Missives from Isolation #7 – Stories Within Stories

Suffice it to say that I’ve been playing a lot of video games in the last few months. It’s much easier to go outside when you don’t actually have to go outside. And, as it always eventually is, one of the games I’ve been sinking some serious hours into is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Apart from my girlfriend and I’s new character (a Khajit named after a friend’s kitten), I’ve been playing my first character again. He’s a venerable Dunmer called Tycho, he’s level 65, and he’s done pretty much everything there is to do in the base game and in the Dragonborn DLC. And that got me thinking about storytelling in gameplay – not just the story you’re actually given, but the story you come up with for your own characters as you go.

(I’d love to put some pictures of the game here, but I’m on PS3 and there’s no screenshot function, so you’ll have to use your imagination I’m afraid. Also copyright and all that.)

Obviously there’s no actual ageing in Skyrim. The date ticks on, and the weather changes from time to time, but nobody gets old. The children stay children, the elderly keep on going.

But Tycho’s been almost everywhere, at this point. He’s ended wars and fought dragons, he’s delved into hundreds of tombs, sailed to new lands, saved cities, slain monsters, fought and bled for, off and on, almost ten years of real time. He’s a master of half the skills in the game. He has so much money that it doesn’t really matter any more. He’s come such a long way since that first cart-ride to Helgen all those years ago.

(DarkElfLookingWistfullyInto Distance.jpg)

He’s the same age as when I started. But it feels like Tycho should be old. And so, in my head, he’s become old. But there wasn’t really a way to represent this in the game, to reflect it in the world – until, in the depths of isolation, I finally bought the last two expansions for Skyrim: Dawnguard and Hearthfire.

Hearthfire was the one I always thought I’d get last. It lets you build custom houses, really big ones, and basically settle down in peace and quiet. There’s space for all your trophies (or some of them, at least – given that I already owned four houses, all of which were already full of stuff, it just gave me a little breathing-room), you can hire your own bard and housecarl, and even adopt children.

Basically, it’s a retirement plan. Tycho, having fought just about everything there is to fight and saved the world three or four times, could finally settle down with his wife Lydia and raise a family in peace. He might not look old, but I finally had somewhere for him to go in his ‘old age’. I could leave him in happiness, his many quests done. And so I built him a house, adopted some kids, and left him with everything he needed for a long and happy retirement.

(HappySkyrimFamily.jpg)

…except there’s one more adventure still to do. Because I also bought Dawnguard. The DLC where an army of vampires descends on Skyrim in a quest to turn off the sun and generally start eating everybody. One last world-ending threat, that only one man (well, elf) can stop.

So, Tycho’s got his retirement all ready to go. But there’s still work to be done. And while I genuinely do intend to let him settle down eventually, I’m really glad that I’m not quite there yet. Because Skyrim is huge, and there’s much more left to do.

Hell, there’s a face sculptor somewhere that lets you change your appearance. Maybe I’ll give him some grey hairs, just for the look of the thing.