Long Awaited Elder Scrolls Game Finally Hits Stores

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released worldwide last Friday on the very auspicious date of 11.11.11. Just like how an auspicious date usually bodes well for a marriage, you can bet this will be an awesome game!

Released across the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms, Skyrim is the newest game in the Elder Scrolls, a series of games going as far back as 1991. The first of the Elder Scrolls series – Arena – was meant for the player to assume the role of an arena combatant. The developers soon figured out that people were happier doing whatever the heck they wanted in a game, and from there, the Elder Scrolls’ principle of ‘being who you want and doing what you want’ was born.

A hallmark of any Elder Scrolls game is the allowance the player gets to do, literally, whatever he wants. You can pickpocket a man, beat a guard to death, or even meander along a country road, foraging for mushrooms. The non-linear gameplay is accompanied by a main storyline that the player can choose to follow as and when he wishes.

That's a guard. Oooh, scary.

Skyrim is no different. Set 200 years after the story in Oblivion (its predecessor) concludes, it weaves around a prophecy that foretells the return of one Alduin, the Nordic god of destruction, as a dragon.

One of the first Skyrim trailers released showed combat with a huge dragon. Dragons feature heavily in Skyrim, since your player character is the last dovahkiin or Dragonborn, a dragon hunter anointed by the gods to help fend off the threat Alduin poses to the world.

But plot aside, since you’ll find out all about that when you start playing – Skyrim is unique in that it actually utilises a gameplay engine developed especially for it. Dubbed the Creation Engine, it was based on the Gamebryo engine that you saw in Oblivion and Fallout 3. Skyrim is considered a spiritual successor to Fallout 3, and its new engine is expected to feature in at least another of Bethesda’s future projects. The team that worked on Skyrim were the same folks who brought you Oblivion, while their director is the man who led the production of Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3.

The Elder Scrolls series has continued to best itself with every new game released, and it is the sincere hope of many fans across the Internet that Bethesda has not lost its touch. Said one fan on The Escapist forum: “This is not Mass Effect-style RPG. This is THE RPG.”

Because the Elder Scrolls are so staunchly set in a fantasy world, they garner less fans than they would if set in a different universe. If you’re partial to the genre and haven’t sampled any Elder Scrolls games, however, give them a go. These videos should whet your appetite!