The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

 Xbox One
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 412 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 321 out of 412
  2. Mixed: 36 out of 412
  3. Negative: 55 out of 412
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  1. TheXBlade
    Jun 25, 2019
    6
    I know what your thinking, how can he give Skyrim a 6, it is one of the best games of all time. To you, I simply disagree, heavily. Skyrim, in my opinion, is a slow, overrated and tiresome rpg that I just don't like. Now, if you like the game, that's awesome and I wish I could say the same thing but the game just isn't fun. I find the story very confusing and the rpg elements extremelyI know what your thinking, how can he give Skyrim a 6, it is one of the best games of all time. To you, I simply disagree, heavily. Skyrim, in my opinion, is a slow, overrated and tiresome rpg that I just don't like. Now, if you like the game, that's awesome and I wish I could say the same thing but the game just isn't fun. I find the story very confusing and the rpg elements extremely overwhelming and grindy. I find the combat fine enough but the quests just seem like a huge slog to reach the end of the game, there not fun and not creative therefore the game just ends up feeling a huge grindy rpg mess with a very confusing and complicated story. To me, the game is bad, to you, the game might be the best game of all time and I'm glad that many people enjoy this game but sadly, I don't.… Expand
  2. aidanpscott
    Nov 14, 2016
    6
    *If you have not played Skyrim and have not purchased the game, this is a must buy! You have a chance to the play the masterpiece, with all the free DLC, and now, with mods! This review is merely for those of us who have already purchased the game and spend hundreds or even thousands of hours playing the previous game!*

    Skyrim is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the    *If you have not played Skyrim and have not purchased the game, this is a must buy! You have a chance to the play the masterpiece, with all the free DLC, and now, with mods! This review is merely for those of us who have already purchased the game and spend hundreds or even thousands of hours playing the previous game!*

    Skyrim is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the greatest games of all time! To this day, tens of thousands continue to play this immersive game. It's overflowing with content (some would consider this to be overwhelming; a negative in their eyes), dripping with atmosphere, and epic beyond proportion! This generation of gaming has seen many remakes of classic games, including the first two halo games, gears of war, recently Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Skyrim, and soon, Final Fantasy VII. Unfortunately, these remakes have been either a hit or a miss in the eyes of many gamers around the world. The changes that developers made to the games have split the community. Fortunately, Skyrim doesn't change much with its world beyond adding mods and upgrading the graphics, but that begs the question: Why release a game if you don't make any changes or take meaningful risks.

    The special edition includes all DLC and the content you know and love from the original game, the gameplay is as good as you remember, and while the graphical changes aren't immediately noticeable, you will find changes, as you wonder around the world of Tamriel, to the textures of the water, the mountains, and varying landscapes. The thing is, Bethesda didn't really need to upgrade anything because the game includes free mods that upgrade the graphics and textures to an unparalleled level! The issue is that when you play with mods, achievements are disabled, which makes sense, but is very annoying. I don't know anyone who bought this game and decided not to play with mods. I am already 30 hours in and I can't unlock a single achievement unless I disable my mods, which, sometimes can break the game.

    Now, the game runs smoothly on consoles, though not at the level of a PC platform. This is what those of us who played the 360 Skyrim in order to prepare for the special edition will immediately notice. However, one of the biggest complaints I, and many others have with this edition, is that Bethesda did not fix the bugs, glitches, and various problems with the previous game! (Skyrim is a masterpiece, but every game has its issues) Things like crashes, corrupted save files, locked camera angles (when you mine ore and the camera is stuck in place afterwards) have not been fixed!

    Here's the thing: Bethesda could have made Skyrim backwards compatible with the Xbox One WHILE also adding mods to the game and giving it a patch (which is what 343 did with Halo Reach), but instead they decided to rerelease it at a full price of $60 in order to make more money off of the gaming community. If you bought the game already, you are just rebuying it for mods. Don't get me wrong, it's great, and I would argue it's even better with the mods than ever! I will say that whenever I'm considering purchasing a game for consoles, Mods is now a MUST HAVE whenever I make a purchase!

    The Special Edition doesn't add anything new that justifies reselling the game at a full price, when they could have easily just update the 360 game with mods and made it backwards compatible on the 360.

    While I would say the Special Edition is a 9/10 on the PS4, the Xbox Version (And PC version) gets a 6/10 (Decent) not because it's a decent game because it's a masterpiece still, but because we already bought it for $60. We are spending another $60 for the same game with mods, which disables achievements. This game is merely an update for the game, which should have been free or at the most $10!

    I know the game has a ton of content that is worth more than the $60 we gave Bethesda, but we have all played the content before. Rebuying what you already is, in my opinion, moronic.

