Nearly 14 years after its release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim continues to captivate players worldwide, maintaining its legendary status in gaming history.

Few games have managed to stay relevant as long as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the most iconic and celebrated fantasy RPGs ever created. It’s been re-released countless times, but it’s hard to fault Bethesda for doing so — the community remains incredibly active, with modders constantly building entire new experiences across Tamriel’s frozen north. That enduring enthusiasm still amazes Bruce Nesmith, the game’s lead designer, who told FRVR that, in his view, another title should have already taken its place just a year after launch.

Nesmith recalled how Todd Howard occasionally shared Skyrim’s concurrent player numbers, and he could hardly believe the figures. According to SteamDB, Skyrim Special Edition still draws around 12,000 concurrent players on Steam — twelve times more than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, which peaks at roughly 1,000. Nesmith attributes this staying power to the team’s design philosophy: “We didn’t put any limits on the player. We didn’t try to control the experience. It was a player-driven adventure.” He added that very few games achieve this sense of freedom anymore, as open worlds have become almost cliché in modern gaming.

It’s an intriguing perspective. In some respects, Skyrim is more constrained than its predecessors, such as Daggerfall or Morrowind, particularly in terms of character progression and the freedom to kill story-critical NPCs. However, it’s hard to deny that Skyrim’s world remains full of wonder — every step feels like a discovery driven by the player’s own curiosity and wanderlust.

So, Todd — when can we expect yet another re-release of Skyrim on the Nintendo Switch 2?

Source: PCGamer, FRVR, SteamDB