“It lets you go to places that cannot exist in the real world,” said Vahe Adamyan, a dropout of the American University of Armenia (AUA), when asked why he considers himself a fan of the game. “It’s like living your favorite book... or dream. You get to meet your favorite characters, talk to them, fight alongside or against them.”
Vahe was talking about one of the most successful video game series of all time, The Elder Scrolls. The beginning of 2017 was filled with rumors and speculations about the next release of one of the series. First released in 1994 under the title The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the franchise has come to be known as an open-world action role-playing game. However, the series owes most of its fan base to its third installment, TES III: Morrowind. Most of the features as well as the lore started to form in that game and have since made every Elder Scrolls title a masterpiece of its kind. It also has one of the most dedicated fandoms in the gaming universe, according to whom The Elder Scrolls franchise is art.
But what is so special about a video game?
First of all, the game has, perhaps the richest lore in the history of video games. Starting the game, the player finds himself in a fantasy world called Nirn, a planet in the Universe of Mundus. The lore of the game suggests a legend of the creation of the universe that is as fascinating as real-world stories of creation. There are four major continents on the planet, the biggest of which is Tamriel (dawn’s beauty in Elvish.) All of the games are set on this beautiful and diverse continent. It is divided into nine provinces, each with its own unique climate, history, and inhabitants. At the beginning of the game, the player chooses one of the ten playable races for their hero: the four known elvish races (High Elves, Dark Elves, Tree Elves, and Orcs) along with four major human races (Cyrodilians, Bretonic Nations, Nords, and Redguards,) as well as humanoid races of Argonians (reptile humanoids) and Khajiits (feline humanoids.) The continent was previously inhabited by other rational beings such as Snow Elves, Dwarves, Ayleids, and Chimer, but as of the latest release of the game are believed to be extinct.
One thing about the game that fascinates the gaming community is its extent and diversity. The user is free to choose one of the races for his/her hero customizing the face and the body to the extent that the protagonist might look exactly like the player himself. Not only are they different by their appearance, but each of the nations has its own distinct culture, legends, languages and religions. Aside from that the player gets to develop the character to become one of the many possible classes like mage, knight, thief, paladin, marksman, assassin, etc. through the leveling system. That is, as one progresses through the game, the character earns experience points (XP) to later invest in the various abilities to forge a unique type of a hero. Moreover, there are numerous conflicting sides in the game and player, again is given the freedom to align with one of them. The parties include Mages Guild, the Rebel army, the Empire, the Fighters Guild and many others.
Vahan Hambardzumyan, another student at AUA, explains why he was replaying the game after finishing it for the first time, “There are so many possibilities for creating a character that playing the game only once is not enough. When Playing the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim I have completed the storyline with four different characters. Each time I got into different alliances, guilds and groups, eventually altering the outcome of the story.”
Perhaps its strongest feature would, however, be the thoroughly crafted storyline that ultimately depends on the choices made by the character and changes according to them. The most famous narrative is the legend of Nerevarine from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
“On a certain day, to uncertain parents, incarnate moon and star reborn.
Neither blight nor age can harm him. The Curse-of-Flesh before him flies.”
Thus starts the prophecy of the Nerevarine, a reincarnation of a Dunmer hero Indoril Nerevar. It states that an outlander will arrive at the province of Morrowind, the home of Dark Elves ruled by the Tribunal that has usurped the power and called a curse upon the dark elves. He will come as a prisoner and will leave the land as a hero. He will unite the four Noble Houses of the Dunmer, the Ashlander tribes (Rebels,) and overthrow the false rulers. Gamers can play as the praised champion legends about whom feature in other titles of the series. Not only is the main plot not linear in a sense that the choices made by the player will decide the outcome of the story, but it is also supported by thousands of minor storylines and side quests. In fact, Artyom Hakobyan, another former AUA student, finds this feature to be the most fascinating thing about the franchise.
“My favorite thing about the game is that you can never finish it,” said Artyom. “You can always find something to do in any of the games. All the random events that might happen to your hero when he’s roaming the countryside. Random books that you can find in dungeons when completing a side quest took a lot of my time. I actually sat and read some of them, and you can see that a lot of effort was put into writing them.”
Literature found across Tamriel
In fact, the game features more than 1000 books written by a professional creative team. The player finds them in libraries, shops, houses and everywhere else in the open world of the game. The books are usually a hundred pages long, while the topics vary from alchemy, science, crafting, biology to fiction, poetry and religion.
One of such books, The Legend of Red Eagle, is written in a way that tries to mimic real-world legends and add more realism to the gaming experience.
According to Oxford Dictionary, a legend is a “traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.” Legends are based on historical events and have fantastic elements to them. (Georges, p.7) The book starts with the prolog of the fictional writer Tredayn Dren who claims that the “tale was transcribed from the memory of Clarisse Vien, student of Winterhold (in-game academy of magic.)” It is a common practice among writers to introduce a credible source to legitimize a tale. Another characteristic of legends is that the exact time and location are often unknown. Here the author tries to estimate the year when events take place dating it to “1E 1030” which translates to the year 1030 of the first era. It is important to note that the story takes place in the lore-friendly timeline of the game that has its own format for recording history. Moreover, transcribers often struggle to identify the heroes of tales with historical figures. For instance, there are at least four candidates for the hero of the Scandinavian saga of Ragnar Lodbrok (i.e. King Horik I, King Reginfrid of Denmark and others.) Often historians look into other sources in order to identify the characters. Likewise, the fictional writer says that similar stories also appear in other myths of the region. The brief introduction is written with a rather scientific language. The author tries to be careful in his estimation warning the reader that “as with any oral tradition, much of it is likely a later anachronism.” A phrase that readers could find in the editor’s introduction to a relatively old book, precisely the sense that the creators of the game want us to perceive. Additionally, the word anachronism is often used in literary and historical studies. Finally, the writer starts the last sentence with the word “curiously” as if assessing the content of the story that creates a sense of distancing the writer from the tale.
