The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Guide - IGN (2024)

FAQs

Is there a guide to Skyrim? ›

An Explorer's Guide to Skyrim is a book in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This book is unique in that it allows for the Dragonborn to mark several locations of standing stones onto their map, if they have not discovered them already.

Pick a Standing Stone

A Standing Stone, once interacted with, will provide a free bonus at all times that range from a once-per-day free spell, to increases to stats or even an experience gain. The effect will never go away until the player picks another standing stone to swap effects.

When focusing on the main objectives, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is about 34½ Hours in length. If you're a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 232 Hours to obtain 100% completion.

Skyrim is a forgiving game, and mistakes aren't deal-breakers. If anything, they add a little flavor to the game. Players will always have the option to do things differently on their next playthrough, but for newcomers diving into this title for the first time, it's better to just enjoy it without worrying too much.

On Normal difficulty (or Adept, as it's called), I'd say Skyrim's a very easy game compared to what I'm used to in action games (like Dark Souls, PS2 Dynasty Warriors, or Nioh), but if you're not used to real time action then Skyrim might be more challenging.

Skyrim doesn't exactly end, in the traditinal sense. There is no one last hurrah, and then a credits roll. Some quest arcs have varied endings, such as the Civil War, but the Free the World from Alduin main quest arc only has a single outcome.

Pick Imperial if you want to play a character who is originally from a place aside from Skyrim, as it doesn't make sense to fight under a banner that ultimately won't accept you. Pick Stormcloak if you believe the Empire has no right to say what Skyrim denizens can and can't do, especially if you are a Nord.

The Companions are based here, which is a faction questline well worth following, and there are some other quests here involving runaway Redguards, family feuds and plenty more. However, Whiterun really is the starting blocks for the game and you won't miss much if you move on once the initial action has died down.

But perhaps best of all, they get a general resistance to magic. Considering the amount of pain that magic users can inflict, this is potentially life-saving and makes the Bretons one of the best races players can choose in Skyrim.

A Reddit user named DiJGit states that they have completed a 100% playthrough of Skyrim after 700 hours. DiJGit finished every quest and collected all items, spells, and shouts in the game.

Is it possible to beat Skyrim? ›

Completing the entirety of the game itself is almost impossible, with all the side quests that seems to lead you nowhere near the end. However, beating the game is a whole different story and is actually very doable.

According to a court document revealed from the FTC v. Microsoft case, The Elder Scrolls 6 is expected to be released sometime during or after 2026, and is seemingly planned to be released solely on PC and Xbox (via The Verge).

Following Ralof plays out much like following Hadvar except that his contact in Riverwood is Gerdur. Following him or Hadvar enables players to take advantage of a few glitches to level up skills. Conversely to Hadvar, following Ralof will give the Dragonborn a foot in the door with the Stormcloaks.

Alteration. Perhaps the quickest and easiest skill to level without using any heinous exploits is Alteration, another unsuspecting school of magic. Alteration has some very useful spells for any class, with Flesh spells being some of the most powerful in the game, particularly higher-level versions like Ebony Flesh.

If you're new to the world of Elder Scrolls, you're most likely going to want to start with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It is the most recent game in the series, other than Elder Scrolls Online, and it is playable on just about every platform.

The Elder Scrolls 6 news

According to a court document revealed from the FTC v. Microsoft case, The Elder Scrolls 6 is expected to be released sometime during or after 2026, and is seemingly planned to be released solely on PC and Xbox (via The Verge).

If you're new to the world of Elder Scrolls, you're most likely going to want to start with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It is the most recent game in the series, other than Elder Scrolls Online, and it is playable on just about every platform.

Following Ralof plays out much like following Hadvar except that his contact in Riverwood is Gerdur. Following him or Hadvar enables players to take advantage of a few glitches to level up skills. Conversely to Hadvar, following Ralof will give the Dragonborn a foot in the door with the Stormcloaks.

Any order really. The best way to avoid bugs and glitches is to do all the miscellaneous quests first and the Dark Brotherhood quests last. The reason to do the dark brotherhood last is because a couple of the npcs are important for some minor miscellaneous quests.