I live in constant fear that I will never discover some areas

Nov 29, 2011 23:41 GMT  ·  By

One good example of how big the game world in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim actually is can be found in the beautiful in game map which, even when scrolled out completely, still cannot take in the entire province where the game takes place.

Size can also be seen in the presence of nine fully explorable cities, five bigger than the others, and the way the top radar bar is filled with undiscovered camps, mines, hideouts and caves every time I walk around the countryside.

It's very nice to see such densely packed content and the variety they offer but I sometimes feel lost, especially when I can clearly see the radar pointing me towards a tower (probably filled with bandits and loot) that I want to reach but I see no workable path to take in the world around me.

The completist in me also suffers knowing that there may be locations out there that I do not know about and could hide new weapons, more power words for my shouts or unknown creatures and enemies.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas solved this problem with the Explorer perk which became available to really high level characters and revealed where all named locations on the map where, giving any player who has the same obsessions that I have the possibility to travel there and explore them.

It was a neat way to reward explorers while also enabling them to get everything the game had to offer in one go, without the need to resort to trial and error to discover that last elusive Lovecraft inspired building.

Sadly nothing similar seems to exist in Skyrim so far and that leaves me a little disappointed at the fact that I might never see everything the game has to offer, even if I plan to make three as complete as possible playthroughs.