Review Date: 3/11/2022
$20 on sale
Played: 110 Hours
5/5 One of the Best Ever
"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.
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 |