The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

How do I even approach something like this behemoth?

Guess I should start with this: I only really started hearing about Bethesda Game Studios a year or two into writing this blog, when I began informing myself on gaming news and such. I had heard of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. I had no idea how many other franchises were owned by their parent company – not any games I gravitated towards since I wasn’t a PC gamer at the time. Shortly after I joined Steam, I got my hands on a couple of Bethesda titles through sales – that’s how I got today’s game, but also Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4. I went for the original version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, not the re-release with a graphical upgrade; in my personal finances, I could only afford that one.

Beware of swooping dragons.

After many years hearing about Skyrim (not to mention Bethesda themselves always finding a new excuse to re-release it whenever they can), I could finally try it out. Since I rarely play these big-release titles that find a use for most keys of the keyboard (my other experience with an AAA title is GTA V), it took me some getting used to at first. When I started playing, I just did two hours, created my character (I picked Redguard), and played the first mission. I stopped in Riverwood… and then didn’t touch the game for nearly a year. When I picked it up again, this is where the adventure truly began. I started playing it in June 2019, and am still going around.

Oh course, I had heard of the map’s size and how large this world was: What I could find on it, what I could visit… It’s no secret that this game is packed full of stuff to do. I went in hoping to do as much as possible, until I saw the map proper.

….O… Okay, this was gonna take some more planning than I thought. My first idea was to meticulously visit every inch of the world in order to find all the dungeons, all the places that could be visited, all the areas of interest, and clear a bunch of them to level up until I felt ready for the main quest. Even after a hundred hours visiting this world, I still have only this achieved:

Anything covered is a dungeon I’ve cleared. Thanks MS Paint, you’re a big help once again. Oh, and I haven't updated that map in a while...

Hundreds of dark basements await!

I am under no illusion of being the first to talk about this game; it came out on November 11th, 2011 after all. I’m also well aware that damn near everything that can be said about Skyrim has likely been said already, but I’m hoping to bring in some interesting perspectives nonetheless. Take this review as the perspective of someone discovering the game for the first time. I’ll try not to reference any recent screw-ups by Bethesda, either, since most of them aren’t related to the Elder Scrolls franchise – and if I did, I’d be here all day talking about anything BUT Skyrim. The only game element I can safely talk about is the glitches I’ve come across, and that will be at the very end. 

But without further ado, let’s discuss the main quest, shall we? Any topics of interest will come along the way.

UNBOUND

"Yeah yeah, I'm finally awake."

Some luck I happen to have – accidentally stepped into Skyrim from Cyrodiil, and now I’m sentenced to death. Just another Sundas in this high-fantasy world, right? I’m brought to Helgen with other criminals about to see their necks have a very intimate meeting with an axe. My arrival there allows me to see what this world is about, and create my character in the process.

Why did I pick Redguard? I was told that each race inhabiting this world had a handful of perks that may come in handy, but I couldn’t tell just yet how useful each one would be. I realized through past gaming experiences that I was more of the warrior, hacking-and-slashing type, so I would go for any of these races. I went for Redguard because it’s still fairly rare to play darker-skinned human characters in video games. It’s refreshing, it still feels new to me. If the occasion presents itself? Damn right I will. The name I picked? Something that sounds fantastic and mystical, though I may have overdone it as far as names go in this setting: Nikhaolaas. Yeah, yeah, my name again, how original of me.

Taken sometime after the start of the adventure.

Uh... Dude... Behind you.

So my Redguard is brought to the head-chopping block, and that’s when a giant fucking dragon attacks the town. With other inhabitants and criminals, my character manages to make a run for it, hiding into the Helgen Keep. As is normal of any video game, this first mission serves as a tutorial of sorts for the many things the player can do, although there’s so much to this game that we only get the basics for now. It’s more than enough in order to learn how to move around, sneak, fight, loot corpses and use maps. And so, with just enough equipment to survive, Nikhaolaas escapes Helgen and makes his first steps in Skyrim. Well, not first steps, but first steps free, or, er… well, the adventure begins!

BEFORE THE STORM

Which path of life shall you choose?

