I started playing vanilla Skyrim again after over a decade and here's why it's still peak

For the 15th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim earlier this week, I did the impossible: I started replaying the game without any mods installed.

I’ve played Skyrim on and off many times over the years, mainly using mods to enhance my playthroughs with new quests, gameplay mechanics, and overhauls of entire systems. But it’s actually been a while since I’ve played the game without mods, and this made me feel a little hesitant to return to the game after being used to custom content for so long.

When many of the best Skyrim mods do such things like add brand new combat mechanics to the game or build on the story with huge expansions that are better than the original game, it’s hard to go back to the thing that Bethesda created in 2011 without these quality of life improvements.

Putting a fresh install on my computer, I started playing the Special Edition to see how well the game held up, and even though I was missing some of my shiny toys, it was wonderful to see just how well it held up.

Playing through the initial opening, and stepping out of the caves underneath Helgen into the hills outside of Riverwood, nobody can convince me that Bethesda isn’t the king of introducing me to a wide open world. “See that mountain? You can go there” became such a meme, but it really is true how that sense of wonder and adventure hits you in the face once you’re let off the reins.

Yeah, you can follow Ralof or Hadvar down to Riverwood and start chasing the main story, or you can venture off to do something else. Go straight to Bleak Falls Barrow, cut through to Whiterun, or go pretty much anywhere else entirely, and Skyrim doesn’t punish you for doing this.

Bethesda Softworks

This extends to how you want to build your character too. Skyrim’s open skill building system is something that players have criticised a lot over the years. You can spend ages training as a thief, and then suddenly pour a few points into the magic trees and you’re suddenly an expert mage.

On paper, that feels like bad design, but for the 'you can do everything' game, it's actually a pretty genius system. Maybe I want to make my Dragonborn the strongest guy in the entire land. Both a jack and a master of all trades. Or maybe, just maybe, I’d rather decide where the limits lie with my character.

Skyrim's biggest flaws are actually its biggest strength

I actually prefer this system over the game picking these restrictions for you, because it allows you more control over how you want to build your character. If you want to make a character who’s invested in both magic and thief skills, you’re free to do that. It leaves a lot more to the imagination, and to me that feels like an essential way to design an RPG.

If you don’t want that, you don’t have to engage with it. The College of Winterhold questline or the Thieves Guild are completely optional, and you’re also not forced to engage with this content if you’d rather keep your character strictly within the role you’ve given them.

Bethesda Softworks

The hardest adjustment I’ve discovered when playing vanilla Skyrim is getting used to the original game’s combat. I’ve used several mods over time which dramatically improves the combat, and coming back to Skyrim’s floaty mess of a melee system is something that lets the game down. It’s something I don’t think Bethesda has ever perfected across any of its games, and I’m also not convinced it’ll be any different in its next game.

I may prefer Oblivion or Morrowind when it comes down purely to what’s offered in the base game without any mods installed, but vanilla Skyrim is still one of the best open-world experiences you can have now.

Sure, it’s got repetitive quest design, poorly-structured NPC behaviour, and awkward combat, but there’s just nothing else like it that you can play today. I love the freedom you get in being able to go anywhere, do anything, and have the game not impose any restrictions on things you do decide to do. Modding the game doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s fixing any flaws with the design, but rather introducing alternative experiences for you to enjoy.

Will The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel come close to the lightning in a bottle that Bethesda captured here? Probably not. Fallout 4 and Starfield have shown me that I’m not too keen on Bethesda’s modern approach to design. But hey, at least we’ll still have a forever game like Skyrim.

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