can occur you must mould your fully customizable avatar into the visage fitting of a Dragonborn! Just like many Bethseda titles before it, character creation is the start of your new adventure and hero. There are ten playable races within Skyrim, each one a re-imaged race from the TES stable that still have their unique special abilities. Argonian’s can still breathe under water and resist poison like nobody’s business, whilst Khajiit can still see in the dark and claw anybody and everybody’s face of. Every race is detailed from head to toe with gritty realism, unlike the papery characters from Oblivion that looked cartoonish. Once race and gender has been picked you can finally fine-tune your character, refreshingly character creation has advanced and become more precise. You’ll have more control than ever before to create their perfectly made avatar, you can even adjust facial and body features along with adding beards, war paint, scars, the list goes on.  However if you’re the lazy type, who doesn’t want to be Prometheus moulding a man from clay, you can pick from a roster of preset faces and builds. Once you have finally finished or perfected you’re creation your true adventure begins.

Now on your ever expanding adventure, you’ll soon be free to experience the new additions, tweaks, and improvements to the TES gameplay. The first noticeable difference is the user interface and its much more streamlined appearance. Health, Fatigue, and Magic bars only appear when being depleted, or used, along with this the level up bar rears its head when experience is being gained. Bethesda have completely overhauled the menu system which now contains equip screens for your seperate magic, skills, items, as well as a map; a map that has been significantly overhauled into a fully 3D rendered model than can be viewed in 360°. At the press of a button you can also view your journal which contains your quests, general stats, and the system menu. This overhaul is really welcome, you’ll wonder how you did without it in all the previous TES games, it’s just so convenient and accessible.

Unlike many RPGs, instead of choosing a pre-set class with minor and major skills, characters now develop abilities naturally and in anyway you want them to. The skill tree is a new system which will house perks for you to choose. Once the levelled up you can choose to increase Health, Magic, or Stamina by ten points, and give one perk point to use on the skill tree. This makes for a less confusing leveling up system, and more precise distribution amongst abilities. Perk points can be put into one of the eighteen skills trees which include: Smithing, Alchemy, Light Armour, One-Handed weaponry, the list just goes on. Within the skill tree there are three major play styles; Warrior, Mage, and Thief. Each one of these styles then has six skill trees that correlate to them. Such a level of fidelity  given to players  means that you can create your ideal class anyway you want.

All of these skills correlate to combat in some way shape or form. If magic is your thing, then there are a variety of spells at your disposal, you can even have a spell in either hand! If those spells then happen to be the same their effects will be doubled, however more mana is spent in the process. Those who want to be valiant warriors, or skulking thieves have the option to choose from a wide array of weapons and features. One tasty addition to combat is the dual wielding of swords, daggers, one handed axes, and maces, and if that isn’t enough you can even perform assassinations, and finishing moves (which does include the fabled decapitation.) For those who are penchant to a sneaky bit of lock picking will find out that the mechanic has been lifted from Fallout 3. By giving players these options, Bethesda has really allowed for diversity in combat to happen on the fly, truly creating a game where everybody’s experience will be different. The ability to switch weapons and magic via the quick swap menu makes for faster and immersive battles that can really change in pace and strategy swiftly. The newest aspect to combat would be Dragon Shouts. As a Dragonborn, Dragon Shouts are an intrinsic part of the role, along your adventures through Skyrim you’ll find and utilize these shouts; there are many way to gain such vocal chord destroying powers, killing dragons and absorbing their souls, and finding lost ruins, are just a few ways to obtain these mysterious scripts. Each shout has a different ability and are made up of three key words, once all three words have been found it will be finally useable against whatever foe is foolish enough to stumble across you.

The skill tree doesn’t just offer ways to sculpt your characters abilities, it also offers you the chance to improve how you craft your own armor, weapons, and equipment. You can go to the blacksmith to use their facilities and, like the beast you are, forge, grind and work those weapons into shape. Blacksmith facilities can upgrade, create, and dismantle your equipment, you can even use alchemy tables to create potions and traps, whilst an enchanter’s table can be used to enchant weapons, armour, and equipment, even a chief pot can be use to make food and new recipes. All of these facilities don’t have any requirements to use them so straight from the off you can begin customising and creating, however you will need the items you want to synthesise together.

You’ll also be happy to know that the world is completely dynamic, each enemy has a different strategy to kill you. Bandits will, for the most part, rush in and attack, whilst more organized groups of Imperials or Stormcloaks will have complex strategies to take an opponent down. Creatures in the wild have different strategies, whilst most will rush in and attack (Wolves love this strategy), some enemies like trolls may back away if hurt too much so they can regenerate their health. Enemy levelling is somewhat questionable at times; taking the method from Fallout 3 there are areas in the game where high level monsters roam, but for the most part they are on par with your level. As for the rest of the world you’ll see that NPCs have a full schedule, they live normal lives like farming, smithing, and go about their general activities, which give them individual personalities. Tied into this conversations also have been improved so time no longer freezes time and gets uncomfortably close to their face, this allows NPCs to continue their current activity and means conversations feel more realistic.

Bethesda has developed a brand new engine for Skyrim, and so understandably it’s a huge improvement over other Bethesda titles. Draw distance is better, character models are more realistic and detailed, enemies come in different varieties, and each of the environments have a unique feel; it engine offers an immersive and beautiful experience for the TES universe. The dragons are really where the engine shows off the detail and time that Bethesda invested in creating each one of them. Even the music reacts depending on your environment, from a nice, calm melody to an epic battle cry depending on your situation. Voiceovers fair better than other Bethesda titles, they may not be perfect, but NPCs are no longer wooden. Sadly some of this immersion can be broken by graphical glitches, screen tearing, and some game-breaking bugs, like getting stuck in a dungeon.

Overall Skyrim offers an improved, accessible, and immersive experience. The story offers a simple, yet dynamic and expansive, tale of saving the world once again from ultimate destruction. Gameplay has become more accessible by giving players more control over levelling, a user friendly interface, and improved combat. Presentation has been vastly improved over other Bethesda titles, which only heightens the immersive experience. Although voiceovers can be downright laughable at times, the games overall audio has come on leaps and bounds. Sadly there are some game-breaking issues and graphical glitches that really break immersion. Besides this small niggle Skyrim is possibility the best Elder Scrolls game in the series.

Final Score: 4.5/5