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One of Bethesda’s flagship games isn’t exactly renowned for its writing around being in love; it’s a flaw which shadows its most complex character…

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim stands as among the most iconic role-playing video games of all time. Fans will surely remember it as their gateway into the titular franchise and its labyrinthic worldbuilding that especially tails behind themes of racism, destiny, dreams, and many daring fantasy topics. Its accessibility ensures that many will get into it and its devoted modding community guarantees its longevity in PC gaming for years to come even 15 years after its original release. To some, Skyrim isn’t just an RPG game. It is the RPG game from the 2010s. It stands as one of the very best, at least among the most popular, of the video game company Bethesda’s titles as you, the player character titled the Dragonborn, travel through the titular land for glory, treasure, and power.

All that being said, Skyrim is never the kind of game that is praised for its writing. At least when it comes to the quests as fans of Bethesda would praise the environmental storytelling along with the readable items. The looming civil war plotline revolves around the epic gray-grey conflict between the dying empire which still carries itself some grievances from the setting’s native Nords regarding restrictions on their cultural freedom and what is essentially the most on-the-nose ethnonationalists who run rampant with dislikes on elves and other similar races who are living on their land. Factions like the warrior-based Companions or the magicism of the College of Winterhold saw you speedrun through in promotion to become its leader without needing to do filler quests to organically show your progression. Even the beloved Daedric quests that are customary to the franchise didn’t encourage you to turn your vices into virtues as you can simply just target people who annoy you and make them sacrifices without any guilt-ensuing reminders from those who should care.

Because the writing in Skyrim is shallow compared to the previous entries, players cling to characters whose voice acting performance feels organic compared to others. Lydia, a housecarl from the centermost region (called a “hold”) of Whiterun who tends to be among the player’s first companions, is among the most popular in part due to her snarky comments whenever you want her to hold your items (“I am sworn to carry your burden”). Another beloved character is Brynjolf who acts as your main sidekick as he guides you through the faction questline for the Thieves’ Guild. His more British-sounding accent and clear rough-edged charm allow him to amass an army of fangirls who find him attractive.

And then you have Serana. She’s the deuteragonist of the add-on called Dawnguard which focuses on the conflict between the vampire hunter organisation called Dawnguards and the cabal of vampires that form the Volkihar Clan. She’s the daughter of Lord Hakon, who leads the Volkihar Clan, and she was a pure-blooded vampire as a “Daughter of Coldharbour” who survived being violated by a Daedric Prince named Molag Bal. She was initially cautious of you when you were assigned to scout her in the Dimhollow Crypt to find one of the Elder Scrolls. 

Yet, as you travel together with Serana, she warms up to you by revealing her background, her personality, and her interests should you converse with her. For one, she has parental issues to say the least with her father seeing her more as a tool than as his child while her mother locked her away without care. Second, her centuries-long life of near-total isolation makes her out of touch with the latest developments so she only has her own books to turn to even if they’re as old as she is. Third is that she reveres her vampirism as a gift, but she appears to not mind getting cured should you pick the right dialogues throughout the add-on. Fourth is that she, unique to a lot of companions, will turn down a marriage proposal. The fifth is that in many of your selected dialogues, she will answer back to you as if you are a living being in the universe and not just a godlike player character…

All that to say that once the add-on was released in June 2012, Serana drew acclaim for her advanced AI and more in-depth writing. To this day, she remains as one of the game’s most well-known with thousands of fanfics starring her on Archive of Our Own, several cosplays that went viral on the game’s subreddit, and even jokes were made surrounding the players’ partners in real life and their reaction to her. She is practically the poster girl of Skyrim simply because she feels so much more organic compared to so many other companions – including the likes of Lydia whose background is virtually nonexistent. 

Naturally, players want to marry Serana in-game although it’s inevitable that she’ll soon turn it down. This desire does turn out to pose a lot of questions regarding player freedom, the overall immersion of the game, and the agency of the non-player characters. Those who especially play on PC will turn to mods to be able to marry her. Others might retreat to making fanfics or fan arts that depict their own Dragonborn getting together with her. These sit well within the confines of individual imagination, but it does conflict with the writing’s notable hint that she’s uninterested in marrying at least during the game. The conflict between her “waifu-ability” compared to the depth of her character exposes the weakest aspect of the game – its writing in general.

