I was late to the series, having started with Skyrim. Up until Skyrim I was mostly into shooters like Halo, but Skyrim introduced me to RPGs as a whole, and I haven’t looked back. Skyrim will always hold a special place in my heart for that. I do think gameplay wise it’s really good, I love the combat, the graphics/art style is really my thing, and it’s basically infinitely moddable at this point. It’s also my most played game of all time. With that being said, it has a ton of glaring issues to me that hold it back. The College of Winterhold is easily the biggest one for me. The fact you can be Arch Mage without ever using a spell after the first quest is rather alarming, and the fact that the centre of all magical studies in the province has, what, 10 students? It feels so hollow. I’m pretty sure there’s more teachers than students. The actual questline isn’t terrible, but it feels like so much of an afterthought, which is really a shame. I’m also not a big fan of the lack of meaningful choice in the game in general. The only truly consequential choices you can make are (1) kill the Dark Brotherhood, which is a terrible idea and awful quest, and (2) the Civil War questline, which I am a big fan of, but it’s sad it’s the only one with real gravity. Speaking of the Civil War, that’s definitely my favourite faction/guild/etc in the game. It’s fun, has real choice, affects the game outside of the questline, and you don’t become the leader at the end. I really don’t care for the trend of every guild making you master at the end, it just feels kind of silly. Especially for questlines that you can complete relatively quickly. How did a brand new nobody get promoted to the highest rank in the span of a couple in-game days? It’s a trend in lots of games unfortunately, that I personally don’t care for. But the Civil War questline doesn’t do that which is nice. At the end, you still have a boss. I also enjoy the Thieves Guild and especially the Dark Brotherhood, those are always fun times. Killing the Emperor is awesome, though it’s totally ridiculous that you can join the Empire afterwards, or even kill him while doing the Civil War questline with no consequences. The main quest is kind of boring after the first time and I mostly skip it these days. Something Skyrim does a really good job of though, at least to me, is making every playstyle genuinely fun. I’ve done every possible playstyle at this point I think, and I’ve always found a way to make it really enjoyable. Any weapon type, any magic school specialization, any class you want to fall into, it’s all fun to me. I’m also divided in the lack of classes. It definitely doesn’t feel traditional RPG, but it’s also nice it doesn’t punish you for trying a new playstyle. I also really love all three DLCs. Dragonborn is of course incredible, Dawnguard is a fun, fleshed out questline, and Heartfire, while small on content, does allow me to build a house which I genuinely love. I make sure to always build a house on every playthrough. There’s tons of video essays out there taking about the pros and cons of Skyrim, and I mostly agree with almost all of them, but the above are some of the key points to me.

Oblivion was my second game in the series. It has since firmly found its way in my heart, and I absolutely adore this game’s charm. It’s goofy, utterly ridiculous, and also somehow epic at the same time. This game absolutely oozes charm. It’s the one word I’d use to describe it. I do really enjoy the remaster too, but it did take away a lot of what made the original special. I know combat is something lots of people liked to hate on, saying it felt like fighting with wet pool noodles. I get that but it never really bothered me. The Arena was always really fun for me and something I always do on every playthrough, regardless of the build I’m going for. The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild are both excellent, and I really enjoy the Mages Guild and the Fighters Guild too. The main quest is pretty good but certainly not the highlight to me. I do really love how you’re not the main character in the story though, it’s easily my favourite aspect of the main storyline. Oblivion does mostly do the same as Skyrim with making you the top dog at the end of almost every questline, but it feels a bit more natural so I don’t mind it quite as much. I still can’t help but feel silly though, being the boss of all the guilds. The Listener, Gray Fox, and Guildmaster should not be the same person, if that makes sense. But I guess that’s my fault for playing like that. I also really like the function of the Blades in this game, way more than Skyrim or Morrowind. They feel like a home, and I really do enjoy going to check on them for quests and such. I also really love Sean Bean’s voice and will just talk to Martin over and over to hear him talk to me. One more point about Oblivion, I’m a massive fan of being able to cast spells while your hands are full, without having to switch out to “spell mode”. One of the best things they added to the game and I’m really annoyed Skyrim ditched it. I know it was to replace it with shouts, but I never use shouts in Skyrim. I’d much rather have a spell instead.

