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My Skyrim character, Nhazki, has completed the game’s main quest line, which I had arbitrarily chosen as the point at which I would be finished with the game. There are still things that Nhazki could do, of course. Guilds she didn’t join, quests she didn’t pursue (or even find), and even an entire city she never set foot in (although I did, with a previous character). But this felt like the end of her journey. This came with a certain sadness, because I’m aware I’m unlikely to return to the game again. But it’s time to move on, and reflect on my time with the game here.

I wrote a lot about Skyrim when I first played it years ago. On my return, I outlined the set of mods I planned to use, discussed the handling of gender and race in the game, wrote about its enduring appeal, and chronicled how I found (and embraced) some grind. Here, I’ll discuss some final thoughts and reflect on how the mods I’ve chosen affected the experience.

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The concept of “grind” appears often when discussing games, especially role-playing games. It refers to performing repetitive tasks, over and over again, for incremental gains, and typically derided as evidence of poor design that encourages “un-fun” behavior in players. I discussed the concept a little in my History Lesson post about Final Fantasy, as it is often associated with Japanese-style role-playing games, especially older titles. But grind can appear in any game. The Elder Scrolls series, with its concept of character skills improving with practice, could easily fall into this trap. Players could just sit around practicing magic or swordplay all day instead of actually heading out on an adventure. But I’ve never felt the desire to do this; the games offer so much to do, why not head out and do it, and train on the job?

So I was surprised that I not only found the one aspect of Skyrim that encourages grind, but fully embraced it.

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When I decided to return to Skyrim, I was planning to take a more critical stance on the game. My writings during my first stint with the game focused on the positive, but this does not mean the game is without its problems. My most recent post does point out a few complaints, but mostly I’ve been struck by just how much I’m enjoying myself again. So I decided to write about why that is; how Skyrim’s enduring appeal overcomes its weaknesses.

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Earlier I wrote about Skryim’s cities, and how I found them much more interesting than the cities in previous Elder Scrolls games. The same is true of Skyrim’s countryside, but not in the way I was expecting. In many respects, Skyrim’s playable world looks a lot like that of its predecessor, Oblivion, but I was surprised to find that exploring Skyrim’s countryside was far more enjoyable, and it completely changed how I play the game.

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My Skyrim character has now been to seven of Skyrim’s nine cities, although two of those were more like villages. I’ve heard a lot of complaints from players about the cities, but I’ve actually quite enjoyed them so far. Cities in role-playing games are always tricky things, as many players will simply be interested in them for their most basic functions: buying things, selling things, and getting quests. In many RPGs, this is all that the cities are — a few traders and quest-givers, surrounded by unimportant stuff that’s shaped like a city. Getting the cities to feel more like real places is the hard part. Some games (like The Witcher) are set almost entirely in and around a single city, to really flesh it out, while others more closely resemble Skyrim in that they feature several cities and the land in between, and have to work with more limited resources to make the cities feel alive. Skyrim’s cities aren’t perfect in this regard, but I think they end up fitting the game quite well, and they are certainly a big improvement over the cities in Oblivion.

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