*1 sentence summary*
Soooo after over 900 hours played on PC and god knows how many over xbox 360 when Skyrim came out, i can still say confidently this game is just pure fun and you should play it in 2021.

*then vs now*
Vanilla Skyrim was the RPG of its time when it came out, with a "Modern" competitor being the Witcher 3 in terms of relative game quality at the time the game was made. At the time both of these games were published and released, they were truly groundbreaking. (i will not be comparing Skyrim to Dark Souls, edgy bois begone!)

Regarding current day play experience however, its hard for Vanilla Skyrim to hold a candle to other RPG titles out today, if for no other reason than we know the stories we've played through for the last 10 years. What has allowed Skyrim to remain one of the most enjoyed games, even in 2021, is predominantly due to the modding community.

*intro to mods*
Be it the creation club (yes i know, "wahh mods should be free") or the Nexus, Mods have extended the lifespan of Skyrim to rival the lifespans of the many races of elves within the game. Do they break the game? sure. Do they literally cause your game to be unplayable when you dont install the correctly? sure. But if you spend enough time learning how to create a stable state for your Modded Skyrim, its actually insane how much content you can play through.

*character differentiation*
For me personally, I wanted a "one of each" kind of Skyrim playthrough, so i downloaded vampire, werewolf, melee combat, magic, ranged combat, and perk overhauls to lay the groundwork for me to have one character that can play to very specific strengths. For most of these characters, I didnt even kill dragons (save for the werewolf-warrior character i had).

*my lesser played characters*
My stealth archer was an assassin. My pickpocket based character was a thief who was mostly non-lethal and actually focused on sneaking and stealing. My Werewolf warrior was actually the dragonborn but only after leading the companions and becoming thane of the nine holds.
*end of skip*

*my main character that i sunk so many joy filled hours into - and had to recreate many times*
Perhaps my favorite character was my spellsword Vampire. Originally what started as a do-gooder mage character quickly turned into a spiral into a villainous creature of the night out to conquer skyrim (and Beyond...). With the amount of overhaul mods i had installed, Magic was more viable than before, but on legendary difficulty you can still find yourself practicing non violent spells at the college of winterhold to level up enough just to clear bleak falls barrow by the skin on your teeth. Dont get me wrong, i liked the idea of having to train as a mage before you could hold your own. However, it wasnt until after i discovered a new way to level up - drinking blood. The mod Sacrosanct lets you play as a vampire in ways you wish had been implemented in 2011 (or whenever DG came out). You can level destruction magic by draining living humans of their blood and using your powers in vampire lord form. You can gain powers based on how thirsty you are. and you can even age as a vampire (i.e. the older you are, the more additional bonuses you get to keep for the rest of your time as a vampire). So, my power hungry mage went from using elemental spells, to using blood spells and dark magic along side a sword that helped replenish magika and stamina in the daylight (along with a few other enchants found in summerset). I turned all of the jarls into vampires after siding with the Empire, completed the prophecy to sever tamriel from the sun, and became the most overpowered force since the dawning of Jeff Bezos.

(many other mods were utilized to create a sense of immersion in this playthrough, but the main ones are Sacrosanct, Ordinator, Volkihar castle rebuilt, colorful magic, apocalypse, odin, and your vampire armor mod of choice).


*Adventures outside of Skyrim...*
But that was just what i did in the land of Skyrim.... there are mods such as Beyond Reach which let you go to high rock and play through an amazing, albeit buggy, horror-themed story (i legit shat myself like 8 times in this one dungeon). I played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma, which brought you back to Cyrodil where you could meddle in the affairs of Bruma, fight aylids, and etc. Wyrmstooth, recently remastered in 2020, brings you to a far away island to chase down a dragon interrupting imperial shipping on an island that is about a third the size of Skyrim. An oldie but a goodie, Gray cowl of nocturnal lets you recover artifacts from an ancient theif. And so, my favorite character had to go on and conquer these lands in the name of Molag Bal as well - offering me over 900 hours total of enjoyment.

