Skyrim’s longevity shocked Bethesda devs as the RPG was thriving “still, ten years later” thanks to its unique open world: “By all rights, a year later, some other game should have eclipsed it”

by

Bruce Nesmith, a long-time developer at Bethesda Game Studios and contributor to beloved RPGs like Skyrim, is amazed by how long people are still playing the fifth Elder Scrolls game. However, he understands what makes it stand out from other games in the genre.

I was listening to a podcast recently, and they were talking about how crazy it is that Skyrim is *still* so popular. Seriously, the game came out in 2011, and it’s still going strong – the Steam numbers don’t lie! The developer, Nesmith, even said he’s constantly surprised by it. He figured another game would have taken its place a long time ago, but Skyrim just keeps going!

Over the years – two, three, five, even ten – people kept asking, ‘What’s happening with this game?’ Todd Howard would share player numbers in meetings, and it was just unbelievable. Even a decade after it came out, people were still playing! Nesmith believes the game’s lasting popularity comes down to its incredibly immersive open world.

As a gamer, I always thought Skyrim totally nailed the open world – it felt like nothing else before it, and honestly, not many games have even attempted to reach that level since. A former Bethesda dev explained it perfectly: they *embraced* the weirdness. They knew things wouldn’t be perfect, that there’d be glitches and funny bugs, and they were okay with that. That willingness to let the game be a little quirky is what made it so special – it was a risk, but it totally paid off, creating something truly amazing.

Nesmith explains that striving for absolute perfection and eliminating all glitches can actually diminish the unique appeal of a project. This wasn’t a deliberate choice, but rather a result of prioritizing core functionality. They often accepted minor imperfections, reasoning that the overall benefits outweighed the drawbacks. Essentially, they were willing to live with some ‘bugs’ as long as it meant achieving something special.

The result was an incredibly immersive and open world where players felt truly free to explore – they could really go anywhere. As a longtime fan of The Elder Scrolls, especially Skyrim, I agree with Nesmith’s assessment. Aside from the recent Oblivion Remastered, no other game has come close to recreating the same magic as Bethesda’s classic 2011 RPG.

We gave players complete freedom and didn’t interfere with their experience at all – it was entirely up to them how things unfolded,” Nesmith explains. “That level of player agency is rare in gaming today, especially since so many games now simply claim to be ‘open world’.

Read More

2025-10-14 13:35