Is Skyrim too damn long?

Posted December 3, 2011 by beefjack in News, Opinion.

Blog: THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM is a vast game. But after pumping countless hours into it, Lewis Anderson ponders whether Skyrim’s hugeness waters down the experience…

If Skyrim was a dirty great blanket that had been dipped in the water of game-time, the liquid you could wring out would overflow a bucket with more than 300 hours of gametime gunk. Which is an overwrought way of saying that Skyrim is huge – 300 hours of gametime equates to 12 and a half days, or so my trusty calculator friend informs me. It’s a bit of a commitment.

And it’s a lovingly detailed, dragon-ridden commitment that struggles to disappoint from whichever angle you choose to examine it at. A dungeon lurks behind every boulder, guilds and townsfolk relentlessly call for your help and a few professions wait to be mastered too. There are even thousands of words wrapped up inside the books scattered all over Skyrim.

When there’s an over-abundance of stuff in a videogame, it’s usual that the content is repeated, and that’s certainly the case with some parts of Skyrim – ever think it strange that all the cabbages look exactly the same? But with Skyrim it’s slightly different, at least in my own experience. Skyrim is one of those games where it’s nice to just stop and watch the world every now and then. It’s never a chore.

But let’s have a look at some comments on Twitter:

“I’ve played ~20hrs of Skyrim & don’t even remember what the main quest was. Right now I’m just super invested in buying a house in Whiterun.”

“26 hours in and I’m about to visit my second city. Only seen Whiterun so far. Am I slow or just crazy?”

“27 hours in. Fully furnished house in Whiterun. Now starting to get into enchanting and sitting by my fire reading all my books.”

Sitting by the fire, reading all the books. Videogames eh? It’s enough to make you dash outside and embark on a crusade of violence. Or not: I’d say it’s more fun battling dragons on mountain tops than being a tabloid cliché. But maybe that’s just me.

Does size matter?

To directly compare these experiences to another game released at a similar time, that’s a heck of a lot more value for money than, say, Arkham City. A videogame that absorbs 20 hours in the first region alone, when most AAA games are done and dusted before the hour count reaches its teens, is pretty unique.

So should Skyrim be heralded for its wealth of content? Yes, it should. You can’t shrug at Bethesda’s efforts. But does it need to be so bloomin’ big? Would Skyrim suffer if it boasted 150 hours? Or even 75 hours? How long is too long? Is it unfair to have so much detail when most gamers won’t get to see 50 percent of what Skyrim offers?

There are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand, players that want to experience everything they can in Skyrim before the next big game comes along might find those 300 hours are pretty daunting. Comprehensively beating Skyrim is no mean feat.

But on the other hand, a wealth of game time means something much more important. Skyrim is of course a roleplaying game. You assume the life of a denizen of Tamriel and, like most people in reality, you won’t get to experience everything there is to experience. In reality, all of us will taste only a sliver of what life has to offer and Skyrim’s seemingly endless amounts of optional content help mirror that.

Some of us will never visit Rorikstead, some of us will never cast illusion magic, some of us will never own a house. Corridor shooters and repetitive multiplayer experiences dominate videogames today – true freedom is hard to come by. Skyrim’s size lets you carve out your own unique path that no one else will follow.

So no, it’s not too big. It just allows for more escapism. And after all, isn’t that why we play vidoegames anyway? -Lewis Anderson

Tagged as Bethesda, Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim