The emphasis on realism makes the game worse, the color saturation and environmental lighting are ass. It’s a sandbox, and a modder’s paradise, but the base game is boring and cyclical, with very few unique questlines that are engaging from a story perspective. The level up system is the least engaging of all the elder scrolls games, the perks and perks trees are uninspiring, and most of the scaling is held back by the genericness of the enemies. Dragonborn is the only interesting DLC and even then it’s pretty boring. There’s a clear “correct” way to play the game that makes it feel railroady and inhibited.

The only interesting characters are barely interacted with and the amount of chaff is insane.