The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a fantasy action role-playing game, playable from either a first or third-person perspective. The player may freely roam over the land of Skyrim, an open world environment based on Scandinavia consisting of wilderness expanses, dungeons, caves, cities, towns, fortresses, and villages.[1] Players may navigate the game world more quickly by riding horses, paying for a ride from a city's stable, or utilizing a fast-travel system that allows them to move their character immediately to a previously discovered location.[2]
At the beginning of the game, players select their character's gender and race, with 10 choices for the latter, including races of humans and fantasy races such as elves and orcs. The player chooses the character's appearance; this is not necessarily permanent, however, as an in-game mechanic allows for changing the appearance later.[3] Characters have three primary attributes: health is how much damage the character can take before dying, magicka is depleted to cast spells, and stamina allows the character to perform heavy "power attacks" or sprint. A status bar for each attribute appears onscreen when the attribute falls below its maximum value. Attributes regenerate over time and can be refilled faster by drinking potions, casting regenerative spells, or through various enchantments.[4] Characters gain experience indirectly, via leveling up skills. The 18 skills are divided evenly among the three schools of combat, magic, and stealth. Each skill has its own experience bar, which increases when the character performs an action in-game related to the skill. For example, crafting a dagger increases the Smithing skill, and dealing damage with a bow increases the Archery skill. When a skill's experience bar fills, the skill levels up and the bar is reset. After enough skills level up, the character levels up, enabling the player to increase the maximum value of one of the three attributes and providing a perk point. Perk points can be spent immediately on a skill-specific perk or stored for later use.[5][6]
The player character engages in combat with a Frostbite spider while exploring a dungeon. The player may dual-wield weapons and magic at the same time in order to be more effective against enemies. Players may also dual-cast a spell to increase its potency.
Non-player characters (NPCs) populate the world; the player may engage them in conversation (potentially leading to new quests or map locations), marry predetermined ones, or engage them in lethal or nonlethal combat. As in previous games in the series, killing certain individuals can make some quests or items unobtainable. Certain NPCs essential to the narrative cannot be killed by the player and will survive attacks of any magnitude. Committing a crime like murder or theft accrues the player a bounty if the crime is witnessed, leading to confrontations with guards. Depending on some factors, including how serious the crime was, the player can choose to go to jail, pay the guard off, persuade the witness to forget about it, declare that one is a thane of a certain hold (which leads the guard to pardon the player), 'pacify' the guard or silence witnesses through killing them.[7][8]
NPCs frequently offer the player side-quests; some have parameters adjusted based on nearby unexplored areas.[5][9] Some NPCs who are befriended or hired by the player may act as companions who will accompany the player and aid them in combat.[10] Some individuals have quests that the player needs to complete in order to gain their services as a companion. The player may choose to join factions, organized groups of NPCs—for example, the Dark Brotherhood, a band of assassins.[11] Each of the factions has an associated quest path to progress through.[12]
The player's effectiveness in combat relies on the use of weapons, armor, and enchantments (which may be bought, found from containers, raided from dead bodies, stolen and/or forged) and on the use of magic spells: similarly, spells may be bought, stolen and/or unlocked by finding spell tomes.[failed verification] Weapons, shields, and magic are assigned to each hand allowing for dual-wielding, and can be swapped out through a quick-access menu of favorite items.[13][failed verification] Some weapons and spells require both hands. Shields can be used to fend off enemy attacks and reduce incurred damage or offensively through bashing attacks. Blunt, bladed, and hacking weapons can be used in close combat and each have specific advantages and roles. Power attacks expend stamina to temporarily stun/stagger an enemy and deal increased damage. Spells have several functions, both in combat (e.g. damaging or confusing enemies, resurrecting dead bodies and conjuring other entities, restoring the player's health and/or stamina) and out (e.g. showing the way to an objective, illuminating a dark room or turning iron into silver).[14] Bows are used for long-range combat and can be used to bash enemies in melee combat. The player can enter sneak mode to pickpocket or deliver powerful sneak attacks to unsuspecting enemies.[15]
When exploring the game world the player may encounter wildlife. Many creatures in the wilderness, such as wolves or bears, are immediately hostile towards the player, while other species are docile and will run away.[1] Skyrim is the first entry in The Elder Scrolls to include dragons in the game's wilderness, although dragons are frequently referenced/mentioned in several of the other games.[16] Like other creatures, dragons are generated randomly in the world and will engage in combat with NPCs, creatures and the player. Some dragons may attack cities and towns when in their proximity.[17] The player character can absorb the souls of dragons in order to use powerful spells called "dragon shouts" or "Thu'um". Each shout contains three words in the language spoken by dragons, and the strength of the shout will vary depending on how many words have been spoken. Some words to shouts can be learned by visiting "word walls" in dungeons or around the wilderness, while other words can be taught by different characters. The words to each shout are unlocked for use by spending the absorbed souls of slain dragons.[18][19] A regeneration period limits the player's use of shouts in gameplay.
