The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Review

So, if you have never played Skyrim, I will give a quick answer. Any edition of Skyrim is worth it. But if you’re tight on a budget, I would say save a few bucks on an anniversary edition and buy the special edition, or even maybe the legendary edition instead. However, if you are on a console and you have never played it, the anniversary edition is worth it because it is an action upgrade.

If you’re a returning player and want to see what the anniversary edition has to offer, it doesn’t matter when you played it. It’s not worth it. The anniversary edition is actually just the special edition with some additional content, and most likely, if you’re playing on a PC, you’re getting more than a fair share of content through mods. With the anniversary edition, you are not getting enough new things. And if you have played in the past on a console, besides a few minor upgrades, a few minor additions, and much better frame rates and loading times, you’re not going to get anything new here. But, let’s get into the details.

So, if you have never played Skyrim, I will give a quick answer. Any edition of Skyrim is worth it. But if you’re tight on a budget, I would say save a few bucks on an anniversary edition and buy the special edition, or even maybe the legendary edition instead. However, if you are on a console and you have never played it, the anniversary edition is worth it because it is an action upgrade.

If you’re a returning player and want to see what the anniversary edition has to offer, it doesn’t matter when you played it. It’s not worth it. The anniversary edition is actually just the special edition with some additional content, and most likely, if you’re playing on a PC, you’re getting more than a fair share of content through Skyrim mods. With the anniversary edition, you are not getting enough new things. And if you have played in the past on a console, besides a few minor upgrades, a few minor additions, and much better frame rates and loading times, you’re not going to get anything new here. But, let’s get into the details.

For those who don’t know what Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim even is, well, as you can guess from the title, it is the fifth mainline entry in the Elder Scrolls series. It is an open-world RPG where you play as a Dragonborn. In this game, you’re playing in the region of Skyrim, a northern, cold, and mountainous region of Tamriel, and you need to fight back against returning dragons. So, that’s the basic gist of it. I’m not going to be spoiling anything, despite it has been more than a decade since the game came out.

You play in either first or third-person perspective, and yeah, gameplay-wise, it’s, well, how can I say, it’s pretty basic. You either play in an overworld, or rather an open world itself, or you’re playing in dungeons. In the open world, you’re going around places, discovering different cities, unlocking different quests, and completing quests and things like that – the things that you do in any open-world game.

In dungeons, you will clear out the dungeons and complete quests. I would not say that there’s something exceptionally amazing in the gameplay or an exceptional difference in the gameplay of Skyrim because it has been done a million times since then. If you have played any RPG since 2011, that’s basically the same formula, except for its very simplistic combat.

So, you have your light attack, your heavy attack, your block, and you can use magic in either one hand or dual wield the magic, or you can wield a shield. It’s actually not skill-based because the combat is very rudimentary. But yeah, for some, it’s more than enough fun.

The world itself is not exceptionally huge, but it’s pretty dense and fun. But if the gameplay is nothing amazing and if the world is not huge and expansive, why did Skyrim win so many Game of the Year awards and why is it regarded as one of the best games of all time? Well, it’s because of its world-building and the lore. We’re right, world-building should not be the best part of the game, but in this case, it is. The world feels incredibly alive. In every place that you go, it feels like this place has some history behind it, and in most cases, it literally has. Most places where you are right now have been the site of some kind of ancient battle, version ritual, diplomacy meeting, or something ancient in the past, and you’ll most likely read about it in numerous books that are available in-game.

Every race in the game has a distinct story and distinct relations with other races. They are also different gameplay-wise depending on what race you choose to play. Oh, by the way, I didn’t say that you are choosing. You’re creating your own character, and your character is silent.

The main story is pretty good but nothing that will blow your mind. However, there are quite a few quests that will be interesting for you because, the game is jam-packed with story and quests, and it will take quite a lot of time for you to complete everything and see everything. Like in every other Elder Scrolls game, you have your main story, you have your city storylines, you have your guild storylines, and you have a bunch of different side quests. So, it’s more than enough things to do here. But the question is, does it hold up today, and is it indifferent from when it came out in 2011? You see, I have to be honest with you. I loved the game when it came out in 2011, and I played it on launch, and I simply loved it because I was a fan of Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.

Even though Skyrim was not as great of a story, it was still an amazing experience that I played for years and years after that. Especially, it was enhanced with mods, and expansions just made the game even bigger. But all those re-releases did not add as much as you think.

Well, the Legendary Edition was kind of like a Game of the Year Edition, which contained all the DLCs and expansions that the game had. The Special Edition was the first kind of a minor step effort because it actually upgraded the graphics somehow, to a certain degree. It was nowhere near what the modding community was able to achieve because, with mods, you can make this game incredibly beautiful. It was still better looking compared to what it was when it came out in 2011. The Anniversary Edition actually uses the same Special Edition, but it also includes all the Creation Club items. Those Creation Club items will be some kind of a little bit different armor, different weapons, different cosmetics, and things like that. It also has a survival mode, it has fishing, and some minor things like that, that were already available for years through mods. Was it any substantial upgrade? It wasn’t a substantial difference, even from the main game to the Legendary Edition or even from the base game to the Anniversary Edition.

Well, it was somewhat of an upgrade from the base to the Anniversary Edition, but yeah, overall, it’s not that big of an upgrade, especially on a PC. But it is on a console, but mainly performance-wise.

But there is one more thing that we need to discuss about Skyrim, and it is its pricing. So, how much will it cost? Let’s start with the Anniversary Edition. The game is available on Steam for the base price of $49.99 for Tier 1 countries and $39.94 for Tier 2 countries, and it has never gone on a discount in Tier 1 countries and can go as low as $22.99 for Tier 2 countries. But the Special Edition is available for the base price of $39.99 for Tier 1 countries and $24.99 for Tier 2 countries and can go as low as $9.99 for Tier 1 countries and $6.24 for Tier 2 countries. The Special Edition is also available on a Game Pass, so you can get the Special Edition for $10 on Steam if you’re in the Tier 1 countries, and you will need to pay $50 for the Anniversary Edition, which is just the Special Edition plus some additional content.

Is it worth it? My advice to you will be: do not get the Anniversary Edition if you are playing on a PC, no matter whether you played it in the past or you are a new buyer. Don’t get the Anniversary Edition. It’s a simple, blatant, and very ugly cash grab. It will be much better for you to get the Special Edition or even the Legendary Edition and extensively mod it. You will get far more fun from this, especially for the reasons that you can actually upgrade the gameplay itself, like combat, because combat upgrades with mods are simply insane.

It’s like a completely different game, and you should try the mods. As for the consoles, as I said, if you have never played it, the Anniversary Edition is worth it if you’re buying it on next-gen consoles. But if you have played it in the past, you’ve completed it and went through and through, then you are not going to get enough content to justify a new purchase just to get a survival mode, which is an extra hard mode where you’re fighting not just enemies but the environment as well. Yep, it’s not worth it. It’s not that worth it. Well, at least it’s not plus $30 worth of it, and fishing, really? The ability to catch some fish? No. And a few dozen different armors? No, it’s just not worth it.