Morrowind is my most recent to complete. I haven’t touched the DLCs yet but I look forward to trying them soon. This game took me a long time to get into. I’ve been playing it off and on for years and years now, never getting more than a couple hours in before bouncing off of it to play something else. But this time it finally clicked, and holy shit this game is fucking amazing. Yeah, there’s absolutely issues with it. Traveling like a snail in the overworld in the first little bit of a new playthrough is painful. Swinging and missing over and over again is frustrating when you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. And I really wish there was a better way to show you what effects are active. Missing all your hits without realizing why, since you have full fatigue, before checking and realizing your agility got tanked for some reason but you don’t know why, is annoying. Not remembering the duration of the potion you took and not having an easy way to find out how long you have on your effects is also annoying. But overall, if you can get past the missing QoL features (many of which are brought in with OpenMW, which is fantastic), the game really is great. There’s so much I haven’t done in it yet, so many questlines I haven’t tried, so many cities I haven’t explored, plus I’ve only touched the base game, but I’m really getting into this world. I’m a big fan of how much of a god you can become. I just discovered the sheer joy of alchemy looping and zipping across the map in seconds, or destroying everything you touch (including your weapon, whoops). Making a potion for 50,000 speed, then levitating and tapping the W key and you’re suddenly outside the map is so entertaining. Not at all practical but that’s part of the fun. I also love how the game has stat requirements for guild advancement. It perfectly solves the issues I had with Skyrim’s College, I don’t know why they removed the feature. It absolutely makes sense that you shouldn’t be able to advance in the Mage’s Guild without any magical affinity. And I love how different guilds have disposition over other guilds. The game just makes sense, I guess is what I’m trying to say. It feels like a genuine, lived-in world. If this game was made today, with modern graphics and QoL features, but all the gameplay, story, etc of the original, I think it would do tremendously well. Maybe not commercially, but very well beloved.

I don’t really have enough experience in the rest of the series to have a paragraph about, but I will say, ESO is really fun to play from a gameplay standpoint, and it looks gorgeous too, I just haven’t messed with it much. And Daggerfall certainly seems like something I’d enjoy if I really got into it, but I’m not sure if or when that’ll happen. Arena is probably out of the picture, to be honest. And the spin off games are probably not getting touched either.

Will all that rambling out of the way, to actually answer the question in the post, what do I prefer? Well, it’s hard to say. I’d like to say Morrowind, but with my lack of experience with it I’m not sure I can quite give it the crown just yet. Maybe after a few playthroughs, all guilds finished at least once, DLCs explored, different playstyles done, I’ll feel more comfortable calling it my favourite. I can definitely see it taking that place eventually. Skyrim could make sense in theory, I mean, it’s my most played game of all time and I have a ton of nostalgia for it. It’s also my wife’s favourite video game and is something we bond over to this day. I know the game like the back of my hand, and it easily defined a big chunk of my life. It has sort of become part of my identity in a small way. But I have so many issues with it at the same time, I’m really not sure. That leaves Oblivion. It’s the game with the least going for it (compared to the other two, I still adore the game), but it also doesn’t really have much going against it. I can’t really think of a single major complaint I have with the game. Small gripes, sure, but nothing dealbreaking.

To me it kind of feels like being asked your favourite band, and trying to decide between the band that got you through tough times and that have some really good songs but also have some really bad songs or maybe even a couple bad albums (Skyrim), the band that you’ve recently gotten super into that sort of do everything you like in a song but you haven’t fully explored their discography yet so you feel weird calling them your favourite (Morrowind), and the band that you’ll never skip a song from, they’re always good music, but nothing they’ve released really reaches the same peaks as the other two bands (Oblivion). Not a perfect example but you get what I’m trying to say.

If you twisted my arm and made me pick, I’d probably currently have to go with Oblivion. I don’t have much to complain about, and I really do enjoy playing the game. It might not have the nostalgia for me and satisfying combat that Skyrim does, or the breathtakingly complex worldbuilding and massive power fantasy like Morrowind, but it’s still a fantastic game that doesn’t ever disappoint me. Like I said, I think Morrowind will eventually take this spot, but for now I can’t quite place it there yet.