Review Date: 8/4/2025
Play Time: 353 HoursSo I did purchase the Special Edition and 243 hours later, I still feel I could play another 100 hours. This game is simply large beyond belief with so many areas you can explore and things to do. Just buy it and play it already.
At this time two of the most highly rated RPG's are "Baldur's Gate 3" and the "The Witcher 3". While I'm sure both are great, the first has a top down isometric perspective and the second a behind the player over the shoulder perspective. For me, I want first person for the best immersion.
Are there issues? Yep. The user interface is was designed for consoles and I consider it almost unplayable without the "SkyUI" Mod. And just getting that mod to run will range between easy and a multiple hour frustration depending on random updates beyond your control. And the Quest Journal. What a mess. With so many things to do and keep track of you would think a bit more time would have been spent on that. And you would be wrong. And the last complaint would be that the game lacks a solid role play element. You do get to choose a name for your character, but any backstory, or character motives are yours to decide as you wish. This does make for an wonderful sandbox, but I can see how some people might want a bit more guidance.
How about a few things to help?
Review Date: 3/11/2022
Play Time: 110 Hours"I used to be an adventurer till I took an arrow to the knee…."
Yes I'm late to the party but yes this game lives up to all of the hype even 11 years later. Not a lot I can add that hasn't been said a hundred times.
In short, just buy it. The "Special Edition" regularly goes on sale a couple of times a year and will work just fine for you. It took me just over 100 hours to finish the main quest but I did get sidetracked a bunch. I could easily spend another 100 hours just poking around so it's really difficult not to get your money's worth.
It's amazing that a game released in 2011 is still the pinnacle of open world experiences. Do you want to walk to that mountain over there. Sure you can. Do you want to ignore the main quest and just wander about? You can do that also. Is there a particular part of the game interfaces that bothers you? I bet there is a user mod for that.
As for downsides. I can see that the open nature of the game could be a bit overwhelming for new players. It's also obvious that this game was designed for a console as the UI is horribly bad. This can be fixed with a user Mod but it's a bit lame that after all of these years there isn't some kind of UI for PC built in.
Skyrim Quest List
This list was totally copied from the Wiki. Go there for details, this is to be used as a checklist
UESP Wiki - The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages - TES Wiki & Lore
UESP, Unofficial Elder Scrolls Page
There are a lot of different Quest categories in Skyrim. Standalone, there are about 273 quests in the base game. If you take the Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dragonborn, and the Creation Club addons there will likely be over 700 quests. The thing is, many of these are "fetch me a thing" or "kill monster XYZ" type of quests. Their main purpose is to get to venture into one of the many dungeons dotting the landscape.
So what if you want to play a lot of Skyrim, but don’t what to waste your time? Do the Main, Daedric, Faction, and Every Towns Side Quests. That will get you down to a manageable 240 or so.
Download the Spreadsheet here
Happy Questing!
Character Backstories and Motivation with AI
Can AI improve your Role Playing Game experience? Yes, Yes it can.
So AI this and AI that, but many times I've tried to use AI it's been disappointing. But with all things, a great use case can make the difference. So I give to you a great use case.
I'm currently playing the video game Skyrim. I've already played this game for 200+ hours with multiple characters so I want to get a way to feel immersed again. Specifically I have a few quest lines that I've not played yet and I'm thinking "what if I create some kind of role playing background to bring it to life?".
Can ChatGPT help? I wanted a character backstory that would make sense in completing the Orc stronghold quests, the vampire quests, and the Dark Brotherhood quest. So I gave ChatGPT a prompt (sorry didn’t' save) something along those lines and this is what it spit out. Damn. Call me impressed.
Born in the shadow of the Dragontail Mountains, Grothak was raised among a proud Orc stronghold, where honor was earned through steel and blood. One moonless night, his clan was slaughtered by a coven of vampires—his kin drained, their corpses left to rot under the stars. Consumed by vengeance and unwilling to die quietly, Grothak abandoned the traditions of Malacath and set out across Skyrim, seeking the elusive Dark Brotherhood. Not for coin, but for knowledge—for every secret, every whisper, every cruel art of death they could teach him. He doesn’t crave justice. He craves the skills to become death itself, and to make every vampire in Tamriel fear the shadows they once ruled.
Ok, I played all of the Orc Stronghold quests and the entire Dark Brotherhood questline and I'm a bit tired. I think I need to put Skyrim to bed. But what about Grothak and his quest for vengeance? Back to ChatGpt. Can it help?
Now, years later, Grothak no longer burns with vengeance—only a cold, focused stillness remains. Among the Dark Brotherhood, he has found not just mastery, but a twisted kind of peace: a family bound not by blood, but by shared silence and shadow. He serves the Night Mother with quiet devotion, his rage dulled into precision, his heart no longer a forge of fury but a blade honed by purpose. Yet the memory of that moonless night never leaves him. If the vampires stir again—if they crawl once more from their cursed dens—Grothak will rise from the dark, not as a grieving son, but as death incarnate, the final whisper they never hear.
I have to say as a use case this is absolutely a win.
Versions
This part is a bit of a pain. On the good side they have continuously updated the game with new revisions over the years. On the downside it can be a pain to figure out what is what. At the moment I have the Special Edition and don't see a compelling reason to upgrade to the Anniversary Edition.
- Skyrim 2011
- Skyrim 2016 Special Edition
- Includes DLC Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn
- Skyrim 10th Anniversary Edition
- The Anniversary Edition contains a copy of the Special Edition, as well as the expansions Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. The Anniversary Edition also includes 74 Creation Club mods, all 48 currently available ones plus 26 new, unreleased ones, adding up to a total of around 500 new gameplay elements for Skyrim.Oct 20, 2021
Mods
User Modifications or "Mods". Both the strength of the game and a source of endless frustration. Even if you take meticulous notes on how to install the Mods, the method and bugs will change before you ever have to install them again. Nexus is about the best place online to see what is available and the best place to start. Create a free account and start with their mod Manager. From there you might have to install some files manually or you might not. It is definitely a bunch of trial and error. That being said I find it well worth the pain as the UI improvement alone makes the game so much easier to play.
Below are the Mods that I use and can recommend.
Nexus Mods (Vortex installer)
Nexus
| Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch | General Bug Fixes |
| SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender) | Required for SkyUI |
| SkyUI | A User Interface designed for the PC |
| A Quality World Map | A map that shows some roads. I sugges main roads only |
| Remove Clouds from Map | Just what it says |
| Even Better Quest Objectives | Better descriptions on what you are supposed to do |