I was trapped in a closet by Skyrim, and the only way I could possibly escape was to play through the game from beginning to end. From the dragon-botched execution to killing that same dragon outside Valhalla. From freeing an island of mind controlled miners to defeating the previous minion of the evil god of knowledge to take his place. From signing up to be a vampire hunter to myself becoming a vile, undead monstrosity in order to save the world from an even viler undead monstrosity. From being a Breton on a casual tour of Tamriel to being a married mom living (or rather, unliving) well in Windhelm.
Skyrim was one of the free monthly PlayStation Plus games awhile back. I’d made a character, but didn’t play the game at all. At some point, I was talking to my son about it, made a joke about the 130 hours I played it the first time around, played it a little longer, through the opening scene. Then we got the board game version, and started playing that — and we’re STILL playing that, by the way.
I was playing Tactics Ogre Reborn before Advent of Code, but afterward, I’d forgotten how to play Tactics Ogre as close to the end game as I’d left it. I didn’t really have a game to play, and with thinking about Skyrim, playing the board game, and seeing how the PlayStation version I had on the PS5 had all the expansions that didn’t exist yet when I played it the first time… one thing led to another. I stopped fighting it.
I’m not going to narrate the entire game. I should probably have been blogging the whole thing, but I didn’t, and it’s too late for all that now.
My intention in this playthrough was to break the game. This is easy to do on the PC — just install the right mods, and it’s broken as much as you want it to break. Playing it on the console makes things a little harder — no cheating.
The guides said to focus on crafting — enchanting, blacksmithing and alchemy. Max those out, and nothing will be able to touch you, they said.
They weren’t wrong about that. I spent a LOT of time killing low level mobs to fill soul stones, enchanting anything I could, and selling items all over the world. No merchant in my way left with any money. I picked up every alchemical component, then sold the potions I made back to the vendor who sold me the ingredients. I used a dupe bug to make thousands of gold ore (and thousands of gold rings) and when smithing got to 100, I made game breaking enchanted gear (after chugging potions that boosted the power of crafted items 100%, potions I brewed). I fitted myself and my housecarl, Lydia, out with the best stuff.
If something managed to get through all that, I had potions that made me resist pretty much everything — 75% and up resistance. It was great.
That didn’t happen all at once. I had plenty of times where I bit off more than I could chew.
Enter Lydia. She’s the free follower you get fairly early on — though it’s possible to hire mercenaries. But Lydia is the one everyone remembers. My first time through the game, when the game came out, I didn’t like how she kept getting in the way, so I had her stay home and went through the game alone, more or less.
This time, I wanted her to be a tank. Not a sneaky tank — sometimes I still had to leave her behind if I wanted to be sneaky — but I gave her the best armor, the best weapons… I gave her every magic staff I found, too. So I could just let her do most of the work while I plinked stuff with my bow from the shadows, or tried to set up a sneak attack.
Until I had to send her home in order to have Serana come with me through the Soul Cairn to another plane of existence, she went with me on every adventure. Tanked every dragon. Ran screaming into bandit forts to just be knocked down, again and again, while I plinked the red dots dead from safety. So when I was trying to figure out who to marry to get the “You got married!” trophy, she was really the only choice (my boyfriend was saying I should have gone with the guy who runs the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun).
The Heart & Home expansion brings base building to the game. I never really had enough money for that, since I was in the habit of paying NPCs to boost my skills every level, and that got expensive. Those who were merchants, like the alchemist merchant in Whiterun, I could pay to raise my alchemy skill, and then sell back the potions I made. But, most of the teachers weren’t that nice — or I didn’t find the nice ones until I leveled out of their lessons.
It did allow me to adopt two of the urchins that run around every city. I felt a little guilty, not being really there for them, leaving them alone all the time. I probably should have left Lydia with them. I should have married her or someone else earlier.
When we moved to Windhelm midway through the game (the house was a steal! the previous residents had been killed by a psycho killer, but it cleaned up okay when I through enough gold at the problem) — when we moved, the kids found their own way halfway across Skyrim, and settled right in. Soon, I’d done enough favors for the Jarl of Windhelm, Ulfric (killing the emperor, defeating the Imperial army) that he named me Thane and gave me another housecarl, who moved into my Windhelm house and presumably watched the kids.
So, second time around in Windhelm. I did a lot less magic, and a lot more melee. I skipped some questlines entirely — I didn’t bother with becoming archmage, or rising the ranks in the Companions, or doing the garden variety vampire thing. Vampire Lord, though, I did do that. I could have played Dawnguard as a hero, but that didn’t sound nearly as fun as the alternative.
I don’t think I’ll play Skyrim a third time, but I didn’t really think I would play it a second time. The DLCs were fun. Heck, the whole game is fun. I still have yet to play the game as a pure caster or as a pure melee, so I suppose I could make the case to play it twice more.
With Elder Scrolls VI coming out at some time in the next few years, and Starfield coming out this year, though, I think I can stay busy with other games instead of coming back to this one.
But, who really knows.
