Man, I still remember the exact moment I fired up Skyrim for the first time. November 11, 2011 – yeah, that whole 11/11/11 marketing thing that Bethesda was pushing. I’d actually called in sick to work that day, which wasn’t technically a lie since I was definitely feeling sick… sick with anticipation to play this game I’d been watching trailers for all year. My principal at the time would’ve rolled her eyes so hard they’d have fallen out if she knew I was using a sick day to play video games.
I was living in this crappy apartment near downtown Phoenix – the one where the AC barely worked and my upstairs neighbor apparently trained elephants for a living based on the noise level. Had my little gaming setup in what was supposed to be the dining room, complete with my launch day Xbox 360 that sounded like a jet engine and a TV I’d bought used from some guy on Craigslist who swore it “only had a few dead pixels.”
The character creation screen popped up and holy hell, I went down a rabbit hole. Spent probably ninety minutes crafting what I thought would be the perfect Imperial warrior. Every facial feature slider got my complete attention – jaw width, eye depth, scar placement. My buddy called me during this process and I actually let it go to voicemail because I was trying to decide between two nearly identical nose shapes. That should’ve been my first warning about how deep this game was gonna get its hooks into me.
When I finally emerged from Helgen after that whole execution sequence (talk about starting your adventure on a bad note), I just… stopped walking. The view looking out over that valley, with the river snaking through it and those massive mountains in the background – I’d never seen anything like that in a game. And I’ve been gaming since the Master System days, so that’s saying something. I literally stood there for five minutes just rotating the camera around, which probably looked ridiculous but felt amazing.
That first trek to Riverwood and then Whiterun felt like a pilgrimage. Everything was new, everything was interesting. I’d stop to pick flowers (still do that, by the way), chase butterflies around like an idiot, and investigate every single structure I could see. Made it to Whiterun and climbed up to Dragonsreach, heard that incredible music echoing through the hall, and thought “okay, this is it, this is the game that’s gonna ruin me for other RPGs.”
But the real magic happened when I started ignoring the main quest. I was supposed to be heading up to see the Greybeards – you know, important Dragonborn business – when I spotted a cave entrance off to the side of the path. “Just a quick look,” I told myself. Three hours later I crawled out of there having cleared an entire bandit camp, found some ancient Nordic puzzle door, and somehow contracted vampirism. Not exactly what I had planned for the afternoon.
That first playthrough consumed my life for about a month. My Imperial – named Marcus because I wasn’t feeling creative – ended up as the leader of every guild, thane of every hold, and owner of more real estate than I’ll ever afford in actual Phoenix. Got married to Lydia because she was the first follower who didn’t actively annoy me, and set up house in Whiterun like some kind of medieval domestic fantasy. When I finally finished the main quest, defeating Alduin felt almost anticlimactic compared to everything else I’d accomplished. The dragon that was supposed to end the world? Yeah, took me maybe twenty minutes. Building my perfect house and organizing my weapon collection? That was the real endgame.
Over the years, Skyrim became my go-to comfort game. When I was dealing with a particularly rough semester – you know how high school kids can be in spring when they’re all checked out mentally – I’d come home and lose myself in the Rift, hunting bears and collecting alchemical ingredients. It was therapeutic in a way that probably says something about my mental health, but whatever, it worked.
The DLCs hit at perfect times in my life. Dawnguard came out right after I’d started dating someone new, and I remember trying to explain the vampire versus vampire hunter storyline to her while she gave me that look that girlfriends give when they’re calculating exactly how much of a nerd they’ve gotten involved with. She stuck around though, even married me eventually, so apparently my Skyrim enthusiasm wasn’t a complete dealbreaker.
Dragonborn dropped during Christmas break one year, and I spent the entire two weeks exploring Solstheim instead of grading papers like I was supposed to. There’s something about that ash-covered landscape that just clicked with me – maybe because it felt alien but familiar at the same time, like Skyrim’s weird cousin from out of state. The mushroom houses, the weird creatures, that whole Lovecraftian thing they had going on… it was different enough to feel fresh but still unmistakably Elder Scrolls.
When they released the Special Edition in 2016, I bought it immediately even though I knew it was basically the same game with prettier water effects. “This is stupid,” I said while downloading it. “You’ve already played this game for hundreds of hours.” Then I proceeded to create a new Redguard character and sink another hundred hours into it, because apparently I have no self-control when it comes to Bethesda RPGs.
