Will Skyrim be remembered?

[itsausernamewhatofit]

Personally I would say the latter although I may be biased in that I hated Oblivion and was less than hopeful about the quality of Skyrim. Since then I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of Skyrim but to me it does not seem like a classic, more like a well marketed and above average sequel to an inferior game. I'm really not trying to pick a fight with all of the Elder Scrolls fans here but I just can never get into the games.
I'm sure many will remember it as one of their favorites though, All of the Elder Scrolls fans I know act a bit high and mighty about the fact that they are connoisseurs of such a "rich immersive and intelligent" series such as the Elder Scrolls.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

So, Skyrim will be remembered because Oblivion and Morrowind are? And while those games are mentioned about 50 times in this thread each, Arena gets 0 mentions. So I guess it's a question of whether Skyrim will end up like Morrowind or Arena.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

Its a brilliant game, and if you think about how Morrowind and Oblivion are still talked about, then yes, Skyrim will most certainly be remembered.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Considering that I saw twelve other Skyrim threads on the same page as this one, I'm going to say yes.

 

[Extragorey]

Being remembered =/= being a great game.

Warcraft III was one of the best RTS games of all times, and almost nobody remembers it, because it was overshadowed by it's MMORPG sequel: World of Warcraft.

How can anyone forget Warcraft III? It was awesome! Way better than WoW. Think of DotA, people!

Also, yes, Skyrim will be remembered even more than Oblivion, I think. I for one will certainly play it for longer.

 

[CodeOrange]

Skyrim will be remembered as a game that could have been so much better. It's going to suffer the same fate as Oblivion, aging horribly with a bitter aftertaste of despondency and obstination. It'll happen, trust me.

Or better yet, just outsource the next game to a competent development team. Obsidian Entertainment would be a good place to start.

This a million times.

I fully hated Morrowind and Oblivion. I think Skyrim is a "good" game.(ive put in roughly 120 hours) Thats it. Just good. It isn't amazing, and it sure as hell isn't innovative or groundbreaking. Its watered down and streamlined enough to make it more accessible to more people. To increase sales.

There is nothing new of value in Skyrim. They added nothing new to the genre or games in general. (dragons are just another mob you end up one shotting, get a grip)

"Without a doubt, this has been our most ambitious project ever," said director Todd Howard. "

If this is the case, Skyrim should be considered a massive failure. Almost every feature in Skyrim is lacking something. Almost as if they purposefully didn't flesh them out. (my moneys on DLC)

It saddens me to see people thinking that Skyrim is "innovative" or "groundbreaking". I can only assume that they are either simply ignorant of whats available, or a simple minded fanboy.

All it does is reinforce another developers lackluster effort.

Actually, this is their most ambitious project yet. It was their test to see how many corners they could cut while still being critically acclaimed. And guess what, they succeeded! We all know why though.

Because this game has reached so many people who have never touched an RPG in their lives before (or at least a challenging one). Skyrim is more of a "my first RPG" or "A dummies guide to RPG's" than a real game. The prime advocate for this is Jim Sterling, who's favorite games include Kirby, Dynasty Warriors and the COD series (which are known for their unforgiving difficulty). Ignoring that his "acute" observations are quite dated in retrospect, we can see now that the ideal game does not have to entertain or challenge the player, but rather it just needs to keep them occupied.

This is exemplified in how iPhone games in their simplistic nature were able to engorge their audience in such a manner that "revolutionised" the market and how there are those that are complacent with wasting their time on shallow and superficial MMORPG's and Facebook games (ie Farmville). The issue is that people don't play games to improve on themselves, they do it to escape reality. Unfortunately, this may also incorporate the act of forgoing their standards to accentuate their absorption into an ideal reality, one that they are in control of.

 

[CodeOrange]

HOW would it not be remembered.

I still remember Morrowind 9 years since first laying hands on it. People still have fond memories of Daggerfall, and... are aware of Arena.

It's like saying we'll forget about bloody Star Wars in a few years. This is a legendary series, and it will go down as such in the history books. This is TES.

Star Wars won't be forgotten because it hasn't been matched or surpassed. It occupies it's own niche.

I'm looking forward to the day where people forget about TES (and hopefully Bethesda) because a studio with aptitude took it's place.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

HOW would it not be remembered.

I still remember Morrowind 9 years since first laying hands on it. People still have fond memories of Daggerfall, and... are aware of Arena.

