I was perhaps expecting too much, but when I fired up the Special Edition and the game was still a little creaky, the character models still ugly and the opening area depressingly brown, I wasn’t overly impressed by the remaster. What I forgot was that Skyrim is 5 years old, and all the volumetric god rays and dynamic depth of field wizardry isn’t going to change that.

What I remembered most was the sense of freedom, the awe-inspiring vistas, the incredible environments. I remember the bugs, of course – who could not? – but they were always minor visual things for me, none of the game-breaking reversing-dragon nonsense that plagued the PS3 release. Skyrim is one of those games I’ve put on a pedestal, indelible, infallible, perfect. I only stopped playing when I upgraded to Xbox One and packed my reliable old 360 off to the Jefferson’s farm, where it could live out its last days frolicking in the green fields, chasing Wiis and PSPs.Ĭoming back to it again, almost 3 years since I last sallied forth into Tamriel’s frozen north, I was almost disappointed by my own recollections. I rinsed the primary quest lines, squeezed every drop I could out of the three DLC offerings, and spent a good few hours simply wandering around the game world, getting into random adventures with dragons, trolls and bandits.

I’ve been through the game four times, equalling around 250 hours played. I played a lot of Skyrim in 2012, and then slightly less in 2013.

Skyrim special edition rating