    However, if you are a die hard fan and want to experience the mods for yourself, I would recommend having some self control and waiting for the price to go down. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened soon.

    Here's the short version:

    - Gameplay: 7/10 Good (*9/10 on the original 360 game*)

    - Content: = 7/10 Good (Despite the fact that we all played through the game before, there is so much content in the game! I can't give it a lower score than a 7. *10/10 on the original 360 game.* )
    Price = 3/10 Bad (Bethesda is selling us the content we already own! Only with mods. *10/10 on the original 360 game*)

    - Graphics with mods (It depends on what mods you use, but the minimal score is a 7/10 and the maximum score is a 10/10! You can really turn this game into a visual masterpiece with specific mods!!!)

    - Graphics without mods = 6/10 Decent (There are upgrades, but nothing immediately noticeable. These graphics were impressive 5 years ago, but hold up. *9/10 on original 360 game*)    … Expand
  3. PapaEmeritus
    Oct 28, 2016
    5
    Greedy Bethesda. This game should be no more than $39.99 at this point. I mean Come On! This game originally came out in 2011. I'm not buying it for this price just not gonna. Bethesda has been doing more and more recently that makes it seem as if they now care more about the money than they do their customers.
  4. Toldu_I_Tango
    Nov 5, 2016
    5
    I like many scored the original Skyrim a 10 & it will no doubt go down in history as one of the best open world exploration games ever. Sadly I have to say that the APPARENT GRAPHICAL ENHANCEMENTS FALL WAY BELOW WHAT WAS PROMISED BY BETHESDA & this is SIMPLY ANOTHER CASH GRAB BY ANOTHER GREEDY DEVELOPER. It's about time these game developers were FINED FOR FALSE ADVERTISING !!!!
  5. StanleyPain
    Nov 3, 2016
    7
    It's Skyrim, which is good, but the "special edition" is basically just a GOTY release at a ludicrous price. As a game, Skyrim is well established: a very good, nicely made single player RPG experience. As a re-release, the only thing different is mod support and a tiny upgrade to the engine which allows for slightly better lighting and cleaned up texture smoothing. Weirdly, though,It's Skyrim, which is good, but the "special edition" is basically just a GOTY release at a ludicrous price. As a game, Skyrim is well established: a very good, nicely made single player RPG experience. As a re-release, the only thing different is mod support and a tiny upgrade to the engine which allows for slightly better lighting and cleaned up texture smoothing. Weirdly, though, most of the classic bugs are still present, and in my own playthrough there were actually a lot more than I ever remember. I didn't run into anything game-breaking, but there are some pretty bad glitches and such. Mod support is by far the biggest deal, but it seems like the mods for Skyrim are nowhere near as good or comprehensive as one would find for Fallout 4. You get the usual batch of garbage like "GIVE WOMEN BIGGER **** or tiny, irrelevant cosmetic changes, and then you get some legitimately helpful, well constructed, passionate mods designed to enhance the experience. But, the ratio of good-to-meh seems much more even than it did when FO4 mods hit the console. By far and away one of the best mods is the famed "Live Another Life" mod that allows you to start a new game with a number of options for how you step into the game and where you physically begin, which adds a lot of dimension to creating a new role-play focused character. But, for all the good things, this feels like a very cynical, bland re-release that could have had some very significant improvements attached to it. Most notably, Bethesda could have taken the time to potentially improve the Hearthfire content to be more like the house customization found in FO4. They certainly could have ironed out a lot more technical problems.
    As it stands, Skyrim is still basically Skyrim, but if you've already spent 40-60+ hours in it on the 360, there really isn't much reason to upgrade to this version. Maybe at some point some of the major, massive Skyrim mods will hit the consoles (the ones that add huge amounts of content) but it seems like right now they are slow to be converted.    … Expand
  6. Broyax
    Sep 6, 2017
    7
    Skyrim s'est mis à la page sur console à l'occasion de cette édition spéciale qui regroupe (comme l'édition légendaire les regroupait quelques... années plus tôt) les deux extensions Dawnguard et Dragonborn. Suivant la mode de la remastérisation à outrance, Bethesda aurait eu tort de ne pas capitaliser sur son jeu le plus vendu à ce jour !

    Le résultat est assez plaisant mais pas non    Skyrim s'est mis à la page sur console à l'occasion de cette édition spéciale qui regroupe (comme l'édition légendaire les regroupait quelques... années plus tôt) les deux extensions Dawnguard et Dragonborn. Suivant la mode de la remastérisation à outrance, Bethesda aurait eu tort de ne pas capitaliser sur son jeu le plus vendu à ce jour !