*How to be smart about modding and avoid the pain i experienced while unknowingly breaking my game*
The only limiting factor of playing Skyrim today is the engine of the game and how it loads assets. Because of how the game is coded, you can only have 255 'hard' plugins. (In simple/ mostly correct terms, anything that literally adds assets into the game is a hard plugin. anything that tampers with existing assets is typically a light plugin - again this is a very loose and quick explanation - im not a mod wiz). Skyrim is not able to "see" any hard plugin mods after 255. so if you download 256, one of your mods is now invisible and wont be loaded in game. However, you can have over total 255 mods, so long as you have 255 or less hard plugin mods. The secret is to use light plugin mods! these dont count against the 255 limit so you can add as many as you like (obviously at your own risk). I used the nexus mod manager to install all my mods for me because i used to manually extract addons for games like WoW, and i hated having to go into each download and unzip a folder. Its free, it tracks your hard and light plug in counts, and it updates mods for you. I wont recommend any mods in particular - go explore, and start a new save if your game breaks after you add or delete mods mid playthrough (it sucks but it can be fun to do a fresh start). - Also, get SKSE for skyrim working first (look it up on youtube, there are a ton of videos. This file needs to be installed before you can use nexus mods).

*conclusion*
Now if after reading this you say, 'nah, that seems like a lot of effort to enjoy Skyrim 10 years later'. You are correct. the 900 hours in game does not account for however many i spent browsing the nexus looking for that one more mod that might eek out that many more happiness points from my brain while playing Skyrim. It also doesnt account for how many hours ive spent fixing my game. And when (not if) your game breaks from you being a little carefree with how you mod it, youre going to get upset.

But in the end, all the effort you put in to playing Skyrim in 2021 using mods from places like the nexus and creation club will pay off. It will pay off because what youve done is set a path for a Skyrim experience bolstered by 10+ years of mod making that enhance the game in ways you choose. the 4k textures, the overhauls, the quest mods - they all bring you back to that first time you were blown away by how much fun Skyrim was when it came out. The magic you felt when you played it for the first time will come rushing back as you play a facelifted and kitted out game that you put together. The stories might be the same 10 years later, but the experience is completely different - and that is why Skyrim is worth playing in 2021.

