Skyrim’s Bards College is one of the main attractions in Solitude and is mentioned throughout the game's flavor dialog, particularly among tavern bards. Players can find themselves there naturally or may be sent there by a side quest involving a bard trying to get a story in on time.
However, if those players then choose to join the college themselves, they will notice that the experience has a very ironic restraint. The limitations of the Bards College points to a problem with many of Skyrim’s questlines that will need to be fixed in similar quests for The Elder Scrolls 6.
The Bards College
If the player joins the Bards College, at no point do they get to play an instrument. Despite Skyrim's shout mechanic already existing in the game, there aren’t even any opportunities to go a capella. The Bards College quests are some of the most underwhelming in the game, especially for how much the college is talked about all over Skyrim.
To gain admittance to the Bards College, the player has to complete the quest Tending the Flames from the headmaster Viarmo, an Altmer unaffiliated with the Aldmeri Dominion. This quest involves a relatively typical dungeon dive into one of Skyrim’s many barrows to get King Olaf’s verse, so it can be performed at the Burning of King Olaf ceremony. Once that’s complete, new members of the Bards College can enjoy such adventures as finding a faculty member’s lute, finding a faculty member’s drum, or finding a faculty member’s flute.
There's just one part of the quest that feels unique to the Bards College. When returning King Olaf’s verse to Viarmo, he will mention missing verses and ask the Dragonborn to help fill in the gaps, which then has effects on the sort of story that ends up being told during the ceremony. However, the Bards College quests feel completely interchangeable with any other faction questline in Skyrim, and on top of that the college doesn’t really have a story in the same way as the other factions, just an admittance quest followed by a bunch of collection quests.
Improving the Bards College
The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser trailer released back in 2018 and there has been almost no news from Bethesda since, though TES6 is rumored for release around 2025. There may be some benefit to the game taking longer, however. If The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to succeed in taking the Elder Scrolls format into the next generation of gaming, it cannot just be a graphical upgrade. The game will need to avoid sections which feel rushed, cut down, or underdeveloped like the Bards College.
For players who have to satiate themselves with Skyrim until The Elder Scrolls 6 releases, the Skyrim modding community has made some great improvements to the Bards College experience. Become a Bard is a great mod that allows the player to pick up and play any of the instruments they can find across Skyrim, as well as buy them from Viarmo himself. Not only can the player perform, but they can even offer their services to innkeepers and make 10 to 25 gold a night.
This mod also changes the Bards College directly. Completing Viarmo’s quest or having a level 50 or higher in the Bard Skill will unlock extra work that the headmaster will give the player. The mod also adds a bunch of new music that players can perform when they aren't unraveling Skyrim's mysteries.
The mod Graduate at the Bards College is another great option, which also allows the player to equip and play instruments, as well as go through the Bards College taking actual tests and getting a graduation ceremony. Fans will likely be hoping that if The Elder Scrolls 6 is still a long way off, the game will be released with this next level of detail.
Skyrim is available now on all major platforms.