[Valve Index]

 Pretty much any game developer can tell you that making a title for virtual reality isn't as simple as "hitting the VR button." A lot of work goes into making a VR title—especially one worth actually playing. That makes it all the more annoying that it really does feel like Bethesda just hit the "make it VR" button when porting The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition to VR. Aside from half-baked hand tracking and a custom starting area, very little care was put into making Skyrim an interesting VR game. While it's neat to explore Tamriel in a more immersive way, the game lacks the physicality that VR promises. There's very little in the way of physics interactions—your hands barely interact with the environment, either phasing through people and items or sending them flying erratically. Without collision, melee combat feels like whiffing at the air. Congratulations, you're playing Skyrim again, but this time, you're doing it standing up. To add insult to injury, players are expected to purchase this rush-job separately from the desktop version of Special Edition—which I still don't even own. If they were going to put so little effort into it, it should have been a free update to Special Edition and not a full-price standalone purchase.

 As my score suggests, however, not all is lost. I had quite a good time playing Skyrim in virtual reality, but that's despite Bethesda—not thanks to them. If you're willing to spend half a day modding the game and learning how to correctly apply confusing shit like DynDOLOD, Skyrim VR is more than just a salvageable experience—it's one worth getting into. The Elder Scrolls fan community has done an amazing job of making this port worth playing. With a handy guide and a bit of patience on the player's part, it's possible to make the world of Tamriel a beautiful, jaw-dropping experience worth exploring for the visuals alone. The combat and gameplay... well, it's still Skyrim. That said, I feel like the notoriously same-y combat is made a bit more interesting when the swings of your sword, the drawing of your bow, and the casting of your spells are done with your own hands' movements. There's an additional layer of immersion there that makes the combat feel more worthwhile than the one-button-mashing of the desktop version. If you have a headset, an attachment to Skyrim, and some time to burn, I think it's worth trying out the game after modding it. Just... don't buy it. Bethesda could do without the encouragement.

I tried, I really did, but the control scheme in this game makes it utterly unplayable to me. Skyrim lends itself well to be played in VR and the modality of the base games is also here, but the controls... the god awful controls. Why is grab A instead of grab? Why is a face button start instead of a button combo? Unfortunately there is no way to make these controls wholly yours. There are ways to reconfigure the controls but none that make sense in a modern VR setting. If anyone sees this, understands my plight, and has found a mod fix or something other than "Just get used to the controls" then please let me know. I really want to enjoy this game but I just can't.

He did it again, Todd sold me another copy of Skyrim

Now, is this one of the best VR games out there, like most people say? Far from it, it's actually one of the worst VR games while vanilla, and mods are necessary to prop it up to a janky level. It also looks like Oldrim, and it has aged terribly.

It's fun sometimes though

I feel incredibly immersed and surprisingly not motion sick at all when I play Skyrim VR. It's straight-up therapeutic for me to chill out as a Khajiit wherever I want. I have felt nothing but joy playing the game even if it's the millionth time I've played a TES game and the thousandth time I've played Skyrim. The world feels alive in a whole new way when I play in VR.

However, and this is a big however, this is an absolutely botched VR port and is pathetic in how little it brings to the table by default. It straight up requires mods just to work in ways a player would expect it to work from the beginning. Vanilla Skyrim is obviously nothing compared to a modded version of itself either, but at least it doesn't carry with it the disappointment of being a bad version of a decent game.

As much as I enjoy my time in this game and as much as I'll likely come back to it, I cannot for the life of me give it a good rating because of how inadequate it is for what it is. Is it worth pirating? Sure! Is it worth paying for as much as base Skyrim? Hell no. I'm glad I got it super cheap on sale.