Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim nine years ago, on November 11, 2011. The open-world first-person RPG changed the face of roleplaying games, and ushered in some huge changes across many franchises in the genre for both better and worse. It helped create an almost unrivaled modding community which keeps the game feeling fresh to this day, and made the studio that created it a household name even among casual gamers with little former investment in RPGs or fantasy.
As Skyrim approaches its 10-year anniversary, and as gaming enters into yet another new generation of consoles with the Xbox Series X and PS5, Skyrim’s legacy may finally be coming to an end. The new consoles will see the release of some hugely anticipated RPGs, as well as some major changes coming to Bethesda as well. Skyrim’s direct influence on the RPG market may finally be coming to an end, but that could very well be a good thing which could allow both Bethesda and the RPG genre to turn in some interesting new directions.
Skyrim’s legacy is immense and has had a huge influence on what RPG developers have prioritized since its release, as well as Bethesda’s priorities since 2011. For a start, Bethesda has re-released Skyrim so many times on so many different platforms that the studio even acknowledged it in the release of a parody choose-your-own-adventure Amazon Echo port of Skyrim. Bethesda has developed two major games since then, both still using the Skyrim engine: Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.
While Fallout 4 was generally well-received, for many fans it was still unable to step out of Skyrim’s shadow. The last Elder Scrolls game presented players with a huge amount of freedom – albeit at the cost of character-driven storytelling – and an immense world to explore. The release of Fallout 76 led many observers to note a decline in Bethesda’s ability to live up to fan expectations after Skyrim, and with next to no news released about The Elder Scrolls 6 since its announcement in 2018, it remains unclear if a sequel will ever be able to live up to the hype.
Not only that, but Skyrim had a noticeable impact on some other major RPG franchises as well. The release of Skyrim in 2011 saw franchises like Dragon Age and The Witcher include open worlds in their fantasy RPGs as well with Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3 respectively. For a time, the size of an RPG developer’s open world was a huge point of interest for fantasy RPGs.
Skyrim sold 20 million copies between 2011 and 2014, a record which few of the RPGs that went on to emulate its open world could boast. It holds a 9/10 on Steam and has continued to sell well at $39.99 despite being almost a decade old. Although it was released in 2011, it’s difficult to point to any RPG released over the course of the following decade which had nearly the same impact or longevity.
For the first time in 25 years Bethesda is developing a new IP, Starfield. Starfield will be a space-set RPG, though few other details have been released and Bethesda has told fans not to expect any Starfield news until 2021. The game has been confirmed to be scheduled for release before The Elder Scrolls 6, however, and the fact that Bethesda is finally embarking on a new IP is telling.
The huge legacy of Skyrim is likely one factor behind the studio’s decision to diverge from its two major franchises and to try and create an RPG which is distinct in both its setting and mechanics from the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. While it’s far too early to tell if Starfield will be a success, Bethesda’s new willingness to experiment is good for fans who are hoping to experience new worlds and stories in the coming decade, and to see RPGs experiment with things like survival and space-travel mechanics as the Starfield leaked images seem to suggest.
It is unclear what role Bethesda will have to play on the upcoming console generation. The studio’s recent purchase as part of Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media could have significant effects, with Bethesda developers not ruling out the possibility that some of its future games will be exclusives or timed exclusives for the new Xbox.
The biggest game with the greatest number of similarities to Skyrim that’s coming out soon is very likely Cyberpunk 2077, despite its delay. As a first-person open-world RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 could either take the first-person open-world genre into new territory which sets a brand-new standard for the genre and the stories it can tell. Alternatively, if Cyberpunk cannot live up to the hype it may spell the end of first-person RPGs as fans know them, which could also lead to greater experimentation and diversity within the genre in the future.
It’s also apparent that some developers, like Obsidian Entertainment with its upcoming first-person open-world fantasy RPG Avowed, are likely still marketing their games by inviting comparison to Skyrim as the first-person sword and sorcery shot in the Avowed announcement trailer did. Like Cyberpunk, Avowed’s success could see it set a new standard for the genre which helps move it beyond Skyrim’s legacy. This will likely depend on whether or not Avowed includes a far more dynamic game-world, a more in-depth story, and more fleshed out characters that The Elder Scrolls 5. If it doesn’t, its failure could also inspire different types of RPGs to develop in response.
Between the competition faced from other developers, the Microsoft acquisition, and the changes happening behind-the-scenes at Bethesda, it’s unlikely fantasy fans will ever see a game quite like Skyrim again. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however, and the demand for something that feels just as new and exciting as Skyrim did in 2011 could help drive the RPG genre to even more interesting places than it has explored over the last nine years.
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