We’re now tasked with telling Balgruff the Greater, Jarl (political leader) of Whiterun, a massive city at the center of Skyrim, about the dragon attack. Passing by the Guardian Stones with whoever fled along Nikhaolaas in Helgen, we’re taught their purpose – by activating a stone, you get its bonuses, which can turn out to be extremely useful. There are 13 standing stones around the map, one for each major constellation, because cosmic magic or something. The three stones here give perks that favor one playstyle over another. Warrior? Mage? Thief? Whichever one picked will increase the EXP of its associated skills faster. I went with Warrior because I figured I’d start the game swinging weapons more than anything else.

It's a pretty land, but larger lands await for me.

So we come into Riverwood, the first town we can truly visit. The first shop is here, and so is the first blacksmith – which allows the player to learn about blacksmithing and creating weapons and armor. The shopkeeper has a quest about finding a golden claw stolen by bandits. The Sleeping Giant Inn looks like a nice place, but that innkeeper looks like she'll kill me if I steal a piece of bread. After this stop, we can resume walking towards Whiterun, an impressive gated city resting atop a mountain, with the Jarl’s home, Dragonsreach, at the very top.

Now that's more my type of place.

Getting to Whiterun isn’t so difficult, and once we get there, we can directly meet Jarl Balgruuf and tell him about the events in Helgen. I like that Whiterun is discovered so early in the game, as it’s a perfect hub area for the player – at least at the start. Its location makes it easy to walk to many of the surrounding areas, and it’s got all the commodities one might need early in their quest. Nikhaolaas even gets some decent armor from Balgruuf before he’s sent on another quest.

BLEAK FALLS BARROW

The Whiterun court wizard, Farengar Secret-Fire, needs our help. In order to study the return of dragons to Skyrim, he needs a stone found in the depths of a nearby dungeon, Bleak Falls Barrow. The stone may contain vital information.

Goddamn spiders!
(Apologies to all arachnophobes.)

This place may be the player’s first real introduction to dungeons – visiting these depths, using the map whenever necessary, and killing enemies whether they’re giant spiders, bandits, or draugr (undead warriors who worshipped dragon priests in cults devoted to dragons, and which were reanimated when the winged beasts came back). All kinds of things can happen while in these depths, you never know who or what you can run into – a robber who was ambushed by a spider? Yep. You also grow used to checking the inventory of any enemy you kill, and grab whatever you deem necessary. Coins, equipment… you also learn to respect your maximum weight carry limit pretty early on. Nice golden claw there, buddy, mind if I take this back for a friend? And the last room contains a draugr boss, the stone, and a word on a wall that suddenly imbues its power into Nikhaolaas. It’s a word with power, certainly, but we have no way to unlock said power just yet.

Not a very useful language if you need to go venture deep
within a tomb each time you wamt to learn a word.

Back at Whiterun with the stone, we see Farengar talking to a woman… I think I've seen her before. Farengar gets the stone, and we talk to the Jarl for a reward…

DRAGON RISING

…only to learn soon afterwards that there’s been a dragon sighting at the western watchtower. Irileth, the Jarl’s housecarl and a skilled warrior, is tasked with assembling a team of Whiterun guards and Nikhaolaas will follow along, having proven his worth.

I need to kill that thing

The watchtower is burning, the mighty reptilian beast soaring the skies above and raining fiery fury. …Damn, I should put that into a novel. There are many options for our hero now: Use his budding talents in archery to shoot the beast, wait till it lands to slash at it… or be a coward and stay inside the watchtower while lots of guards die taking down the dragon. Either way, he reaps the reward: A strong gust escapes the fantastic beast, disintegrating its scales and flesh and leaving only a skeleton behind, as the monster’s life force finds a new owner – the Dragonborn.

Walking back to Whiterun to report on the death of the best, a booming voice resonates across all of Skyrim.

DOVAHKIIN!

Dragonsreach is a pretty castle. I hope nothing happens
to it.

