Should You Buy Skyrim Special Edition?
Remasters are commonplace at this stage, but when a game as beloved as Skyrim is revamped, people take notice. The 2011 hit thrived on PC thanks to powerful hardware and a flood of user-created mods. Skyrim was popular on consoles as well, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 ports were far and away inferior, with muddy visuals, diminished frame rates, and extended load times. With the new Special Edition release, console players are almost on equal footing now—the one exception being Bethesda is controlling which mods are available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Platform parity aside, Skyrim Special Edition is a significantly improved console version of the now-classic game. If you've always wanted to give Skyrim a try, there's no time like the present, but beware: it's easy to lose yourself in the game. In his 2011 review, Kevin VanOrd wrote: "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim doesn't rely on sheer scope to earn its stripes. It isn't just that there's a lot to do: it's that most of it is so good. Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it."
Remasters are commonplace at this stage, but when a game as beloved as Skyrim is revamped, people take notice. The 2011 hit thrived on PC thanks to powerful hardware and a flood of user-created mods. Skyrim was popular on consoles as well, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 ports were far and away inferior, with muddy visuals, diminished frame rates, and extended load times. With the new Special Edition release, console players are almost on equal footing now—the one exception being Bethesda is controlling which mods are available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Platform parity aside, Skyrim Special Edition is a significantly improved console version of the now-classic game. If you've always wanted to give Skyrim a try, there's no time like the present, but beware: it's easy to lose yourself in the game. In his 2011 review, Kevin VanOrd wrote: "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim doesn't rely on sheer scope to earn its stripes. It isn't just that there's a lot to do: it's that most of it is so good. Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it."