I can get behind quite significantly something that opens with the irony-cost-free opening salvo of “In a time right after oblivion…” nothing but sheer awesomeness can come of a braggadocio boast like that, surely? Truly yeah, you happen to be pretty significantly proper in that assumption. So begins elderscrolls 5: Skyrim, the latest in the venerated fantasy game series, before warning us of an ancient prophecy contained inside the titular scrolls and then having a huge dragon come to life and go looking to incinerate a bloke in a silly helmet. So far so great, then…

elderscrolls 5: Skyrim, we’re told, is targeting a new audience by relying less heavily on continuity and choppy plot hangovers from earlier games. This may possibly alienate the far more hardcore fans of the series, but I suspect that, if effective, elderscrolls five: Skyrim will not only crack open a enormous market for their own future titles, but also the fantasy genre in general.

Lets be clear about this, individuals like fantasy. Men and women like Sci Fi, there’s one thing about both that gives escapism, enjoyable and the promise of unbridled adventure. I have but to meet a single individual who did not take pleasure in some form of escapist storytelling, whether or not it was pulp novels, super heroes, space ships or dragons. It really is only truly the obsessives who spoil it for the rest of us. I’m talking about the guys who dress as The Joker or Harley Quinn at the San Diego Comic Con to protest the DC comics reboot whilst pretending to be the characters themselves, the internet-forum warriors who argue against any and all new development in long-operating series, however conversely complain that the continuity has turn out to be ‘stale’, or the vacuous trendy children with an interest only in ironic piss-taking ahead of moving on to the next huge factor.

As an unapologetic, lifelong geek (who was a comic book devotee lengthy prior to it became Hollywood-approved and has a list of reasons as extended as your arm to boycott J.J Abrams’ Star Trek reboot/abomination) its good to see stuff like Elderscrolls lastly going overground. With imagery that picks up exactly where the massive cinema achievement of Lord Of The Rings left off (despite the truth that those flicks were, lets face it, a bit sh*t), it’s clear that elderscrolls 5: Skyrim is tapping into an audience currently primed for fantasy and adventure. You want dragons? Warriors? Villagers on the run, Golden Axe chutzpah and drop-dead gorgeous fantasy landscapes, then look no further, the energy of the scrolls compels you. And, if not that, then they leave it to the endless appeal of dragons to do the job…

elderscrolls 5: Skyrim looks impossibly cool, in an impossibly nerdy sort of way. The producers even wrote a unique runic ‘Dragon language’ for gamers to get pleasure from, sort of a halfway residence between Elvish and Klingon which will no doubt have net forums buzzing in the months to come (specially when some bright spark releases the symbols for use on your desktop). That level of attention to detail, far from being over-the-top-nerdy, helps the game to turn out to be immersive and helps the globe of Elderscrolls to really feel lived in, actual. In a world exactly where our personal lives frequently feel like we’re stranded on Planet Hollywood, it is nice to see games designers investing fantasy with care and attention. As the old aphorism goes, if there’s a job worth undertaking…