The modding community deserves serious credit for keeping this game alive. Started simple – just some texture improvements and maybe a UI tweak. But then you discover there are mods that completely overhaul the combat system, add entire new continents, or let you build your own settlements. I went through a phase where I had Skyrim modded into basically a survival simulator – had to eat, sleep, stay warm, the works. Actually caught myself worrying about whether my character was getting enough sleep while I was trying to fall asleep myself. That’s when I realized this hobby might be getting out of hand.
Anniversary Edition in 2021 pulled me back in again, a full decade after I’d first stepped off that cart in Helgen. By then, most of my gaming buddies had moved on to other things. “You’re still playing that old game?” they’d ask, like I was admitting to some kind of gaming addiction. Which… okay, maybe I was, but at least it was a productive addiction, right? I mean, I could be doing drugs or gambling or something actually harmful instead of just obsessing over digital Nordic ruins.
Thing is, returning to Skyrim after all these years isn’t just nostalgia. The world had become genuinely familiar to me, like driving through your hometown after being away for a while. I knew the shortcut from Riften to Ivarstead that avoids all the bears. I knew exactly which merchant in Whiterun had the most gold for my loot runs. I knew that if you stand in just the right spot in Blackreach, you can see almost the entire cavern spread out below you like some kind of underground alien landscape.
Replaying the questlines as an older, slightly more mature person (emphasis on slightly) has been interesting too. The Dark Brotherhood storyline hit different when I played it in my forties versus my thirties. All that stuff about found family and belonging, about how sometimes the people who accept you aren’t the people society thinks you should be with… I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve been teaching teenagers for years now and I see kids struggling with those same issues, but the writing felt more meaningful.
The civil war questline too – first time through I picked the Stormcloaks basically because Ulfric looked cooler and I liked their fur armor. Later playthroughs, I actually found myself thinking about the political implications. Imperial rule versus local autonomy, how racism and nationalism can poison legitimate grievances, whether stability is worth sacrificing for independence… not exactly light topics for a fantasy game, but there they are, woven right into the fabric of the world.
And can we talk about Blackreach for a second? That massive underground cavern with the glowing mushrooms and the Falmer and all those Dwemer ruins scattered around like ancient Legos. First time I stumbled into that place – completely by accident, following some quest I can’t even remember – my jaw literally dropped. “How is there MORE GAME down here?” I said out loud to my empty apartment. I’d already put in dozens of hours and suddenly here was this entire other world beneath the world I thought I knew. Even now, thirteen years later, I’ll find corners of Blackreach I’ve never explored before.
The modding scene these days is absolutely insane. There are total conversion mods that basically turn Skyrim into completely different games, quest mods with voice acting that rivals the official content, graphics overhauls that make the game look like it came out yesterday instead of 2011. My current setup includes weather mods that make storms look genuinely threatening, AI improvements that make NPCs act less like robots, and a mod that lets me run a tavern which is somehow more satisfying than my actual job teaching teenagers about the Industrial Revolution.
When people compare Skyrim to newer games – Witcher 3, newer Bethesda stuff, whatever – I always tell them it’s not really a fair fight. Sure, those games have better graphics, more sophisticated mechanics, facial animations where people don’t look like they’re made of plastic. But Skyrim has something you can’t program – thirteen years of shared cultural moments, of memes and discoveries and personal history. When I boot up Skyrim, I’m not just playing a game, I’m visiting a place that’s been part of my life for over a decade.
Does the combat feel clunky compared to modern games? Absolutely. Do I still get annoyed when NPCs get stuck walking into walls or when guards repeat the same three lines about taking arrows to knees? You bet. But those quirks have become part of the experience, like visiting your childhood home and noticing the same creaky floorboard is still there.
My current character – a Khajiit mage who specializes in illusion magic and has an unhealthy obsession with collecting cheese wheels – has been sitting idle for a few weeks while I dealt with end-of-semester grading and parent conferences. But I know Skyrim will be there waiting when I get back, same as always. The aurora borealis will still dance across the sky over Winterhold, the bards in taverns will still be singing off-key versions of “Ragnar the Red,” and somewhere out there, a courier will still be tracking me down to deliver a letter about an inheritance from someone I definitely murdered.
Some games you beat and move on from. Skyrim just… becomes part of your life. And honestly? After thirteen years, I’m okay with that.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
