Ten years. Think back to the tenth anniversary of anything, and there’s bound to be some astonishment in how much can happen in that timeframe despite how quickly it blinks by. Children are born and grow into adolescents, fledgling relationships turn into marriages, and cultural movements burst into the scene to become the new zeitgeist. Ten years. Ten years, and Skyrim has been one of the only constants for an entire generation of fantasy fans.
It's difficult to understate the impact that Skyrim has had on the games industry. It's not only one of the best-selling games of all time, but it's regularly on Steam's list of most-played games, with thousands of people wandering around the snow-topped mountains and forested reaches that it offers. Skyrim is a member of an immensely exclusive club of games that have had enough staying power to shape pop culture, and with the next entry in the series still a ways off, Skyrim isn't going anywhere.
RPGs Before and After Skyrim
For decades, RPGs have been a staple of gaming. Largely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, the genre has evolved a lot in the years since gaming has become a mainstream pastime. In the decade since Skyrim launched, those changes have become more mainstream, seeping their way into other games in subtle ways. Now, just about everything contains some sort of RPG mechanic, whether that's creating a class in Call of Duty or making a player in a sports game like FIFA.
While some of those mechanics were introduced well before Skyrim was released, it's important to note how things were shaken up. One of the most common criticisms of Skyrim is, in a strange way, its approachability. Skyrim ditched a lot of the classic RPG mechanics that defined the genre, perhaps the most important being the class system. Rather than putting players into a box, Skyrim introduced the "you are who you play" tagline.
Instead of emphasizing what players thought they wanted to do when Skyrim started, it allowed them to forge a character based on what was most interesting along the journey. If a player wanted to change from a mage to a warrior, Skyrim allows them to do so, there's just a transition period. It gets more difficult as players level up to balance that transition effectively, but it never feels impossible.
That mentality has bled into other games. It's become more common for RPGs to drop traditional class systems, at least outside the CRPG subgenre, and instead, let players use whatever equipment they see fit. The point is that Skyrim made very real changes to how RPGs operate, something that few other games have ever managed to do.
Skyrim Still Feels Open and Alive
Few moments are quite as iconic as Skyrim's opening cart sequence. It's a joke at this point – or at least a bit of one – simply due to how many ports and playthroughs fans have now been through. But for all of the jokes that have been made about it, Skyrim's intro does exactly what it sets out to do. It gives fans their first taste of the proper world, before setting them loose into it just a short while later. It establishes the conflict between the Empire and the Stormcloak rebellion, teases the Thalmor's involvement, and shows off a slice of the world.
That opening is impactful, it shows everything that it needs to and teases more to come. Once the intro is out of the way, Skyrim is open to explore, and almost nothing is off-limits. If a player wants to take the trek to Solitude at level one, they're completely free to do so. Along the way, players are bound to bump into some sort of event to remind them that the world is full of life, whether that's a farmer transporting a cow as a sacrifice to giants, nobles travelling to a wedding, or any other of the events that pop up on the map.
Even a decade later, there's a good chance that players haven't encountered everything thanks to new additions from DLC and raw chance. Plus, depending on how much players fast travel, they may have missed a significant chunk of the random events that are scattered around the world. The point is that Skyrim still has stories to tell, even a decade later. For a game that now seems frozen in time, it's more than a bit profound.
The Next 10 Years of Skyrim
Now, with Skyrim - Anniversary Edition presumably being the last port fans will receive before The Elder Scrolls 6 releases, Skyrim's 10-year story seems to be coming to an end. But with 10 years of history and millions of copies sold, things likely won't be ending in the way that many fans think, if prior entries in the franchise are any indicator.
The Elder Scrolls community is uniquely dedicated, as evidenced by its lasting commitment to making mods and posting discoveries online. With how impactful Skyrim has been, even relative to other entries, that probably won't be slowing down until The Elder Scrolls 6 releases, which is still years away. Plus, there's always the chance that The Elder Scrolls 6 isn't as good as Skyrim, and fans continue to gravitate to it instead.
With that in mind, even with the amount of content that Skyrim has received since it launched a decade ago, fans will likely see more new additions, either through extra Creation Club content or massive new mods. There are still projects like Skyblivion in the works too, which could easily breathe another 10 years of life into it.
More than anything, though, Skyrim's lasting appeal is thanks to the fans, because Skyrim is the fans. It's the people on Reddit making posts about it even after 10 years, it's the people picking through every last bit of lore, and it's the people that replay it endlessly. It's the fans that have defined what's so special about Skyrim, and it's the fans that will decide when it's time to move on.
But it's also important to consider the other side of the coin. Skyrim has a profound way of making a mark on a player, helping them see the joy not just of the digital world, but also of the real one. In an era where it's easy to feel anxious, depressed, alone, or lost, Skyrim brings people back to the light, reminding us that there are more adventures to be had, new faces to meet, and a nice bottle of mead waiting for us at the end of a long journey, no matter how difficult. For thousands of players Skyrim is home, and that's what makes it special.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim turns 10 years old today.