“It is Day 24 of the Fourth Era, and Khajiit loaner Puss ‘n Boats travels the northern coast of Skyrim looking for… a specific scimitar hidden under a boat somewhere between Dawnstar and a shipwreck to the west.” 

How often my roleplaying tendencies tend to be broken by google searches to fit a specific build while playing Skyrim is a question I will never be able to answer. This game has been reviewed and recommended to death since 2011, and part of my hesitancy in even talking about this game comes from a fear of being redundant. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is so many gamers’ ‘stranded island videogame’ that it is almost not worth talking about. Reviewers and YouTubers have emphasized the game’s freedom of choice while bashing its combat and limited roleplaying potential; some have emphasized the mass of quests and quest lines or dozens of caves and dungeons to explore, while others compare it unfavorably to Morrowind or Oblivion for its lack of immersion and bottlenecked roleplaying and inconsistent lore. I have a reasonable and legitimate fear that by talking about this game too long, my love for Skyrim will be overshadowed by a reader’s feeling of déjà vu, the tickling at the back of the mind saying, “Yo, you’ve heard all of this already!”

Having said that, if you are reading this editorial, you have already figured out how I’ve made up my mind. My rationale is that I’m not a game reviewer, I’m not a paid editorialist, I am not a developer; I am a dude who loves video games, and my passion is meant to inspire others to play games that cause them to question their perspective on why a game is incredible. You should know this by now; The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has to be played before you die.

I will not say that my experience with Skyrim is unique, but I will say that my experience is personal. Prior to 2011, I mostly played platformers and Metroidvanias. My goal was to beat a game first, then master it, then achievement hunt, and then move on. Batman: The Arkham Series and Uncharted were the types of modern games that I played the most because they fit my ideal gaming loop, and that’s probably because of my love for platformers and collect-a-thons since the late 90s when I first started playing videogames. However, Skyrim completely shattered my perspective on what a videogame could be.

I could rehash the free exploration, of ‘Barbie dress-up’ for your character, or multiple questlines and dungeons and fill up pages with explanation and context. Instead though, I’d like to talk about something many gamers do not talk about: the Dragonborn himself (or herself).

Skyrim was the first meaningful game I played where I was the main character and I was given meaningful choice. In most games you play a character, but in Skyrim you are meant to portray yourself on the main character. So I did. I made a character that was noble, valiant and brave; I made a Dragonborn who tried to do right and use his powers for good like a medieval superhero. I could have been a thief, a magician, an assassin, or really even all of the above. Instead, I played the hero. When given the choice I chose the hero. 

And make no mistake, I have played this game dozens of times on multiple systems, and each time I roleplay, and each time I try to do something different; and regardless of the race and the build and the armor and the chosen quests, I somehow end up heroic. I take up every menial task to help Skyrim’s denizens, even when my journal should be full to the brim; I try to become Thane in every hold, even if that means putting off the Civil War questline. I choose the dialogue options that emphasize humility and determination. I wait for an enemy to engage me so I feel like I am acting in self-defense. Likewise, I can’t invest in the Stormcloaks because of the overt racism, I can’t kill Parthurnax and betray the Greybeards, I can’t murder a companion to power up the Ebony Blade. True story here, I turned into a werewolf in a playthrough and slaughtered innocent guards in all the towns for the bounty trophy, only to revert to an old save because I couldn’t handle the consequences of naked guard bodies not despawing in towns. And notice that even in this example I couldn’t bring myself to kill named NPCs, as if having a name somehow made these polygons more real. Even when I want to play a rogue I try to only steal from patrons living in extravagant excess, like role-playing Robin Hood makes my kleptomania more honorable or something.

Yes I’m psychoanalyzing here, but hear me out. In a game where I was given a choice, I turned to a caricature, a boring square who did good. And there may be some logical explanations for this. Maybe, I was just being the character I thought Bethesda wanted me to be, a goody two-shoes. Maybe, I long to be a hero in real life, and I portrayed that ideal on a character. Maybe, I just took what I knew and applied it to a game. Or maybe, just maybe, by being given a choice to be anything, I actually found who I wanted to be as a human being. At 21 years old your brain isn’t done developing; maybe I was finding myself. Maybe I did want to do good, to choose values and morality over greed and extortion. And if you are still somehow reading this and you’re thinking, “dude, this is the cheesiest crap I’ve ever read,” then let me lay it on even thicker; maybe games allow you to aspire to be what you want to be in your dreams to the world. Maybe you can be the main character in your own story, and maybe you can encourage others to be the main character in theirs. 

Skyrim is an interesting game to dissect because there are tons of memes implying that all characters become stealth archers, but in my own experience, I am always tempted to do good. I have joined the Dark Brotherhood and Volkihar Vampires, and I always roleplay some sappy redemption story afterwards. It’s in my nature. Skyrim has helped me realize that I am a literal square in real life, and guess what? I’m ok with that. I’m ok with knowing that when given the opportunity to do evil in a videogame, in a realm with literally no real consequences, evil actions make me feel guilt. I am ok with that, and I have learned to embrace that about myself. The great irony in playing Skyrim for the first time, for the 40th time, whenever, is that I have strangely found myself. I can sleep knowing that I am not idolizing or emulating my childhood heroes, I am instead a hero of my own making. Whether its in a character creation screen or in front of goofy 15 and 16 year old students, I have learned who I am and what I want to be.For this specific reason, and this specific reason alone, I encourage everyone to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and maybe you too will find your own self and purpose from the mundane, and share your experiences with others so they can also traverse this wonderful world before they die.