Solitude is lengthier, but even still it's really just a single street that can be covered in less time than it takes a stamina meter to empty. Looking at Whiterun from the outside, it suddenly feels so small, just a circle of wall around a handful of buildings to match the sparse population. Speaking of cities, I'm noticing they don't really have any kind of realistic sprawl to them. Years ago, adding these additional entities seemed like a fine idea, but now it feels completely essential. I certainly don't want to be attacked by wolves and skeevers every twenty feet, or besieged by quest-giving NPCs who pop out from behind every tree to casually mention their mother's heirloom mace has been snatched and hey, could you help me with that, person I've never seen before in my life? Today, Skyrim is feeling desolate to me, and it's suddenly easy to see why mods that populate the roads with extra travelers and fill cities and towns with additional NPCs and add more animals, more monsters, more everything, are popular with roleplayers. A few birds (often just one) may flap overhead, and butterflies hover here and there inviting me to eat them, but the world doesn't feel particularly alive. When I do see animals, they clomp along awkwardly, get stuck on rocks while trying to flee, stand at odd angles on inclines. I run for long minutes along paths and over hills and through streams and there's little to stop or distract me.
What really strikes me this time around is how empty the world feels, how barren and lifeless. There's a world spread out before me, a very familiar one, but one I begin on a new path, with a new character. A thief? A mage? A reluctant hero or deliberate villain? Just some random asshole who likes treasure? Collecting my first scraps of armor, my first few weapons, my first handfuls of crafting ingredients, I feel the thrill of those early RPG hours when every single piece of loot is a treasure.Ĭompleting the tutorial, at which point you're told, "Well you can visit this town, if you want, but no pressure, I'm not your boss, do whatever the hell you want" still carries with it a bit of electricity, even five years after I experienced it the first time.
Though I know the linear opening tutorial by heart, I still enjoy diving back in, trying to decide, as I fight my way out of Helgen, exactly who I will be this time. It's definitely my first time starting Skyrim over from scratch in several years, playing it truly from the beginning and not using some saved game that starts at the far end of the tutorial.Īnd, I feel excited. This is my first time back in a long while, apart from trying out mods or racing through the expansions.
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