Every 6 months or so, I find myself playing Skyrim again. And every time I wonder why.
It's been nearly 13 years since Skyrim's cute 11/11/11 release date. The game has since outlived entire console generations; I've successively played it on Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox Series X.1 I'll probably still be playing it on the next Xbox. I honestly don't know if I'll ever stop playing it.
This kind of staying power is highly unusual for video games, where the half-life of a new game is about 4 hours. I'm not the only one still playing—and buying—new versions of Skyrim. Something about the game—the sheer variety of quests, the depth of character customization, the surprising moments of emergent gameplay—keeps us coming back.
Skyrim is the only game I've repeatedly returned to, year after year. It's not even about "beating" Skyrim at this point. One doesn't beat Skyrim any more than one simply walks into Mordor. There is the one thing I can say about Skyrim with absolute certainty: Skyrim's end game is that there is no end game.
