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There’s nothing out there quite like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Other games have bigger worlds or better stories, but Skyrim truly holds a special place in gaming culture. And if, over the last 13 years, you have somehow missed out, it’s currently at the historically low price of $7.99 for the Special Edition on Steam.
When it’s not on sale, the game clocks in at $39.99, pretty steep for a game older than a seventh-grader, but this Memorial Day weekend you can get it for -80%, just $7.99. You’ve got until May 30.
If you feel like splashing out, you can also get the Anniversary Upgrade, released in 2021, for $9.99. This is -50% off and is also a historically low price, but you do need to own the Special Edition first to get the upgrade. Frankly, it probably isn’t worth ten dollars – it adds a small number of new quests, a survival mode, a few items, and for some utterly inexplicable reason, a fishing mini-game – but don’t judge anyone too harshly who owns it. The nostalgic lure of a ten-year favorite getting an unexpected update was high.
Is it worth playing Skyrim in 2024?
The deep discount certainly seems to be working – Skyrim Special Edition is currently in the top 20 of Steam’s Top Sellers list. So the sale will bring in an influx of players, ready and eager to experience the game that brought so much to so many.
Is it worth it, though? To play this nearly 13-year-old game now, when there are so many other options? Newer, more polished options less prone to weird bugs and random Bethesda crashes?
Well, in this writer’s, opinion: yes!
I played Skyrim when it was released, and there probably hasn’t been a year since that I haven’t played it, at least a little. I have purchased it on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Switch (don’t play it on the Switch). I even bought the Anniversary upgrade.
It is unequivocally worth your time to experience Skyrim. It’s truly an incredible achievement. Even now the game feels huge, full of life, and utterly joyous to play. There are dragons! You can fight by yelling at people so hard they fly off cliffs and down to their dooms. And this is before we get to the topic of how infinitely moddable Skyrim is.
It’s also still being updated – infrequently, but there was a massive bug-fixing patch earlier this year.