*1 sentence summary* Soooo after over 900 hours played on PC and god knows how many over xbox 360 when Skyrim came out, i can still say confidently this game is just pure fun and you should play it in 2021. *then vs now* Vanilla Skyrim was the RPG of its time when it came out, with a "Modern" competitor being the Witcher 3 in terms of relative game quality at the time the game was made. At the time both of these games were published and released, they were truly groundbreaking. (i will not be comparing Skyrim to Dark Souls, edgy bois begone!) Regarding current day play experience however, its hard for Vanilla Skyrim to hold a candle to other RPG titles out today, if for no other reason than we know the stories we've played through for the last 10 years. What has allowed Skyrim to remain one of the most enjoyed games, even in 2021, is predominantly due to the modding community. *intro to mods* Be it the creation club (yes i know, "wahh mods should be free") or the Nexus, Mods have extended the lifespan of Skyrim to rival the lifespans of the many races of elves within the game. Do they break the game? sure. Do they literally cause your game to be unplayable when you dont install the correctly? sure. But if you spend enough time learning how to create a stable state for your Modded Skyrim, its actually insane how much content you can play through. *character differentiation* For me personally, I wanted a "one of each" kind of Skyrim playthrough, so i downloaded vampire, werewolf, melee combat, magic, ranged combat, and perk overhauls to lay the groundwork for me to have one character that can play to very specific strengths. For most of these characters, I didnt even kill dragons (save for the werewolf-warrior character i had). *my lesser played characters* My stealth archer was an assassin. My pickpocket based character was a thief who was mostly non-lethal and actually focused on sneaking and stealing. My Werewolf warrior was actually the dragonborn but only after leading the companions and becoming thane of the nine holds. *end of skip* *my main character that i sunk so many joy filled hours into - and had to recreate many times* Perhaps my favorite character was my spellsword Vampire. Originally what started as a do-gooder mage character quickly turned into a spiral into a villainous creature of the night out to conquer skyrim (and Beyond...). With the amount of overhaul mods i had installed, Magic was more viable than before, but on legendary difficulty you can still find yourself practicing non violent spells at the college of winterhold to level up enough just to clear bleak falls barrow by the skin on your teeth. Dont get me wrong, i liked the idea of having to train as a mage before you could hold your own. However, it wasnt until after i discovered a new way to level up - drinking blood. The mod Sacrosanct lets you play as a vampire in ways you wish had been implemented in 2011 (or whenever DG came out). You can level destruction magic by draining living humans of their blood and using your powers in vampire lord form. You can gain powers based on how thirsty you are. and you can even age as a vampire (i.e. the older you are, the more additional bonuses you get to keep for the rest of your time as a vampire). So, my power hungry mage went from using elemental spells, to using blood spells and dark magic along side a sword that helped replenish magika and stamina in the daylight (along with a few other enchants found in summerset). I turned all of the jarls into vampires after siding with the Empire, completed the prophecy to sever tamriel from the sun, and became the most overpowered force since the dawning of Jeff Bezos. (many other mods were utilized to create a sense of immersion in this playthrough, but the main ones are Sacrosanct, Ordinator, Volkihar castle rebuilt, colorful magic, apocalypse, odin, and your vampire armor mod of choice). *Adventures outside of Skyrim...* But that was just what i did in the land of Skyrim.... there are mods such as Beyond Reach which let you go to high rock and play through an amazing, albeit buggy, horror-themed story (i legit shat myself like 8 times in this one dungeon). I played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma, which brought you back to Cyrodil where you could meddle in the affairs of Bruma, fight aylids, and etc. Wyrmstooth, recently remastered in 2020, brings you to a far away island to chase down a dragon interrupting imperial shipping on an island that is about a third the size of Skyrim. An oldie but a goodie, Gray cowl of nocturnal lets you recover artifacts from an ancient theif. And so, my favorite character had to go on and conquer these lands in the name of Molag Bal as well - offering me over 900 hours total of enjoyment. *How to be smart about modding and avoid the pain i experienced while unknowingly breaking my game* The only limiting factor of playing Skyrim today is the engine of the game and how it loads assets. Because of how the game is coded, you can only have 255 'hard' plugins. (In simple/ mostly correct terms, anything that literally adds assets into the game is a hard plugin. anything that tampers with existing assets is typically a light plugin - again this is a very loose and quick explanation - im not a mod wiz). Skyrim is not able to "see" any hard plugin mods after 255. so if you download 256, one of your mods is now invisible and wont be loaded in game. However, you can have over total 255 mods, so long as you have 255 or less hard plugin mods. The secret is to use light plugin mods! these dont count against the 255 limit so you can add as many as you like (obviously at your own risk). I used the nexus mod manager to install all my mods for me because i used to manually extract addons for games like WoW, and i hated having to go into each download and unzip a folder. Its free, it tracks your hard and light plug in counts, and it updates mods for you. I wont recommend any mods in particular - go explore, and start a new save if your game breaks after you add or delete mods mid playthrough (it sucks but it can be fun to do a fresh start). - Also, get SKSE for skyrim working first (look it up on youtube, there are a ton of videos. This file needs to be installed before you can use nexus mods). *conclusion* Now if after reading this you say, 'nah, that seems like a lot of effort to enjoy Skyrim 10 years later'. You are correct. the 900 hours in game does not account for however many i spent browsing the nexus looking for that one more mod that might eek out that many more happiness points from my brain while playing Skyrim. It also doesnt account for how many hours ive spent fixing my game. And when (not if) your game breaks from you being a little carefree with how you mod it, youre going to get upset. But in the end, all the effort you put in to playing Skyrim in 2021 using mods from places like the nexus and creation club will pay off. It will pay off because what youve done is set a path for a Skyrim experience bolstered by 10+ years of mod making that enhance the game in ways you choose. the 4k textures, the overhauls, the quest mods - they all bring you back to that first time you were blown away by how much fun Skyrim was when it came out. The magic you felt when you played it for the first time will come rushing back as you play a facelifted and kitted out game that you put together. The stories might be the same 10 years later, but the experience is completely different - and that is why Skyrim is worth playing in 2021.