It was in the fall of 2011, and Skyrim cost me $60 when it was released. It’s the fall of 2022, and the Nintendo Switch version costs $70, even though it was a launch title in 2017 as well.

We’re seeing the dawn of $70 games as AAA releases like the Final Fantasy 7 remake and Call of Duty trying to pull in that little extra cash. That’s fine since big AAA games’ development (or remake) is difficult and expensive, but what about $70 for a one-year remaster port of an 11-year-old game? According to good Nintendo, this is also perfectly fine for Skyrim Anniversary Edition.

The Skyrim Anniversary Edition – not to be confused with the 2013 Skyrim Legendary Edition or the 2016 Skyrim Special Edition – debuted on next-gen consoles and PC last November. The only advantage it has over the 2016 Special Edition is that it includes 26 new Creation Club items in addition to the previous 48 Creation Club items (premium mods approved for sale by Bethesda). The Switch never received the Special Edition, so this new re-release is also the first time that the enhanced version of SE’s Creation Engine has appeared on a Nintendo console.

I hope this makes your head hurt less when you read it than it was when I wrote it, but it’s only going to make it worse. The 2021 Anniversary Edition was “only” $50! The Switch Anniversary Edition’s $70 price tag not only rankles it in a vacuum, it also highlights the absurdity of the base game still costing $60 on the system – which was humiliating when I got it in 2017 and absolutely absurd in 2022.

For these prices, you can get every Elder Scrolls game, including Skyrim, on Steam or GOG, and still have enough money left over. The inherent flexibility of PC and the dedicated community of NexusMods would also allow you to painstakingly mod your game to look like a next-gen title.

Source: PC Gamer