This video explores the surprising lack of successful Skyrim clones, despite Skyrim's immense popularity and the gaming industry's tendency to copy successful trends. The speaker investigates why no game has managed to truly capture Skyrim's unique blend of freedom, immersion, and open-world design, analyzing several games often compared to Skyrim (Avowed, Dread Delusion, Tainted Grail, and Enderal) and their successes and shortcomings.
Skyrim's Success and Uniqueness: Skyrim's enduring popularity stems from its unique combination of freedom and immersion, features rarely replicated in other open-world RPGs. Its simulated world, emergent gameplay, and player agency contribute to its lasting appeal.
Failed Skyrim Clones: Several games, including Avowed (initially designed as a live-service Skyrim clone), Dread Delusion, and Tainted Grail, attempted to emulate Skyrim's success but fell short due to various design choices that prioritized gameplay or narrative control over immersion.
The Challenge of Creating a Skyrim Killer: Replicating Skyrim's level of immersion and open-world design requires significant development resources and a commitment to detail that many studios, even AAA developers, struggle to achieve. The video highlights the difficulty of balancing scope, immersion, and technical limitations, especially for indie developers.
Enderal: A Modding Success Story: Enderal, a total conversion mod for Skyrim, serves as an example of a highly successful and ambitious project that successfully captures the spirit of Skyrim while forging its own unique identity. It demonstrates that a Skyrim-like experience is possible with dedicated modding, even on a smaller scale.
The Future of Skyrim-likes: The video explores several upcoming games aiming to create a Skyrim-like experience, highlighting their potential and the challenges they face in replicating Skyrim's unique formula.
Obsidian's initial vision for Avowed was a multiplayer live-service game, aiming to blend the formula of Skyrim with the then-popular live-service model exemplified by games like Destiny, Anthem, Fallout 76, and Cyberpunk 2077 (which initially included extensive multiplayer elements). This vision was pitched to attract potential buyers while Obsidian faced financial difficulties. However, development ran into troubles, leading to the removal of the multiplayer component and a complete reboot of the project in 2021. The game's direction shifted to a more single-player focused experience, similar to Obsidian's other titles like The Outer Worlds, rather than a direct Skyrim competitor.
