Skyrim is one of the bestselling games of all time. This fact will be no surprise to gamers, as the title has been released over a huge variety of platforms and systems. Whatever way someone wants to play Skyrim, they can. This has proved to be incredibly profitable for Bethesda, as official Skyrim sales passed the 30 million mark in 2019. With the upcoming release of the 10th Anniversary Edition, these sales look to only increase. The decade of huge success Skyrim accrued has cemented Bethesda as one of the dominant forces in triple-A gaming.
Todd Howard, Bethesda CEO and Skyrim director, was a driving force behind what became a culture-defining phenomenon of video games. Howard often takes point in games shows and expos when discussing Bethesda’s games and has talked a lot about Skyrim over the last ten years. In particular, Howard has discussed the game’s success on multiple occasions. According to Howard, the company keeps releasing Skyrim because people keep buying it. However, that might not actually be a good thing for the wider legacy of Bethesda games, past and present.
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Supply and Demand: Howard’s Skyrim Release Philosophy
In a 2018 Geoff Keighly interview covered by GameIndustry.biz, Todd Howard said “millions of people every month are playing that game.” While it’s hard to get an exact estimate of that number, he might not be far off, as the 30 million copies of Skyrim presumably get played at some point. Howard remarked, “if you want us to stop releasing it, stop buying it.” With Skyrim being one of the best-selling games ever, Howard’s philosophy makes some sense.
In some ways, it’s a basic tenet of the profit motive, if the game keeps selling, of course, Bethesda is going to want to remaster it. There are obviously notable benefits to re-releasing the game. Bethesda has often given players free upgrades to the newer versions of the game, as with the Skyrim: Special Edition released in 2016. It also allows the company to revamp a game that is ten years old but still enjoyed by so many people.
Furthermore, the fan community’s impact on Skyrim radically changed the game since its 2011 release, and new releases allow the company to acknowledge that. For example, the upcoming Anniversary Edition will include a pack of the best Skyrim mods. Many of these substantially alter the base product, and it is excellent to see Bethesda acknowledging the impact that independent creators have had on its game.
Other Elder Scrolls Titles Deserve a Remaster
However, the hyper-focus on re-releasing Skyrim, unfortunately, leaves other Elder Scrolls titles to the wayside. Although these other games did not achieve the incredibly high profile of The Elder Scrolls 5, they are still undoubtedly influential on not only Skyrim but the wider fantasy RPG genre as a whole. Unfortunately, these games do not receive nearly the same love as Skyrim, even though they often featured deeper mechanical elements and some fantastic quests. In fact, it seems like Elder Scrolls and Skyrim fans alike agree that older Bethesda games deserve a bit more love.
The huge attention on the upcoming Skyrim mod Skyblivion goes a long way in demonstrating this. The mod's official channel boasts over 14 million views, with its trailers for Skyblivion making up a large portion of that. The mod fully reimagines Morrowind inside Skyrim's Creation Engine. The same has been done for other recreation mods like Skywind, and the even earlier Morroblivion (all the way back in 2008).
Fans coordinated these mods through extensive forum correspondence, even branching off from more central Elder Scrolls forums to create their own websites, and the TESRenewal project was born. It seems obvious, then, that there is a huge, undeniable excitement from Elder Scrolls fans towards the older titles. However, if Skyrim keeps getting remastered every few years, these older titles might go without a proper remake or rerelease for a while.
It would be a shame for this to happen, as the older games have some brilliant moments that could influence future Bethesda titles. In fact, some of these older games are so good, that actor James McAvoy got addicted to Oblivion—showing the huge widespread appeal the older games in the series had. While Skyrim is a fantastic game for future Bethesda products to take notes from, having more contemporary remakes of the studio's previous titles could have a great knock-on effect as well.
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Skyrim Could Dampen Future Bethesda Releases
Skyrim is Bethesda's most popular title, and comparisons to it can often be difficult for other games to escape. Whenever a genre-defining game is released, it has a kind of gravitational pull when it comes to comparisons and evaluations. DOOM switched up the gaming sphere so massively that FPS games were called "DOOM-likes" for a while, showing just how important landmark games can be. Skyrim has become its own landmark game, with its 30 million copies sold providing it huge cultural weight. In fact, the game is so popular that Skyrim mods like The Forgotten City became their own video games. So, not only does Skyrim influence other games, but it also was fundamental in some great indie titles existing in the first place.
Many Bethesda fans have pondered if Starfield will be Skyrim in space, with Todd Howard even confirming that DNA from Bethesda's other games will make its way into the spacefaring adventure. As such, there are already astronomical expectations for a game that only has one official trailer and a release date. Comparing Starfield to the studio's bestselling game might well be vastly unfair, but Bethesda's Skyrim release logic directly invites these comparisons.
If a company keeps releasing one game again and again, it is reasonable for fans to use it as a comparison point for future titles. If Bethesda games are ever to step out of Skyrim's admittedly impressive shadow, the logic towards re-releasing the game needs to change.
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