There are very few games that have had as big an impact on a single genre as Skyrim. The game managed to bring the entire RPG landscape forward several years by delivering an immersive open-world full of quests, NPCs, and monsters of all kinds, fully transporting players into a fantasy world on a scale that had never been seen before.
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Its influence was felt right from the start, and many developers quickly got to work, attempting to create a similar experience or at least one inspired by Bethesda's crowning achievement. Some tried to replicate a lot of the themes and ideas that made Skyrim so popular, while others took a completely different path, whilst still paying homage to one of the world's most beloved video games.
7 Dragon Age: Inquisition
BioWare's Epic Fantasy World
Details:
- Large-scale RPG by Mass Effect developer, with party-driven combat and a focus on characters
- Followed Skyrim's expansive open-world structure, having several open areas and a more expansive world to explore
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Dragon Age: Inquisition represents BioWare’s most ambitious attempt to marry its deep lore and party-based RPG roots with an open-world structure reminiscent of Skyrim. The game features large explorable regions, each full to the brim with both main and side content, and players are given far more freedom than in the previous games to explore how and where they want to.
BioWare has openly stated that it took inspiration from Skyrim, notably the size of the map and the ability to traverse between areas seamlessly. However, the game focused far more on the narrative than Bethesda did, delivering a compelling character-driven story that felt far more cohesive and ultimately allowed it to win the very first Game of the Year Award at the Game Awards.
6 Avowed
From New Vegas To Swords And Magic
Details:
- Set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, focused on magic and melee combat
- Pitched internally as Obsidian's answer to Skyrim, but later shifted to a different identity
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When Avowed was first announced, many immediately compared it to Skyrim, and in fact, the original pitch was to create an experience very similar to Bethesda's, just in a completely different universe. But the game manages to do a lot of things differently, like incorporating more engaging choices into the narrative and making the ability upgrades feel more meaningful overall.
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While the inspiration is clear, the game still feels distinctly different from Skyrim in a lot of ways. For one, Avowed favors large open zones rather than a single expansive world, which allowed the devs to put a lot more effort into creating compelling environments that each bring something new, which gives it a unique identity that sets it apart from the titles that influenced it.
5 Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Reimagining The Arthurian Legend
Details:
- Darker aesthetic, heavy on atmosphere
- Familiar feel to Skyrim, both in gameplay and visual style
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Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a grim open-world RPG focused on exploration, atmosphere, and player-driven progression. Players are guided forward at all times by branching questlines that ensure that every piece of the world feels connected, but they are never forced down a single path and are instead encouraged to explore new areas for as long as they choose to.
The connections to Skyrim are clear right from the start, as both games share a similar immersive feel that keeps them engaged in action-heavy moments and calmer ones as well. While the tone is darker, its core experience mirrors the Elder Scrolls approach of giving players all the tools they need to embark on an adventure of their very own, only in a world that is more haunting and unsettling.
4 Outward
Surviving The World Together
Details:
- Traditional survival mechanics with a high-fantasy setting
- Developed with Skyrim in mind, but wanted a unique feel with features like split-screen co-op
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Outward distinguishes itself from traditional fantasy RPGs by fusing the staples of the genre with survival mechanics that force players to constantly adapt to their surroundings. Instead of grand heroics, the experience revolves around managing hunger, temperature, and injuries while navigating a wide-open fantasy world, where exploration can be both rewarding and deadly.
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Despite its modest scale, Outward clearly embraces Skyrim’s emphasis on freedom and player agency. The world is open, and each journey unfolds naturally, with no two playthroughs feeling exactly the same. Also, the developers mentioned a desire to create a world that could be experienced together, something that other big games like Skyrim hadn't tried in a while, and a main driving force for the split-screen mechanic.
3 Elden Ring
The Ultimate Hero's Adventure
Details:
- Soulslike combat pushed into a giant open-world
- Inspired by ambitious, interconnected games like Breath of the Wild and Skyrim,
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Elden Ring is a remarkable open-world RPG that takes influence from all corners of the gaming world to create an experience unlike any other. Players are treated to an expansive environment with seemingly no end, and are given the opportunity to approach the challenges within it however they choose, without ever being directly guided down a specific route.
When discussing the game's inspiration, the developers cited a few big titles like Skyrim as the main influences on the game's design. The framework of the soulslike combat had already been refined over many years, but transitioning that concept to an open-world meant that other games were researched extensively and used as the building blocks to create one of the best video games ever made.
2 Dragon's Dogma
Action And Scale On Par With The Elder Scrolls
Details:
- Following an epic quest to defeat the dragon Gigori
- Aimed to create a distinctive experience as genre-defining as Skyrim
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Dragon’s Dogma thrusts players into an open world full of towering monsters waiting to be conquered, and an environment that is simply begging to be explored. Players are given free rein over how the game plays out from the get-go, with the pawn system adapting to their playstyle and each area offering up opportunities for exploration in combat and in dialogue.
Its relationship to Skyrim lies in the shared ambition of capturing a vast fantasy landscape that players can truly inhabit. But in this case, the game leans more into action, creating an experience that feels more dramatic and engaging rather than serving as a simulation for medieval life.
1 Starfield
Sending Skyrim Into Outer Space
Details:
- Interplanetary exploration across an entire galaxy
- Pitched from the start as "Skyrim in space"
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Starfield is a brand-new IP from Bethesda, the first in over 25 years, and from the moment it was conceived, the game was designed to be as close to "Skyrim in space" as possible. The DNA of the developer's previous games fills everything from the NPC interactions to the open-world exploration, only on a bigger scale and in a whole new futuristic setting.
The hype was immense, and many players expected the game to eclipse Skyrim's success and usher in a new golden age for the genre. The actual release may have fallen below those expectations, but the game is still a monumental achievement in RPG design, giving fans of the devs something new to explore that still felt familiar to the games that made Bethesda so successful in the first place.
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