That title is so misleading. Everybody knows one does not simply “finish” Skyrim. However, I went up there, wore the tshirt, ate the burger, learned all the shouts and sank my mace down the fool dragon’s head.
The problem with massive open-world games like Skyrim is the closure. Yes, I am aware of the contradiction in that sentence. You see, you spend your life in Skyrim being the best that you could ever be and when you’re ready, you pump yourself up to finally serve your main purpose. That being defeating Alduin.
This is where we experience the hiccup. You have done so much; you became an assassin, killed your own husband as a sacrifice, murdered chickens and stole every valuable thing in all the nine holds of Skyrim, not to mention chopped several dozens of dragons along the way and now you’re going up against another dragon one last time.
With all the things I have accomplished, I have become desensitized to the threat of another dragon. Heck, Alduin was just another goomba along the way. He definitely felt like one, since I battled tougher Draugr’s than him. Perhaps I was asking for something more grand? More fulfilling? More final?
But then again that’s asking something of Skyrim that it was not meant to give.
For all the strengths that an open-world game has, it will always have that one weakness: a definitive ending. An honest to goodness, satisfying tearjerker of an ending. That grand feeling of accomplishment.
Don’t get me wrong, I did feel feats of accomplishment but not with defeating Alduin. It’s scattered and peppered across Skyrim, from little tasks like putting a little girl’s soul to rest to escaping the inescapable dungeon. And those experiences I will take with me forever.
I doubt if I would tell my friends stories of how I valiantly destroyed Alduin but I am sure that I will recount the tale of when I sneaked inside a coffin and embraced a rotting corpse to save myself from death.