    Le résultat est assez plaisant mais pas non plus extraordinaire : le jeu est en effet bien attifé, rehaussé, rhabillé comme un vieil acteur qui aurait mis un costume d'une belle finition... mais c'est toujours le même vieux bonze dedans. Cinq ans ont en effet passé, ce qui est la fois peu et beaucoup : comparé à d'autres ténors plus récents du jeu de rôle, Skyrim accuse le poids des ans même après son lifting.

    La différence avec la version 360 est évidemment sensible mais la vieille console n'est pas en reste ; ce qui finalement constitue le plus important concerne la fluidité, souvent mise à mal sur 360, imperturbable sur One -bien qu'on reste bloqué à 30 im/s pour un jeu aussi vieux ! (mais pas si vieux non plus).

    En tout cas, le jeu a aussi gagné en stabilité (pas un seul plantage) et en confort général avec une lisibilité graphique bien agréable. Il garde les mêmes qualités et défauts que l'original, exploite habilement le folklore des dragons et nous enterre vivants sous les grottes et les antres à explorer ad vitam aeternam... nous fait demander trop souvent "où est la sortie vers Bordelciel, bordel ?!".

    On apprécie toujours la belle musique, la VF de qualité et si on ne les pas faites, les deux extensions souvent surprenantes : Dawnguard sait renouveler l'intérêt malgré -lors de son parcours- une grotte-donjon d'une lourdeur hallucinante ; Dragonborn pousse le bouchon de la dragonite encore un peu plus loin et nous étonne lui aussi par quelques idées bien trouvées.

    Voilà donc la meilleure version d'un jeu encore perfectible mais auquel on finit par s'attacher, presque à l'insu de son plein gré !    … Expand
  7. cableguy3333
    Apr 30, 2019
    6
    I missed this game the first time round must of been during my married years but played it this year. I played it for quite a long time before I realised I was bored. The story, I have no idea it got lost in the thousands of missions it gives you which are all spread out miles apart. The game is so full of bugs but it's Bethesda so that's expected, you can use mods to fix them but BethesdaI missed this game the first time round must of been during my married years but played it this year. I played it for quite a long time before I realised I was bored. The story, I have no idea it got lost in the thousands of missions it gives you which are all spread out miles apart. The game is so full of bugs but it's Bethesda so that's expected, you can use mods to fix them but Bethesda has introduced a new way of scamming players by charging you to use mods. I just dont get the hype surrounding this game, maybe if I hadn't played withcer 3 or dragon age inquisition before it I may of enjoyed it more… Expand
  8. ascedentevil
    Jan 3, 2017
    7
    After debating whether or not to get this for a while (bearing in mind I have bought it twice before) I finally went for it and for the most part I am glad that I did.
    I have played through this game twice and then some, yes if you already have played it there isn't much new for you to experience less the mods, which I haven't cared to touch yet.
    Visually, there is some improvement,    After debating whether or not to get this for a while (bearing in mind I have bought it twice before) I finally went for it and for the most part I am glad that I did.
    I have played through this game twice and then some, yes if you already have played it there isn't much new for you to experience less the mods, which I haven't cared to touch yet.
    Visually, there is some improvement, better lighting a textures as well as draw distance improve the overall experience and, whilst it will never hold a candle to the Witcher or highly modded PC Skyrim, it does give just a little breath of fresh air and the densely detailed world has made me stop to stare a good few times.
    I've already put many hours in and as elder scrolls games it's a different experience every time, a with a fresh fantasy character and random experiences, I am free once again to live out a new characters life and sample some of the different things that I was never bothered with before, I may even start a different one to try out more things.
    Overall there is of course not much extra content but with a rich world filled with things to do, you're surely to find things you haven't seen before and generally experience new things, whilst enjoying the same character freedom that is to be expected.
    For anyone who hasn't played this before it's a must buy, hundreds of hours gameplay are available and with the price sat at around £20-25 it's a massive bargain.
    For those who have played it and enjoyed it, it's still worth a pick up but there are other games out there in this price range (Witcher 3 GOTY) that will perhaps suit you more.    … Expand
  9. MarkPaulson
    Jan 11, 2018
    6
    It's Skyrim is the best way i can put it. Skyrim is a amazing game and has grabbed the heart's of many gamers and i have sunk my teeth into many hours into this game but quite honestly, it's the same as the experience we had in 2011. Mod's are definitely a fun addition (especially for me because of my arachnophobia) but i can see why it does not make a difference for other people playingIt's Skyrim is the best way i can put it. Skyrim is a amazing game and has grabbed the heart's of many gamers and i have sunk my teeth into many hours into this game but quite honestly, it's the same as the experience we had in 2011. Mod's are definitely a fun addition (especially for me because of my arachnophobia) but i can see why it does not make a difference for other people playing this next gen port of Skyrim. Overall the best price to pay for those game is $20 because it adds only a little bit more. Thank's for reading.… Expand
  10. Jaxxomi
    Dec 6, 2018
    5
    I would like to start by saying in its time this would have been a wonderful game, but for some reason it is just not what I was expecting... Maybe it has to do with them improving the graphics but not to a level I would like...
    The story of the game is quite impressive with interactive characters who I care about and wonder for their fate, I like how it throws you right into the fight    I would like to start by saying in its time this would have been a wonderful game, but for some reason it is just not what I was expecting... Maybe it has to do with them improving the graphics but not to a level I would like...
    The story of the game is quite impressive with interactive characters who I care about and wonder for their fate, I like how it throws you right into the fight and explains everything pretty quickly... But I felt the combat system was a little clunky and the look of it was as well... But I would recommend this game to my friends and I guess in the end it just isn't not my kind of game...

