The game of the year for 2011 was a dream game, where players could fight hulking dragons with wonderful variety, explore a humongous map filled with hundreds of unique areas to explore, all while customizing their character, combat style, and influencing the world of the game itself by helping the rebels or squashing the revolution. Of course, this wonderful game was “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.”

The game has held up to its age very well, but Bethesda still decided to release a so-called “Skyrim: Special Edition” on Oct. 26. Besides a promise of much better graphics and audio, it was told that the game would have most of its bugs fixed. Unfortunately, however, the finished product can hardly boast of such improvements.

Right off the bat, the game looks the same, only slightly brighter and less drab. The opening sequence is very glitchy as well, with characters randomly moving around and disappearing and appearing again. The audio sounds exactly the same, and I even booted up the original to make sure. Though Bethesda has promised to fix the audio, there has been no word on fixing the glitches that effect every platform. And of course, there’s the issue of the game looking like it came out three years ago. “Skyrim: Special Edition” looks like Bethesda took the original, added better lighting, and upscaled the game so that there would at least be a bit of a difference.

The game is still great, but paying $40 for a game that looks only slightly better is ridiculous. PC players have been able to make the game look better than this for years through mods, and the game was pretty stable on console to begin with. If there were two screenshots side-by-side of each game, anyone would be hard pressed to tell the difference, or even guess which screenshot applies to which game.

At least the game is free for PC players who own the original and all the add-ons, but console players who have to pay are experiencing the same issues. Until Bethesda fixes the major issues, including actually overhauling the graphics to look like a 2016 game, it is not worth the money. Like most remasters, it would be a better use of time and money to just buy the original, and PC players can even mod the original to look better than the “Special Edition.”   

Final Rating: C+

Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Price: $39.99