Rivers of digital ink have been spilled to praise, comment on, and (more rarely) denigrate The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, so I won’t spend too much time stating the obvious. Skyrim is an ambitious, seminal game that took everything great about The Elder Scrolls and said: more, and better. The open-world role-playing game experience that Bethesda Game Studios pioneered with Arena and Daggerfall and then refined with Morrowind and Oblivion comes to full bloom in Skyrim. Yes, there are a lot of bugs too, but they are a small price to pay for the experience.
Skyrim introduced many new gameplay features, including getting rid of the class system and adding the ability to dual-wield weapons and magic. However, the most iconic addition to the game has to be its Shouts. In Skyrim, Dragon Shouts represent an ancient form of magic that the protagonist, as the Dragonborn, has access to. They’re obtained by finding Words of Power scattered in the game’s world and unlocked by syphoning the souls of slain dragons. The first Shout you obtain in Skyrim is Unrelenting Force, which allows the Dragonborn to blast away enemies and objects. Even if progressing in the game lets you master Shouts that slow down time, summon thunderstorms, and tame dragons, I barely used any of those in all the years I spent with Skyrim. It’s FUS RO DAH or nothing for me.
Unrelenting Force is actually a pretty useful ability, even in the advanced phases of the game. It does minimal damage (unless you upgrade it with abilities from the Dragonborn DLC), but it’s useful to stagger even powerful creatures, create openings, and push enemies off cliffs or ledges. But that’s not why I kept using it, nor why I still remember it fondly after so many years. If you have never played Skyrim (it hurts to say it, but the game came out 14 years ago), let me explain: You yell at people (or monsters, or animals) and they fly away. Your foes are literally blown away by the power of your voice, the ancient dragon magic in your blood, and the anger and frustration you accumulated in a long working day before firing up your beloved game. I’m not saying that I actually shouted when smashing the RB button on my Xbox 360, but the therapeutic effect was quite similar.
If I had to describe Skyrim with one word, it would be “freedom.” After being dropped in the cold, charming tundras of Skyrim, the player is free to explore and do whatever they want. Sure, there is a main quest, a civil war, something about dragons coming back, but that’s not the main appeal. My favorite Skyrim YouTube videos are “normal life” role-play series in which players work, save money, buy a house, find a wife, and stay the hell away from dragons and politics. (You can find a great early example here.) And guess what, they’re damn entertaining.
RPGs thrive on escapism, arguably more so than any other video game genre. Bethesda built its reputation on mastering the immersion factor, building worlds that players can get lost in due to their vastness and abundance of details. Playing Skyrim feels like a particularly liberating form of escapism. You can roam freely through the vast landscape, getting lost in visions of beautiful, hazy snowpeaks, stumbling into ancient ruins and eerie landmarks. Skyrim is even a great game for meditation, if you’re into that. And if trouble comes, you can simply shout it away.
You’re surrounded by pesky Draugr in the narrow corridors of a dungeon? FUS RO DAH. You got too close to a Giant’s beloved Mammoth and now risk getting blown away to the sky? FUS RO DAH. You’re hungry but don’t want to waste time shooting at salmon in a river? FUS RO DAH.
It’s not often that a gameplay feature transcends its mechanical nature and connects with players on a philosophical level. Shouts may have been conceived as merely an extra tool in the player’s arsenal in Skyrim, with the added value of being connected to the story and one of the main in-game activities (14-year-old spoiler: you kill a lot of dragons in Skyrim). However, the beautiful simplicity of Unrelenting Force makes every pressing of that button an act of pure catharsis.
Your voice has power, Skyrim says. Go out in this stunning, expansive world, and live in it however you like. And make yourself heard.
Skyrim may not have the most refined gameplay and combat, especially by modern standards, but there are still a lot of cool things you can do in the game, from riding dragons to shutting down the sun with an arrow. Sometimes, however, you just have to yell at things and make them go away. FUS…
