Skyrim, Endings and open world design

Spoiler Warning: Skyrim, Breath Of The Wild, Crystal Project 

Abbi, the lovely Archmage (Namesake coincidental :3)

I recently "Beat" Skyrim for what that's worth. 120 hours of play never naturally brought me to the game's conclusion. But this run, I deigned to take my High Elven Archmage from Helgen to Sovngarde without getting too distracted. And, uh, I don't know if I would say it was worth it. Skyrim thrives in it's ambiance, it's side objectives and it's genuine beauty, even for such an old game. The feeling I get when I hear songs like "From past to present is still so beautiful. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5sTI_zBg40&ab_channel=Aramil ) And the calm ambience of the game's towns with people just going about their day to day lives is so peaceful. For all it's improvements in storytelling, that's one of the aspects I way prefer in Skyrim over Fallout New Vegas ; the peace and ambiance is just so lovely in a world that feels so much more hopeful. 

So, what is Skyrim's story? You have to track down and defeat Alduin, thus ending the dragon menace (Although dragons will still show up and attack after the story, making it more of a theoretical victory). And yes, I did say after the story. Because after travelling to Sovngarde and defeating Alduin, the game just, uh, keeps going. Nothing about the world has meaningfully changed, other than the random lines the omnipotent immortal guards spout. The story itself begins with Alduin attacking Helgen, from which you escape and travel to Dragonsreach. From there, you complete a couple of fetchquests including going to bleak falls barrow before killing your first dragon and learn your first shout. From there, you make the trek up to High Hrothgar to meet the greybeards, and be given an agonising tutorial on shouts. You just press Z folks, it's not that complex. From there you're tasked with retrieving the horn of Jorgen Windcaller, which isn't there (A twist? Skyrim you saucy saucy minx, you do spoil us). It's being held by whatsherface of the blemblescremble group. She makes you break into a government embacy and kill dozens of government diplomats which luckily no-one cares about. Seriously, no-one even mentions it after. I think sometime around this you reach the throat of the world after enduring yet another shouts tutorial and meet Parthunax who is adorable. Look at him, aww. 

Parthunax being a cutie

You then rescue a rat man and enter the blemblescremble headquarters. From here you discover the location of an Elder Scroll (woa they said the thing) and travel to Blackreach, a genuinely gorgeous zone marred by being waaaaay too open, and obtain the Elder Scroll. From there you return to the Throat of the world and watch an overly long cutscene (Playing modern SQUENIX JRPGs really makes you take cutscene skip for granted huh) and learn the shout Dragonrend, genuinely the only useful upgrade you get from the main quest as it forces dragons to land shortening their sometimes tedious fights by half. Alduin then attacks, you smack his butt cheeks and he flies off to the land of the dead (Sovngarde for those who haven't heard the bandits in this game screaming "Death or Sovngarde" at you) because, idk he was bored or something? From there you commune with the blades again and find out that you can get to Sovngarde with the help of another dragon. You convince the Jarl of Windhelm to allow you to use Dragonreach to trap a dragon, which of course involves a peace treaty in the form of a 10 minute unskippable cutscene, which I spent the entire time banging my cup on the table rapidly since it was the only form of interaction I had ;  which of course made everyone take me completely seriously. From there you can fly to Sovngarde on the back of the dragon and bop Alduin on the nose for the completion of the main quest. 

Now, why did I spend all this time describing Skyrim's main quest? It took me 3 trips to the wiki to recall some of the events, and I definitely skimmed over a lot. I also got to reiterate how absurdly boring some parts of game's story are. But this is the *main* story right? The part of the game they expect most of the playerbase to experience? Why is it *so* boring? 

While part of this is due to Skyrim being a 12 year old PC game that takes the half life 2  "you can walk around while the story happens" approach way too far (Half Life 2 Succeeds partly in it's brevity guys), it also comes down to the fact that a "main story" is in my opinion a flawed method of designing a finale to an open world video game. Let me explain. 

In an open world game, where there is an objective at every corner, a singular thread leading through the game quickly becomes disinteresting. Even in Fallout New Vegas, a game which has a far more engaging main storyline than Skyrim, I grew bored and frustrated with it rather quickly. That quest "line" becomes quickly exhausting to progress in and you begin to wonder *why* you're doing it as the game's justifications fall away.

This is where more modern open world games take a *far* better and more dynamic approach to their progression. Instead of the Questline, you have the Final Dungeon, a location that becomes available early or instantly in an open world game, that can be completed to beat the game. It's usually an extremely difficult location full of dangerous monsters that requires either incredible skill, or the far more likely option of exploring the entire map and picking up upgrades. This option's benefits are threefold. Firstly, it increases the player's agency ; the moment the player feels ready, they can step into the final dungeon and challenge the final boss. Even if they get stomped, they now feel an incentive to grab powerups instead of them being an "eh, I guess" kind of experience. Secondly, it increases the value of everything in the open world. As soon as everything in the world is optional, it feels more earned and valuable for the player to pickup, especially since every brick on the scales is a step towards victory. And finally, it provides dynamic difficulty moderation by the player, a favourite of Nintendo games. Seeking a challenge? Go in for the final battle with minimal gear. Struggling and need all the help you can get? Peruse the map and find every single upgrade for an easy stomp.

The most prominent example of this is The Legend Of Zelda ; Breath Of The Wild. The final dungeon of Ganon's castle is genuinely incredibly difficult, and exploration is massively helpful for it. The interior monsters are tough and the bosses of the Ganon Blights tougher. Every extra heart, every divine beast taken out of commission, every additional weapon in link's roomy underwear is another rung on the ladder towards beating ganon. And if you do everything? Hey, this is the ultimate evil, who can blame you for stacking the deck fully in your favor?

 Another game that does this extremely well is Crystal Project. While not fully open world throughout, you can challenge the final dungeon extremely early (As soon as you get the Ibek mount about 10-20 hours into this 60 hour game). If you do so you'll get stomped which is why it's important to explore the world gain equipment and raise your power level. This game hearkens back to older JRPGs like Final Fantasy 6 in the way that the final dungeon becomes available only half-way through the game, and other JRPGs like most of the Dragon Quest games where a huge amount of optional quests become available around the time of the final dungeon, which you can do to give a massive boost for the final dungeons of these games. 

Another advantage of the final Dungeon is pacing on a 100% run. Let's say you 100% completed Skyrim, and went to do the main questline as a way to cap off your experience. It would be pretty underwhelming due to taking like... 10 hours if you put it off from the earliest possible opportunity. But with breath of the wild? You do a short, intense spurt of gameplay for like, 1-2 hours, and you're done. 

Now, what is the disadvantage of the Final Dungeon? The main disadvantage is story. It's far harder to tell a singular flowing narrative when your only opportunity to do so is at the very beginning, and very end of a long-form game. Of course this doesn't mean games like this can't have great plots, but it simply requires a different form of storytelling. But I think the Final Dungeon's advantages for gameplay are big enough to make it a system I hope more games adopt, like the (theoretically) upcoming Elder Scrolls 6, otherwise known as Skyrim 2.

Thanks for reading ; much love, Abbi Signing Off <3