Almost fourteen years after its release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim It remains a phenomenon difficult to explain. Despite the passage of time and multiple Bethesda releases since then, the RPG continues to attract tens of thousands of players every day. Its main designer, Bruce Nesmithsays he is still “eternally surprised” by the fact that the game simply has not stopped living.
A popularity that does not age
During a conversation for FRVR podcastNesmith reflected on the title's longevity and admitted that he never imagined it would still be so widely played more than a decade later. According to the most recent data on Steam, Skyrim: Special Edition has more than twelve times the number of active players that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Even when the latter is a more recent version.
“I am eternally surprised by that,” Nesmith confessed. “By all rights, another game should have surpassed it one, two, or five years later. But we're still seeing huge numbers. Todd (Howard) was showing us stats about how many people were still playing, and it was impossible to believe. Ten years later, there were still thousands of daily players.”
For the designer, the explanation is not in the graphics or the expansions. It is located in the type of experience that Skyrim offersone that few games have been able to replicate.
The secret of Skyrim's open world
In an industry where almost everything is promoted as “open world,” Nesmith believes that Skyrim He did it in a way that no one had tried beforeand which few have dared to replicate since then.
“I think that Skyrim “It made the world open in a way that no one had done before, and very few have tried since,” he explained. “We accepted that it involved weirdness, that strange things would happen, but if you accept it, you get a diamond. “If you try to eliminate everything unpredictable, you lose the magic.”
The team allowed the game to have glitches, strange behavior and spontaneous momentsbecause that helped the world feel truly alive. Instead of directing the player experience, Skyrim let each person have your own adventure. This is something Nesmith considers the key to his success.
“We didn't put anything off limits. We didn't want to manage the player experience. It was a player-driven experience, and very few games have achieved that,” he added.
More than a game, an experience
For millions of fans, Skyrim It's not just an RPG: it's a toolbox for imagination. Each game is different. Each decision is a new path. The title is not limited to offering a list of missions. It offers you a dynamic environment where exploration, curiosity and freedom outweigh any predefined narrative. Nesmith sums it up like this: “There is no other open world like Skyrim, not even among our own games.”
About to turn 14 years old, the Bethesda classic continues to reign among the open worldsand will probably continue to do so until it arrives The Elder Scrolls VI…whenever that happens.
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