Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim set the standard for open world role-playing games in many ways, with many avid fans still investing hours upon hours into this epic world nearly a decade after its release. With lush scenery, deep storytelling, and a gigantic world to immerse oneself in, it could be argued that Skyrim offers fans an unprecedented amount of quality content in all departments and should be an inspirational model to the future of Elder Scrolls 6.
However, one major aspect that has not aged well for Skyrim, and which should probably be set anew for Elder Scrolls 6, is Skyrim’s playable and non-playable character design system, which is often bland and quite inferior to many other role-play and story-driven games, including its Elder Scrolls: Online counterpart.
Skyrim’s overall character design system is very typical archetypal, mostly composed of choosing a race and building a class on the go. But for the world of Tamriel, this can seem rather antiquated for Tamriel’s nuanced cultures, sub-cultures and living life.
It may be a long stretch to include new races, but the concept of choosing a race in itself can compromise the depth of character a player may want to create. For example, if one wants to build a Nord in Elder Scrolls 6 whose life and background revolves around growing up as a foreigner in the Khajiit homeland and specializing in skills normally relevant to that culture, creating a nuanced Nord character reflective of that should be on the table.
In a way, Elder Scrolls Online breaks the mold to a degree by allowing one to pick a race and any allegiance, belonging to the Ebonheart Pact, Daggerfall Covenant, or Aldmeri Dominion, even if the majority who belong to such a race may typically belong to a different allegiance most of the time. This allows players to be creative in imagining a unique background and origins story for their character that may not fit the typical scope of segregated race, class, homeland and background in conventional defining points.
Therefore, whether there are new races or not in Elder Scrolls 6 is much less important than breaking the mold in overall scope for how a player creates a nuanced character in the first place, utilizing the current races available. Elder Scrolls’ races needs to take matters further in providing a cultural and racial paradigm that is deep, transcending, and nuanced. It should allow players to experience insight not just in the cultural appropriations relevant to races, but also delve into various sub-cultures that overlap the features accustomed to races that are often too entrenched in their segregated traditions.
For a world as deep and rich as Tamriel, Elder Scrolls 6 needs to take both character creation and character presentation a step further and establish a model that is both complex and reflective of how reality actually constructs itself. For example, Argonians typically talk utilizing a language that refers to themselves in third person. But there would be better use of diversification if players could occasionally stumble upon an Argonian which defies these racial norms and is more culturally in-tune with another region or cultural background based on their life-story.
Elder Scrolls Online does a solid job providing some nuance in certain cases, such as some high elves on Summerset which do not align themselves to the typical “high-class” attributes that typically sketches the collective culture of the region, and some clearly stand-up against certain cultural traditions of their own and these elements of the snobbish pride common in Summerset. But it is still barely goes deeper than the first layer in providing cultural and racial fabric that is realistic and diverse in similar fashion to reality.
Overall, Elder Scrolls 6 needs to shatter the archaic take on race and culture which, in a one dimensional manner, normally consists of applying an array of cultural features to each race and assumes they all fit a collective mold. Although Tamriel is mere fantasy, its should still try to reflect the depth of an alternate fantasy reality that takes into account all the nuance and diversity of our own world.
To Bethesda’s credit, not all is lost in a shallow single dimension, and even Skyrim demonstrates plenty of intelligent characters and diversity within the paradigms of particular races and political movements, which often transcend race. Occasionally, players stumble across a foreigner whose made their home in a far away land of a different race, and these confrontations are always pleasant and unexpected.
But for Elder Scrolls 6 to truly shine in establishing deep and interesting characters in both player creation and NPC’s, the prospects of cultural diversity, ideology, political leanings, sub-cultures and individuality need to take shape to greater degrees than previously seen within the personalities that fill the world’s landscape. This will also make the world building take root and shine to a much greater potential, and enable players to be exactly the character they envision as they navigate this new world.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development for unspecified platforms.
