“Are you kidding me?”: Even Skyrim’s creator is surprised by the game’s popularity 14 years later — he offers a reason for its success

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has continued to enthrall players for years — a longevity that even surprises its creators.

Recently, Skyrim’s lead designer Bruce Nesmith told FRVR that he is “always astonished” by the game’s persistent popularity:

“By all rights, another game should have eclipsed it after a year. Then two years passed, three, five, ten. You start to ask yourself, ‘What on earth is going on here?'”

Bruce recalled how Todd Howard once showed the team metrics that confirmed the game’s reach:

“Todd even went to meetings and showed us data (details I can’t reveal) about how many people are still playing it. I thought, ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Seriously — even after all these years?”

Bruce attributes Skyrim’s staying power to its singular vision — the developers created a world that others haven’t managed to replicate, and the game’s quirks have only helped its charm:

“I think Skyrim delivered an open world in a way no one had before, and few have attempted to do the same since. One thing we embraced that many other developers don’t is the presence of quirks. Strange things will happen. If you accept that as part of the experience, you can uncover something like a gem.”

“But if you try to smooth everything out and ensure there are no oddities — the things people sometimes call bugs — you lose some of that magic. We didn’t make that choice intentionally; it emerged organically. You prioritize functionality and say, ‘Okay, this bug is tolerable. This behavior isn’t perfect, but we can live with it because look at what it produces.'”

Source: iXBT.games