Art is defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination to be appreciated primarily for beauty or emotional power. Typically, when one thinks of traditional art forms, paintings and sculptures are the first things to come to mind. However, over time, other mediums have been accepted under the art umbrella. Music, literature, and photography have, over time, been lumped into the art category and, most recently, movies and television have joined the ranks. Now, in the 21stcentury, we have a new medium that is just as large and impactful as those previously mentioned: video games.
Compared to the other forms of art mentioned, video games are most like movies and television. They combine elements of other art forms to create a new type of art. The difference between video games and movies and television, though, is how they are consumed. The participatory nature of videogames allows consumers to take a more active role in the way they interact with this particular art form. After all, they are games, but they sometimes are much more.
In this piece, I examined a specific game whose artistic qualities reach this higher plain. Today’s game is Skyrim.
A BEAUTIFUL SNOWY WORLD
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a hugely successful game when it first launched back in 2011. Since then, it has somehow managed to keep its popularity strong for eight years now at the time of writing. Gamers have demonstrated a strong affinity for Skyrim and it goes deeper than simply enjoying a fun game. There are many elements at play that make Skyrim something more.
One of the first things that is often praised about the game is the masterful design of Skyrim’s landscape. It’s easy for the players to lose themselves in this intricate, beautiful world. Not only is it stunning to look at, but it’s also fascinating to explore, drawing the player in to discover more of its secrets. There are so many of these secrets that even now I may stumble across something I’ve never encountered before, and I’ve owned the game for five years. To have so many secrets in such a vast world is nothing short of masterful design.
There are also many well-written quest lines throughout Skyrim. With the game leaning so heavily on its open world, it is impressive to see how story threads come together when a player can be apart of five or six different narratives at any given time. The fact that these stories can simultaneously stand on their own and feel connected in the same world is truly a feat worth acknowledging.
One slight knock against Skyrim is that the combat can feel relatively basic and stilted at times. Though it may not be up to par in this way, it’s still enjoyable and fits into the world the developers created. What the combat does contribute to, however, is the incredibly well thought out skill tree system. Unlike most other RPGs, players upgrade the skills in Skyrim that they do the most. Simply put, you get better at the things you practice. Not only is this a sensible upgrade system, it is also realistic and forces players to role-play their character if they want to attain certain abilities.
Overall, the base game of Skyrim is incredibly well crafted. However, that alone doesn’t make it more than just a fun video game. What truly sets Skyrim apart is the fan community has done with the game.
BRING ON THE MODS
For those reading who don’t know what mods are, they are simply modifications to video games that fans create to change the gameplay experience. Skyrim has been given many mods over the years with drastically varying effects. There are some that fix gameplay bugs the developers never fixed, some that add entirely new quests, characters, or areas, some that replace dragons with Thomas the Tank Engine or Macho Man Randy Savage (yes, those are real), and many, many others. What’s even more incredible is the fact that the fans are still making mods at time of writing, nearly eight years after the game’s initial release. It’s so popular, in fact, that for the next gen re-release of the game for PS4 and Xbox One, the developers allowed fan mods as a directly supported feature, something that normally doesn’t happen with most games.
So whether you’re like me and want Skyrim to feel more realistic instead of a game or you’d rather cast a spell that rains fiery trains down from the heavens or you want something else entirely, you can simply mod your copy of Skyrim to fit your specific desire. Sure, there are many other games with fan mods, but Skyrim seems special, particularly because it has been sustained for so long. The passion the fans display when creating and sharing these mods show a great love for the game and a love that goes beyond. For this and all the reasons mentioned above, I submit that Skyrim IS art.