As soon as the prolog ends the language takes an entirely new form, more artistic and less certain. The tale begins with the phrase long ago, a marker used alongside once upon a time as a standard folktale opener (Jennings), followed by the description of the main hero’s birth. Again a common practice in ancient Hellenic literature (i.e. Birth of Hermes, Hercules, God Vahakn.) Interestingly enough, the book also follows a familiar pattern that can be seen in ancient Germanic and Anglo-Saxon folklore. The overall structure of the text takes a rather simplistic form regarding syntax while simpler words are replaced with more literary synonyms.
They named him Faolan, which means 'Red Eagle' in the tongue of the Reach, for the screeching bird-call that greeted his birth, and the crimson blooms on the autumn hills. Thus began his legend: Reach-child, born under auspicious skies, his very name the color of blood.
The word tongue here replaces the simpler language and is often used with ancient or dead languages. The text features archaic or outdated phrases and orthography like dashed bird-call, Reach-child, his very name. The writer chose to use a darker, more specific shade of red crimson that associates with blood to prepare the reader for the bloody events to be described later. The word bloom is referred to flowers that are purposefully farmed for their beauty. Finally, the use of the word greeted is an example of personification, a literary device again common to fairy tales. Imagery like this is present throughout the rest of the tale. The syntactic choices also signal an unconventional storytelling:
“Thus was brokered to the witch: his heart, his will, his humanity.”
The and is sometimes dropped before the penultimate objects in the lists. In the same sentence above, the verb precedes subject. In both cases, the grammar would sound unusual for a modern English speaker but was practiced in old times as writers played with language moving some words and dropping others. Thus, although the text is written in the 21st century, the writer follows the linguistic style of the genre.
The overall chronotopic borderlines of the story are uncertain similar to that of Germanic epics like the Eddas, the Beowulf, and Nibelungenlied. The first four paragraphs of roughly 140 words provide a background to the story, introducing the interregnum between ten kings of the Reach and the early life of the protagonist. Then in only 34 words, the author presents the Cyrodilic Empire that invades the Reach from the south and defeats the ten kings. The pace slows as it gets closer to the end. Furthermore, the author omits the exact geographic location of the Reach. The events in the game take place in Tamriel a continent on the planet of Nirn. According to the maps and the lore of the game, there are three provinces located to the north of the Cyrodilic Empire none of which hosts a region, town or country called Reach. Similarly, the Norse texts omit the exact location of Alfheim, the land of Elves. This intentional blurring of chronotope serves as a tool to imitate the works of the intended genre.
These technics appeal to the casual gamers as well as the longtime fans of the franchise since the style of Norse epic tales goes along well with the game’s lore. Many of the aspects of the game are are borrowed from and the game itself is based on the Germanic mythology. The fans love the game due to these signature characteristics, therefore, incorporating this particular literary style into the in-game books enhances the gameplay. (Javadyan, 2017)
The series is also considered a piece of art by its fandom. Not only is the size of the continent of Tamriel measured to be 918,000 mi2 which are equal to the size of Algeria, it also has a set detailed geography that remains unchanged from one game to the other (compared to 12,000,000 mi2 of the procedurally generated map in the First game that lacked detail.) This, however, does not mean that the size will remain the same. The masses speculate that in the next release the world will be 4 times bigger which would be bigger than Canada. But what makes this game a piece of art? Many gamers spend days merely on exploring the countryside or the cities in the game. They watch the sunset and beautiful sceneries that exist only in their imaginations. The gameplay includes the main story as well as side quests that, if printed as a fiction piece, might receive a critical acclaim similar to that of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The story includes a well-developed main protagonist who is usually a reincarnation of a legendary hero like Nerrevarine. Finally, the gameplay is supported by a beautiful soundtrack that takes the player further into the fantasy world of Nirn.
Architecture of Tamriel
The game is also famous for its massive and scrupulously detailed cities. From skyscraping castles to gracious palaces, every single building in the game was designed by professional architects. Since those structures did not require any actual material, therefore, any funding, the only limit for the creators was their own fantasy and creativity. According to Aram Saghatelyan, leader of the architectural team at Narek Sargsyan Architectural Studio, the creators were inspired by real-world examples when designing the cities. Buildings in some cities were influenced by Roman classicist style of the late Imperial period, while others, mainly castle towns resembled medieval gothic and Viking architecture. Saghatelyan says that one of the cities, the capital of the Cyrodilic Empire was built using the utopian concept of the “Ideal City” which states that cities must be planned in harmony with principles of some "rational" or "moral" objective. They have geometrically symmetric planning where the placement of buildings is based on a grid. Such cities usually have circular shapes with a massive building in the middle, like the White-Gold tower of the Imperial City in the game.
With the last game released in 2011, the publishers of the game say that the sixth installment will be released nowhere in the near future, since humanity does not have the technologies to handle it. The fans, on the other hand, have taken over the internet to discuss The Elder Scrolls VI, its location, story, time period among other aspects of the game, but most importantly they hope that the qualities to which the game owes its greatness will be as breathtaking as they have always been.