Skyrim was first released back in 2011, and remains one of the most loved games in the gaming community. It is an instrumental game that set the tone for all modern-day RPGs, but it also did so much more than that, providing players with an open world filled to the brim with possibilities. With Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 currently in development, there are a lot of expectations assigned to these games, and many fans wonder if they could have more of an impact than Skyrim.
Over 10 years after its initial release, the Skyrim community has not slowed down or dwindled away at all. In fact, the game is so vast that there are multiple hidden quests, items, and easter eggs, that some players are still discovering. This is what Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are competing against, a game that is still enjoyable for players a decade after its launch. Skyrim was recently revitalized by adding Survival Mode, but even without this, players continued to play the game religiously and the Skyrim community continued to grow. Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 will have to live up to the expectations placed on both after the success of Skyrim.
What Made Skyrim So Good?
At its essence, Skyrim feels like any of the RPG games that came out before its release, where the player creates a character that is assigned to kill monsters and save the world from a catastrophic event. However, where Skyrim differs greatly from the games that came before it, is by giving players an open world that demands to be explored. The entire world is filled with quests and items that can inform the player about lore, and this is coupled with the fact that there is no one way to play through the game.
In Skyrim, players have the choice to experience different storylines and truly immerse themselves into a character, role-playing through the world and only taking up quests that would make sense for the character. This freedom is what gave players the opportunity to experience everything Skyrim has to offer, and the amount of content poured into the game by Bethesda paved the way for countless years of fun.
Skyrim was a mega success when it was first released, but few would have expected to play the game over a decade later. This huge pool of content, along with the insightful open-world design that promotes exploration and side quests, is what made Skyrim a long-lasting game in an industry that sees new titles release nearly every day.
Can Starfield And The Elder Scrolls 6 Live Up To Skyrim?
Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 have a seemingly impossible task ahead of them, but there is no developer more equipped for this task than Bethesda. It has the formula for creating a legendary game, and now fans are just hoping that these two games are not a repeat of Fallout 76.
For Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 to live up to Skyrim, they will need to go above and beyond what Skyrim has already done. Both games will need to have a large open world that feels lived in, and is filled with small side quests and dungeons for players to explore, like Skyrim. However, they would need to take this a step further and introduce more unique encounters with more lore-heavy elements in the world, especially for Starfield since it is a new IP. This is something that Skyrim excelled at and is what gave the game a never-ending feeling.
Should Starfield Set Itself Apart From The Elder Scrolls
Starfield is Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years, and has all the possibility to become yet another massive gaming series alongside Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. However, for Starfield to succeed as a game, many fans question whether the game should stray away from The Elder Scrolls formula, so it does not get classified as simply Elder Scrolls in space. This would mean a unique perspective on open-world, side quests, and NPC design that would be able to not only improve on existing game mechanics, but could also introduce numerous new mechanics that could become mainstays for the RPG genre.
This is unlikely as Starfield has already been described as “Skyrim in space” by game director Todd Howard, which points at the game taking a lot from the current Elder Scrolls formula. While this will not be a bad thing, it does leave the potential of Starfield simply becoming a futuristic version of Skyrim, and not a game with its own identity. This simple comparison from one of the directors could potentially hold Starfield back from becoming as revolutionary to the genre as Skyrim was.
Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are two of the most anticipated games in recent memory, with the former having even more expectations on it, as it will be Bethesda’s first new IP in a long time. The biggest problem they are both currently facing is the fact that at some point they will be competing. Starfield will be released a few years prior to The Elder Scrolls 6, but for the games to live up to Skyrim’s success, they need to be great games that are still fun to play over a decade after its launch. However, if there is a development team that can truly deliver on this, it is one that has a proven track record of creating great, long-lasting RPGs, like Bethesda Game Studios.
Starfield releases on November 11, 2022, for PC, and Xbox Series X|S.