Dragonborn no more: How immersion in Skyrim fails

Despite the day/night cycles and detailed game world, Skyrim's unique strength is also its fatal flaw.

[NagaSotuva]

Can you take baths in Skyrim? Everything looks so dirty.

[THR1LLHOUSE]

One of the sliders when making a character determines how dirty they are.

So no, you cannot.

[Lord_Sloth]

I know and I turned them all the way down and he STILL looks like 5 miles of bad road!

[teething]

Skyrim Sucks! I can't take a dump behind a tree, or urinate on a bush! Come one Bethesda, this is lame. Talk about killing immersion, I have not done either in 7 days of game time. What a joke.

Plus, why doesn;t my character grow stubble or need a hair cut. THis should be a mini-game.

P.s. what is up with the Dragons? They kill the immersion because there is no such thing as dragons in real life.

And, for that matter, why is there a menu system? Talk about immersion killer. When I get out of bed I don;t select my clothes from a menu, I put them on. Sometimes I iron.

P.s. third person is such an immersion killer. I want a sword in hand, I don;t want to be using a controller or being forced to turn on a console and watch a TV.

Next time Bethesda, you need to do it right. I pay the store 60$, I go to bed, and I wake up the next am with an effing dragon breathing fire on my family!!! Now that is immersion, especially when they burn to an oozing charred crisp and the place smells like burning flesh as I run away in hysterics wishing I never bought this game because it is too real and real immersion is no fun at all.

On second thought, every guard taking an arrow to the knee is not so bad after all. Please disregard my petty complaints in the above article requesting more immersion.

[THR1LLHOUSE]

I'd hardly say this makes the immersion fail...I'd just say this makes it a video game. I'd just assume that I'm the only one buying weapons/armor because everyone else had to give up adventuring after they took that arrow to the knee.

[kramun]

Games aren't like reality yet - Wow, what a trip.

[Giru017]

I actually like the article. Something as simple as "don't stop for the main character" would work quite well. It happens [to a lesser degree] in the Assassins Creed series.
Still, Skyrim is one hell of a game :)

[Sadie2100]

The repetitive throwaway dialogue is really what gets me (too). First time's great...then it just reminds you over and over that you're playing an overly ambitious game.

I still love Skyrim, though. :)

[joab777]

Cmon man! U will see more and more of that as tech improves etc. Immersion will increase. What i would like to see is some great cut scenes like bioware. At certain times, amp it up. Yeah, there are tons of ways to create a more realistic world and it will come but to me the lack of cut scenes and the fact that u can break of from something important for 6 months are huge. I know its open world but there must b a way. For example, when someone says, i have to do research & it may take awhile...this would give u time. But, please Bethesda, other thanbugs, leave what u have done alone and just improve. It maybe my favorite game ever.

[Drake117]

get out with your cutscenes son! this isn't zelda, that would totally kill the immersion.i also think that in a couple years maybe the next ES or Fallout game it will be much more realistic. I mean bethesda is still being limited by the hardware right now.

[joab777]

You r crazy. If u break it down to like the 40 most important quests and use blended cutscenes, not final fantasy cutscenes, but mass effect ones, to amp up the emotion...it souls surely help. Did it help when they added cut scene like animations to kill shots in fallout 3 & now skyrim. Yeah, it did...alot! And the other thing mentioned, that is huge, is you're standing in the world. I love the talk about the dragknborn. If u r wearing dragon armor, npcs mention it etc. More of that is great. I'm not a fan a segmentation, but there must b a unique way to make the main quest jive in an open world. I have been months(in game time) questing when i was supposed to head to rotten immediately. I know its tricky, very tricky. But that and some well done, not over the top, scenes to amp the drama would be welcome. Look at dragon age and mass effect. It works wonders if done right.

[admiralthrawn87]

i dont care about things like waiting in line. he's skipping over what skyrim really needs to fix first. The core quest system. The quests in no way feel epic. They feel like mundane daily tasks or simple dungeon crawls. Nothing in the game gave me the feeling of an epic journey. nothing. it was bouncing around the world back and forth doing random shit for random people. When an rpg epic fantasy game makes me feel like i have a quest as huge as going from the shire to mordor, that'll be awesome. until then, it felt more like "go talk to the barkeep at the prancing pony and tell him his wife said hi." "go find me that amulet in the cave nearby, that i decided not to do myself for the last 20 years."

[Lord_Sloth]

Oh look, ANOTHER freakin dragon!

[theonlylolking]

This is one big reason why skyrim should not have gotten GOTY at the VGA.

[Drake117]

Oh please if Skyrim was a person it would have more immersion in its pinky toe than any game this year. In a couple of years when new hardware that doesn't limit the hell out of bethesda is out it wouldn't surprise me if all this dudes complaints were addressed.

[Korix]

WHAT!? Because you don't have to wait in line at merchants!? Wtf kind of statement is that?
There are tons of other things that ruins the immersion in Skyrim, but it already has so much more than most other games.
How about the poor, repeating dialogue, few common voice actors, and ridiculous accents people seem to have? Or the fact that when a dragon attacks, the only people left standing are children, because in skyrim they are somehow immortal.
There are TONS of other *proper* concerns that should be looked at before something as insignificant as this. And it has nothing to do with technological prowess. Bethesda could easily have made you wait in line at merchants, but guess what - it would suck, so they didn't. Bethesda will never take full advantage of current technological levels, because they simply don't care for perfect graphics, animations, or overall presentation. Look how much mods have improved the game by so little time. Why couldn't Bethesda do to the game what amateur game modders have done already? Better shadows, better textures, better lighting and post effects. All this has been done by modders, but not a professional, successful game developer. Wth is up with Bethesda?
Amazing game, especially the world and the immersion, but so much left for improvement.

[Drake117]

you act like the game could still be run with better textures better lighting and post effects on consoles while still keeping the massive open world. You forget that bethesda still has to optimize the game to run on consoles. ofcourse modders have done all these things on a pc. Im also pretty sure that internally bethesda has prob run the game with much better textures and lighting effects than the modders on pc. And the article was about a little more than just waiting in line lol. Also don't forget that Bethesda are the pioneers for this type of game. Skyrim had already improved so much over oblivion when it comes to repeating dialogue, few common voice actors, and apparently ridiculous accents(even tho they fit skyrim well in my opinion) and im sure they will do it again with their next game. The voice repetition still isn't even that bad i clicked on a guard prob 50 times b4 he gave me the arrow in the knee line.

[humbleopinion]

Did anyone even read the article? He's actually complaining shops don't force you to wait in line before you buy/sell stuff!

[PS3Freak]

That's what we want!

Line ups in video games! Apparently we don't deal with those enough if real life.

So stupid.