Let’s talk about the marriage gameplay mechanism to highlight the problems regarding Skyrim’s writing and its immersion. To get an NPC to be eligible, you must do a good deed for them to think of you positively which largely involves inviting them as a companion or completing a quest. That’s all it takes basically and you don’t need to learn any more details regarding them like their preferences or their goals. You must then wear the Amulet of Mara which, inside the game’s universe, is a sign that you are looking for a partner to settle down with and you signal that you want to marry them in a dialogue. All you need to do to finalise the process is to be on-time for the wedding which will be held in the hold of Riften, go through a bit of in-game cutscene, and swear your undying dedication to your newfound spouse. There are a dozen NPCs you can pick and you don’t need to worry at all about any nuances.

The issue is that this is all too basic. The marriage feels like it’s there only for the fanservice without neither the hard-earned credence of getting to know your spouse nor do you feel immersed in being around them. It’s high expectations, but it surely stings when you take into account the many mods that would add their own companions with more complex bits of writing or AI compared to what’s already in the game. I know personally of a meme that pokes fun at how easily shallow the in-game companions can be which expresses the fear of initiating the last unused dialogue option before they default to the same tired responses. 

With Serana, there’s a paradox surrounding her depth which includes her lack of interest in marriage and the opposing lust the playerbase has on her. As she stands out considerably more than most of the other characters in the game, there is a clear disconnect in the expectations surrounding her compared to everyone else. This in turn leaves no room for other favourites to enjoy the intense level of attention that she is able to win over. Farkas and Vilkas, twin brothers who are part of the Companions, have their own bit of following who finds them attractive and even they pale in both specific reworks from mods and from being seen as especially romantic compared to Serana. She stands as an abrupt peak in how the player is able to engage with the inner workings of the world’s residents and there’s little chance at all that they’ll find anyone who might come off as remotely engaging as her.

Bethesda is working on the upcoming main installment of the Elder Scrolls franchise. No one knows when it will be released since it entered production 3 years ago according to IGN. However, there’s a good bit of recurring pattern regarding its decline in writing even after Skyrim’s release. Fallout 4 initially drew acclaim for its open-world exploration and freedom before devoted fans of the original Fallout franchise saw it as being way below New Vegas’s nuanced writing and more elaborate quest designs. Its foray into making a new franchise with 2023’s Starfield was met with lampoon from weary fans over its more stripped-down assets and even less sharper bit of writing and storytelling. 

Notably, its best games when it comes to the writing over the past decade are all ones that it simply published as Bethesda Softworks without turning to its in-house development studio. Hi-Fi Rush, developed by Tango Gameworks, is loved since its release in 2023 for its more light-hearted nature as the characterisation and plot beats are interwoven with a rhythm-based gameplay that follows its own soundtrack. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle came out a year after with development done by MachineGames and it saw acclaim for how it wouldn’t be out-of-place at all with the film franchise’s world. One game stands out for its thirst to create its own unique identity. Another follows its source material like its personal Bible to the tee. And Bethesda’s main role in all of these are mostly from financing or marketing with little creative involvement.

When the upcoming Elder Scrolls title will soon come out, Bethesda might need to be really careful with its writing department which was especially targeted for criticisms for how poor its quality feels. The characterisation is two-dimensional at best, the plotline for quests tend to have a lot of contrivances to build tension even if it feels too obvious, and the dialogues feel plasticine in how the player never seems to be treated as an actual individual in the world. Serana subverts all of these points and it is this precedent that has not been met in the original games since then. The companions in Fallout 4 feel forgettable compared to her. The space opera theme in Starfield lacks the authenticity that she otherwise provides to Dawnguard’s plotline. If Bethesda is unable to either contain the number of companions down to ensure that their characterisation are able to rival her own at the least, Serana hovers like a banshee that will chip away at the company’s reputation…