Sandboxes and open worlds, or why I love Skyrim so much

Back to my childhood years, my sister and I used to play a lot with Playmobil toys. What we found so enticing was the opportunity for us to tell our own stories. At least, my sister was telling stories, I was merely following her lead. Thinking back, I think she was some kind of game master in our own role-playing game. Playmobil gave us the settings and the characters, and it was all we needed to enjoy ourselves all day long. I loved this feeling of freedom, being able to make up our own rules, building relationships and backstories for every character.

Recently, I realized I was doing exactly the same when playing Skyrim, and that’s one of the main reasons (the other reason being the amazing modding community) I’m never getting tired of this game. Each time I start a new game, I come up with a backstory for my character, which is gradually changing with random events happening in the game. Skyrim is a game that lacks depth in its narration, so exactly like when I’m writing fanfiction, I’m really enjoying filling the gaps and making up new stories and developing the psychology of the character I play.

Any open world game wouldn’t do the trick, though. To be a good sandbox, an open world needs to be appealing, full of possibilities, without overwhelming the player with side activities and countless points of interest to discover. To my mind, a good open world isn’t a map full of objectives to be completed, but a garden where children (like you and me) can play freely. A game has to have rules, but it must remain simple, so we can make it our own.

I love mountains and Skyrim landscapes have been enthralling me since day one. Since then, I have downloaded many mods that enhanced the visual aspect to the point I barely recognize the vanilla game by now. About my modded game, I often say I bought an old family car and turned it into a Ferrari (Portofino, because it’s the most beautiful car in the world, and no I won’t listen to any other opinion). I added a few spells, abilities, questlines, characters, but the core game remains the same, and what I love about it is its simplicity. I just walk about and see what happens today. Incidentally, I have translated the Sea of Thieves website for years, and they published a lot of players interviews. The vast majority always said the same thing: what they enjoyed the most about the game was setting sails without knowing what was going to happen a few hours or even a few minutes later. That’s the feeling of adventure which is so precious to players. And it’s also no surprise Sea of Thieves players are often role-playing oriented.

What I mean is that the open world is just a setting, a prop, an adjuvant. We players take it and we twist it so we can tell our own stories and express ourselves. So yes, Sea of Thieves, Skyrim, role-playing and writing fanfiction are similar activities in that way. We embody a character which is sometimes our opposite, sometimes what we think is a better version of ourselves, sometimes someone we would like to be friends with, or even be their lover. It all boils down to our imagination nourishing, twisting and developing the world that we are being offered.

So a good sandbox must fuel the players’ creativity. Creativity needs space to thrive, and incentives. Give us charismatic NPCs, beautiful and mysterious landscapes, places to explore, a lore which is deep enough to spark our curiosity, and then you have it. An enthralling open world.

It’s not for everybody; some players can get bored or they need more structure. But as I said in the previous post, no video game is for everyone. It simply doesn’t exist.

Whenever I feel down or conflicted about my life, Skyrim is my refuge. Telling stories is a therapeutic activity. Even when all is well, I can’t stop dreaming. Having a space of freedom and pure imagination is something I deeply need. They say that when you’re dreaming at night, you process real-life events and feelings. I think dreaming in a virtual world or when writing fiction is the same. It’s not merely a way of escaping day-to-day life, it’s a parallel universe where you can resolve your inner conflicts and sometimes, as it is the prerogative of fiction, to see the truth through stories born of the imagination.