It has nearly everything one could hope for in the Nordic landscape. A surplus of mountains complemented with beautiful forests, rivers, villages, a surplus of wildlife a fauna, and more dungeons and secrets locations waiting to be discovered than one can hope. But as stunning as the world is graphically, it’s the interactivity and feeling of a living environment that truly allow players to immerse. Just traveling around the wilderness, one can find evidence of battles close by through things such as scorch marks or animal remains. A player can hear the distant howls of nearby wolves and other wildlife or even the roar of a dragon approaching and with the limited view provided by a first-person angle, can put a player on edge. With the massive amount of exploration in the game, the player is able to stumble upon dungeons, outposts, camps, ruins, etc all of which have the potential to hold great treasure or adventure. Since the landscape is littered with so many locations and subtle and obvious landmarks the game becomes unique in the fact that it’s fairly easy for players to gain a sense of perspective and recognize certain places. Dr. Roberto Di Letizia mentions in his study of immersion in computer games that Skyrim often has players revisit certain areas to find new items and that to in order to accomplish this players employ mental mapping. “Now, identifying a place where you have been means to recognize that specific place as a “here”, a place “where I was.””
It has nearly everything one could hope for in the Nordic landscape. A surplus of mountains complemented with beautiful forests, rivers, villages, a surplus of wildlife a fauna, and more dungeons and secrets locations waiting to be discovered than one can hope. But as stunning as the world is graphically, it’s the interactivity and feeling of a living environment that truly allow players to immerse. Just traveling around the wilderness, one can find evidence of battles close by through things such as scorch marks or animal remains. A player can hear the distant howls of nearby wolves and other wildlife or even the roar of a dragon approaching and with the limited view provided by a first-person angle, can put a player on edge. With the massive amount of exploration in the game, the player is able to stumble upon dungeons, outposts, camps, ruins, etc all of which have the potential to hold great treasure or adventure. Since the landscape is littered with so many locations and subtle and obvious landmarks the game becomes unique in the fact that it’s fairly easy for players to gain a sense of perspective and recognize certain places. Dr. Roberto Di Letizia mentions in his study of immersion in computer games that Skyrim often has players revisit certain areas to find new items and that to in order to accomplish this players employ mental mapping. “Now, identifying a place where you have been means to recognize that specific place as a “here”, a place “where I was.””