I don’t know where that came from, but I’m sure whoever lives near the yeller is now deaf. The entire piece of land shook. Back at Dragonsreach, the Jarl’s entourage figures that this was the call of the Greybeards, who live in High Hrothgar, close to the highest peak in all of Skyrim, known as the Throat of the World. For your service, Jarl Balgruuf gives the hero some axe, then makes him Thane of Whiterun. Thane is a title handed to someone who has achieved positive recognition in a hold.

That title of recognition also comes with a Housecarl that will take care of the home when you’re gone; the Housecarl appointed by Whiterun, Lydia, can also be a follower that will tag along on your adventures, carry stuff for you, and help killing enemies.

I’ve actually grown attached to Lydia. I’ve also grown attached to Breezehome, my house in Whiterun. I might go back on all of these elements later. For now, it’s time to follow…

THE WAY OF THE VOICE

Having a stroll? On your way to the next quest?
Not in the mood to fight? Too bad, here's a dragon.

Fun fact, after I resumed playing Skyrim, I went through the missions all the way to “Dragon Rising”, then went to do whatever I wanted. With “Dragon Rising”, dragons start appearing at random around Skyrim (which means you can run into them even when you’re really not in the mood or equipment to fight them). You have free reign; you can go anywhere you want. You possibly have a home to store all your stuff, and a follower that will fight by your side. The world has opened with its infinite possibilities. You can now go into dungeons, find word walls, and unlock new abilities known as the Dragon Shouts – each word wall teaches the Dragonborn a new word, thus allowing them to discover either a new ability or power up one discovered previously, with three words to every shout. Bleak Falls Barrow granted access to the Unrelenting Force shout, allowing you to startle opponents with a strong blast of wind straight out of the Dragonborn’s mouth – and killing the dragon at the western watchtower gave them a soul that they could thus spend on unlocking the ability. That’s all the remaining info needed to be truly free to visit Skyrim as one pleases.

So I went the ultra-boring route of going methodically to every dungeon and clearing them one by one just because I could do that.

It took me some time before getting to this quest, for a bunch of reasons: I wanted to be at a higher level first; I wanted to clear as many dungeons as possible; and I had accumulated so many quests, long and short, that I had forgotten what I was supposed to do to continue the main plot.

"This must be tall. I must see the top of it."

There’s a little rule of game development that you must always remember: Someday, everything will have been done in your game. While some players let go of a game as soon as they lose interest, others go far beyond, aiming for 100% completion and then some. It also means that it doesn’t actually take very long for the player base to have visited the entire map, even areas devs may have thought were impossible. Never underestimate the power of self-imposed challenges. The rule is summed up as such: “If you have a highest mountain in your game, somebody will scale it”.

Now that's more my type of home.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim makes it easy, as the highest mountain is part of the main quest. High Hrothgar is located close to the Throat of the World. It involves getting to the small community of Ivarstead, then going up the long and winding mountain path featuring at least one troll, a handful of wild beasts, and maybe even ice wraiths, and reaching this imposing temple.

It’s in there that we meet the Greybeards, who have mastered the unique magic of the Voice, which you’ve just learned about and which unleashes devastating effects from speaking the dragon language. They’re so powerful that the walls of High Hrothgar tremble when they whisper. The only one capable of speech that won’t end the world is Master Arngeir, who gets to explain the Dovahkiin’s fairly unique situation, and how he is able to instantly mastering the magical abilities of the Voice by learning the words to its spells. The dragon shouts, or Thu’um, are multiple and can do all sorts of things – and unlike regular magic, which admittedly the Dragonborn can also learn, it doesn’t use Magicka. Instead, the shouts have cooldown times.

The Greybeards proceed to teach Nikhaolaas another word of Unrelenting Force, the shout that creates a strong gust of wind pushing things away from the Dragonborn – a shout particularly fun to use on clifftops. They also teach a word of Whirlwind Sprint, which allows him to run at super-speed for roughly one second. Then, of course, we're asked to test these new abilities.

"WULD"
"I WULD like to learn the other two words right away please."

Turns out the Greybeards didn’t give him these teachings for no reason; they have a quest for him. To prove once more that he's the Dragonborn (like, do we need to prove it even more to you people?), they ask the Dovahkiin to bring back the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller from the Nordic ruins of Ustengrav…

The adventure continues! In Part 2.