elderscrolls 5: Skyrim, we're told, is targeting a new audience by relying less heavily on continuity and choppy plot hangovers from previous games. This might alienate the more hardcore fans of the series, but I suspect that, if successful, elderscrolls 5: Skyrim will not only crack open a huge market for their own future titles, but also the fantasy genre in general.
Lets be clear about this, people like fantasy. People like Sci Fi, there's something about both that offers escapism, fun and the promise of unbridled adventure. I have yet to meet a single person who didn't enjoy some form of escapist storytelling, whether it was pulp novels, super heroes, space ships or dragons. It's only really the obsessives who spoil it for the rest of us. I'm talking about the guys who dress as The Joker or Harley Quinn at the San Diego Comic Con to protest the DC comics reboot whilst pretending to be the characters themselves, the web-forum warriors who argue against any and all new development in long-running series, yet conversely complain that the continuity has become 'stale', or the vacuous trendy kids with an interest only in ironic piss-taking before moving on to the next big thing.
As an unapologetic, lifelong geek (who was a comic book devotee long before it became Hollywood-approved and has a list of reasons as long as your arm to boycott J.J Abrams' Star Trek reboot/abomination) its nice to see stuff like Elderscrolls finally going overground. With imagery that picks up where the massive cinema success of Lord Of The Rings left off (despite the fact that those flicks were, lets face it, a bit sh*t), it's clear that elderscrolls 5: Skyrim is tapping into an audience already primed for fantasy and adventure. You want dragons? Warriors? Villagers on the run, Golden Axe chutzpah and drop-dead gorgeous fantasy landscapes, then look no further, the power of the scrolls compels you. And, if not that, then they leave it to the endless appeal of dragons to do the job...
elderscrolls 5: Skyrim looks impossibly cool, in an impossibly nerdy sort of way. The producers even wrote a special runic 'Dragon language' for gamers to enjoy, sort of a halfway house between Elvish and Klingon which will no doubt have net forums buzzing in the months to come (especially when some bright spark releases the symbols for use on your desktop). That level of attention to detail, far from being over-the-top-nerdy, helps the game to become immersive and helps the world of Harley Quinn reboot to feel lived in, real. In a world where our own lives often feel like we're stranded on Planet Hollywood, it's nice to see games designers investing fantasy with care and attention. As the old aphorism goes, if there's a job worth doing..