It's like saying we'll forget about bloody Star Wars in a few years. This is a legendary series, and it will go down as such in the history books. This is TES.

Star Wars won't be forgotten because it hasn't been matched or surpassed. It occupies it's own niche.

I'm looking forward to the day where people forget about TES (and hopefully Bethesda) because a studio with aptitude took it's place.

Lol, I hope you plan on living past recordable human history.

 

[nbamaniac]

Skyrim will be remembered...

Spoiler

Until it takes an arrow in the knee.

Forgive me.

 

[F4LL3N]

Although I love it, I doubt it'll be remembered. We're nearing the next generation of consoles; they'll probably be a lot more powerful, and with that we'll see a lot better games that'll overshadow Skyrim.

Although there's a lot of content, that content is spread out in a very generalized way. Explore one dungeon, you've basically explored them all. Do the main questlines and a few side quests and you've experienced most of the story the game has to offer.

You can only roleplay to a fairly limited extent (although more than most games). I can't really be a hunter, surviving only if I get that deer I've been longing for. I can't really be a fugutive, because I'll lose the ability to do most things in the game and the game doesn't exactly offer you any paths for being a futugive. I can't start my own little party of bandits and sack villages. I can't be the most feared Darklord in all of Skyrim. I can't be a modest soldier among hundreds of other soldiers, fighting a battle that'll determine whether or not my wife and children will be enslaved for the next 100 years.

There's what, 60,000 lines of recorded dialogue, but you still hear the same lines over and over and over. There's plenty of quests, but none of it feels connected in any way. None of it has a purpose. There's lots of spells, weapons, armor, potions/scrolls, etc., but I've never had the need to actually use even 2% of it. I'm the Dragonborn yet I have petty little nobodies talking to me like I'm some little *****.

Overall the game does what it was aimed to do, and it does it extremely well. It's so far my GOTY and one of my favorites ever. But I really don't think it's done enough. I'm not someone who thinks a game has to bring something new to the table in order to be a classic. But it has to have something extremely special for it's time. I've been playing games for ~15 years, so I've developed a certain expectation. Skyrim has reached my expectations, but only for what's currently doable with this generation of hardware. My envision of what we'll be playing in 20 years time shits all over Skyrim. And I don't think Skyrim will be attributed to the future of gaming in any way.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

Name a gaming trope that revolutionized games forever or has been mimicked/used in other games that's attributed to The Elder Scrolls. If it takes longer than 10 seconds to come up with an answer, then the answer is "no."

TES doesn't have a claim to fame the way games like GTA, the Nintendo 3, Halo or Shadow of the Colossus have. I've noticed that TES games come out, there's a big deal for a while, and then life goes on. After the heat dies down, people begin to notice that it's not an artful story like SoTC, it far from has the consistently polished sheen of the Big Nintendo 3, it's not controversial like GTA and it's done nothing for RPGs as a whole the way Halo perfected console FPS games. In other words, it doesn't do any one thing so well that it's revolutionary.

Time will tell with Skyrim, but I also doubt that it'll be remembered as a classic hallmark of the industry. At best, it won't be remembered for much longer than it takes for the next big open-world epic from Bethesda to come out.

They're momentary classics, those games, if it makes sense. Unique, but not game-changing. Huge but not standard-setting. Fun, but not polished enough to be classic. Jack of all trades, but master of none.

 

[Scrustle]

I'm pretty sure it will be remembered. All the previous Elder Scrolls games have had a big legacy and Skyrim has been the most popular so far by a pretty big margin.

 

[kickassfrog]

It's a fun game, but I don't think it's new and fun enough to be remembered in itself.
Hopefully the next one will let you use a high speechcraft skill instead of a weapon- I would remember the ability to talk my way out of a bandit raid.

-snip-
I can't really be a hunter, surviving only if I get that deer I've been longing for. I can't really be a fugutive, because I'll lose the ability to do most things in the game and the game doesn't exactly offer you any paths for being a futugive. I can't start my own little party of bandits and sack villages. I can't be the most feared Darklord in all of Skyrim. I can't be a modest soldier among hundreds of other soldiers, fighting a battle that'll determine whether or not my wife and children will be enslaved for the next 100 years.

-snip-

That would be fun, but being a minor grunt probably doesn't appeal to most people as fun.