The Skyrim Blog

In the usual year-end culmination of gaming that befalls holiday season, we've seen a lot of spectacular videogames and the shifts in gaming power that comes with them. Modern Warfare 3 made some lines at GameStop's midnight release so long that they could put World of Warcraft's releases (a notoriously big winner) to shame. Battlefield 3 failed to meet the hype its own distributors generated, and EA dredged up the wrath of many of us angry videogame nerds. Minecraft has spawned a fanbase so devout that they can hardly bring themselves to leave the game.

One particular game this year, though, has caught not only my full attention, but that of a great portion of the gamer base. It has essentially launched a bid for Game of the Year against the Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Uncharted bigshots of previous fame. This game is the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In the nearly three hundred years following the Oblivion plot, dragons, as well as their mortal kin the Dragonborn, have returned to the province of Skyrim amid mass unrest between the Empire and a Nord-centric rebellion group.


Just in time to satiate all of your Skyrim needs that a simple playthrough cannot deliver upon (because after all, this is a Bethesda game) is The Skyrim Blog. A truly professional website by the most genuine of gamers, The Skyrim Blog is a testament to the Elder Scrolls, and even the Bethesda, fanbase. Information on the game, including news even after the release, is plentiful and swift on the site.

Though the site features a relatively simplistic theme and layout, it is incredibly quaint and easy to navigate. Of special interest (and one of my favorite features on the site, if not the favorite) is the forum, where fans of Skyrim gather to discuss the game more in-depth. Conversation ranges from fairly simple topics, such as favorite dungeons and guardian stones, all the way to detailed philosophical debates about the cause of the Stormcloaks and their enemy, the Empire.

Here's an excerpt from one of the many quality posts on The Skyrim Blog, about the Easter Egg locations of Cyrodiil and Vvardenfell in the Skyrim game ('noclip' behind an invisible wall blocking the path through an archway at the bottom of the playable map):

"Well, if you go to the very bottom right hand corner of the Skyrim map there's a location called Stendarr's Beacon. Travelling down the path from this location, you eventually come to a stone arch with an invisible wall. Using a 'no clip' workaround it is possible to cut through this otherwise impenetrable barrier and enter into Vvardenfell...

Inevitably this leads to speculation that Bethesda have already laid the groundwork for DLC or even full-blown expansion packs that take us back those previously visited territories. Wouldn't it be awesome to go back to those wonderful Morrowind locations, but with the massive graphical improvements of Skyrim?"

~Paul, "Could we be heading back to Cryodiil and Vvardenfell?"

Any Elder Scrolls fan would likely be excited by these revelations, though Bethesda is in no short supply of these wonderful additions to their games. Though somewhat more buggy than most newer games, Bethesda games still retain epic storylines and immersing quests. If Skyrim piques your gaming tastes, or even if you're already a fan of the game, The Skyrim Blog is the place to go.