Skyrim Rewrite Part 1: Introduction

Skyrim sits in a weird place for me. It's both one of the best RPGs ever made and a criminally wasted opportunity. The contradiction creates this itch in my brain that flares up whenever I see anything related to the game.

There's so much I love about Skyrim, with its expertly crafted exploration and loot cycle, that it's frustrating to see how Bethesda constantly shoots itself in the foot with its main quest design.

The game's story forces a ton of characters and worldbuilding down the player's throat, much of it hard to care about. It feels drawn out and often undermines the player's illusion of agency. The narrative is even written in such a way that it clashes with Skyrim's core gameplay loop. I would bet that most fans of the game keep coming back in spite of how the main quest is written, not because of it.

I like the main quest on paper. Stories structured around a central mystery fit my tastes perfectly (in this case the return of Alduin and his dragons after a multi-millennia nap). Unfortunately, the answers the game gives are often delivered in the most inept or obnoxious way possible. Most of the major players in it have goals that are a confusing mess, which makes the errands they send the player on feel pointless and arbitrary.

This shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Bethesda's development history--they've shown for a while now that they no longer know how to write narratives for their games. What makes it worse is that there are moments of good writing sprinkled throughout that feel like they belong in a better story, sometimes in unexpected places.

I'm going to be writing a couple of blog posts considering ways to improve the main quest. My goal here isn't to dunk on Bethesda--plenty of others have beaten that horse to a moist pulp--or scold the writers for telling the story they did. There are scenes in Skyrim's questline that are effective, and I do have some small hope that the writers at the company will find a consistent narrative voice. This is more of a thought exercise.

This rewrite is going to change as little about the story as possible. My goal here is to show what Skyrim's story was trying to be rather than imagine a completely different version of the game. As such, I will stay away from any massive changes to the central story beats, factions, mechanics, and assets. I also won't attempt to force Elder Scrolls lore onto the story to make it more "faithful" to the other games.

I also won't touch the Civil War questline, the DLCs, or the Guild quests for now. I may bring them up at certain points, but only so far as they relate to the main quest. My next post will begin the rewrite proper.

Up Next: Helgen, Riverwood, and Whiterun