    Good game, just not my kind of game...    … Expand
  11. Caldan
    Nov 15, 2020
    7
  12. Karottedraak
    Jul 10, 2020
    7
    For the start i bought this game for 20 euro's which i think is the highest you should pay for this game.

    So at first this game wasn't really that old to get a remastered version the only reason why I bought it is because I really wanted to visit skyrim again and i had never explored the dlc's. Well I am playing the game now and I have blast with it because of my love of skyrim which is    For the start i bought this game for 20 euro's which i think is the highest you should pay for this game.

    So at first this game wasn't really that old to get a remastered version the only reason why I bought it is because I really wanted to visit skyrim again and i had never explored the dlc's. Well I am playing the game now and I have blast with it because of my love of skyrim which is a game that deserves a 9/10 on its own. But for a remaster they should have tuned it way more as there are still bugs (non really game breaking) the combat also still feels clunky and old and the only thing that really inproved are the graphics which are pretty good now and the fact you can play with mods on console.

    For the mods I think that bethesda should pick up their game because you can't play with mobs and earn achievements at the same time which is a big deal for me. I just want to try out some mods that will improve the combat and effects and not something achievement breaking. Its just crazy they do not allow both at the same time. I know some games have mods which let you get every achievement instantly but for a company as big as bethesda they should just have someone test these things or just let it slip and dont care as this effect the game.

    thats the reason why i give it a 7/10. The only reason to buy this is to visit skyrim again, you never played the dlc or you never played skyrim at all. If you never played skyrim than I just have to say that you should already have ordered it by now.    … Expand
  13. kubakol
    May 20, 2021
    5
    Very uncomfortable exploration, weird fight mechanics and if you attack one npc by accident whole city is coming to kill you. I was expecting game witch is more enjoyable to play.
  14. GearDestruction
    Dec 11, 2021
    7
    it's a great game, I like the remaster but even though the texture still looking bad compared to the texture in Fallout 4, and since the SE of Skyrim was released in 2016 and Fallout 4 in 2015 I think doing a re-work of the texture would have been excellent to make this game a real remaster, but even with that, the game still pretty good, I like how the game gives all the DLC and Skyrimit's a great game, I like the remaster but even though the texture still looking bad compared to the texture in Fallout 4, and since the SE of Skyrim was released in 2016 and Fallout 4 in 2015 I think doing a re-work of the texture would have been excellent to make this game a real remaster, but even with that, the game still pretty good, I like how the game gives all the DLC and Skyrim still being a great even after all those years. it feels like they could have done a better job.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

34
#34 Best Xbox One Game of 2016
19
#19 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2016
25
#25 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
82

Generally favorable reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. GameCritics
    Dec 30, 2016
    55
    Sure, it’s still awesome in scope and there’s a ton of content in the package, but it only offers minimal visual improvements, dated gameplay, and inexplicable legacy bugs. Unless someone defines their RPG experience by sun rays and water effects, this reissue just doesn’t represent a notable improvement over the original. Still, for those who aren’t yet Dragonborn, this is the best way to become so.
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  2. The Digital Fix
    Dec 21, 2016
    90
    If you've never set foot in the world of Skyrim then now's the time to get your feet wet. Still one of the best RPGs to date and that's not just nostalgia talking.
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  3. DarkStation
    Nov 30, 2016
    90
    With dragons to fight, weapons to craft, a home to make, and children to adopt, Skyrim: Special Edition represents the better gaming experiences I’ve had from Bethesda. Their fantasy games are more visually and narratively interesting to me instead of the the cynicism and nihilism that lives in the Fallout series. And because of its wintery locale, Skyrim is a really cozy game to play on a cold, rainy day. Unless you’re still playing it, picking up Skyrim: Special Edition is a good enough excuse to enjoy the video game equivalent of comfort food.
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