TES is high fantasy, no way around it.

Lore wise glass isn't magical, it's just a rare and incredibly strong material. Ebony and Glass are sort of the same thing in different forms.

Daedric weapons are made of ebony but have the soul of a daedra bound to the material.

That certainly doesn't jibe with Todd Howard's own perception of the game.

He has stated in one of the earliest Skyrim interviews that he personally could never get into the "extreme high fantasy, JRPG" type of settings.

With respect to games, in a nutshell, "high fantasy" means alien, bizarre, other worldly and "low fantasy" means slightly more realistic, less bizarre, less alien, possibly with more realistic characters or mature themes.

I think the weapons and armor look perfectly fine, and not too unrealistic, or over the top.

This is alien, these are not humans. not to mention TES fits the bill for high fantasy in any definition. Plus Todd said "a more low fantasy feel". Not "this is low fantasy". Even if he did say that though, he'd be wrong. TES=HF. Although it doesnt really matter about defining the game this or that etc.

I've always thought :tes: does a perfect job at having the world look realistic while at the same time fighting demons.

Well Todd is human and quite capable of using the wrong definition of a word. As he in this case obviously did.
Tamriel isnt only not earth, its basic laws and deep history differ so totally and completely from our own that there is simply no way its low fantasy.
TES games are high fantasy, by definition.

These terms simply have very different definitions with respect to literature vs. video games.

Definitions evolve from the way people use words and "high" vs "low" fantasy have quite different connotations when used to describe games.

These days an LOTR-inspired WRPG is considered significantly less "high fantasy" than any JRPG with bizarre creatures, simply because the Tolkien-esque settings have become the traditional standard and are slightly more "realistic" than JRPG settings.

In literature that would be absurd, since LOTR is clearly within the "high fantasy" genre of literature.

@Merari, and it's not just Todd, it's the entire gaming industry that has come to use these terms in this way.

Damnnit! I want as much fantasy and huge swords as possible!

This is a fantasy game, with talking lizards and dragons.

You shoot fireballs, summon demons and fast travel.

Any talk about this game being "realistic" is silly. Well, I guess it wouldn't be silly if you see a Night Elf walking around town while dragons fly in uniform from above on your way to work. =P

Personally, I never got into Shivering Isles and I'm ecstatic from what I've seen of the land of Skyrim that it is slightly more realistic and less bizarre/alien (in other words, less "high fantasy") than Shivering Isles with its giant mushroom forests, etc., or various JRPGs.

Also IIRC from one of the early interviews with an Italian or Dutch magazine, Todd mentioned something about the "low fantasy" elements involving something to the effect of a darker, more mature, gritty story or setting. This is great news IMO as well.

Normally, the more fantasy and less realistic, the better. I'm not a fan of bland real-world armor.

I like that the armor has a look as if the craftsman was very inspired

Look, it was just that one time. I was up all night in a raid with the guild, and I drank one too many bottles of nail polish.

Final Fantasy?

TES oscillates between high, middle, and low fantasy. You can see LOTR and Conan in the games. You can see fantasy counter-part cultures, as well as incredibly strange pieces of that culture.

I know I'm about to draw a lotta hate here, but whatever.

High Fantasy - Narnia
Middle Fantasy - LOTR
Low Fantasy - Conan

It depends entirely upon viewer perception, because I'm sure there are a few around here that would consider Conan high fantasy because it has monsters, demons, wizards, yadda yadda.

A world built on the bones of 8 dead gods who are trying to break free, where dancing on a tower can lead to a 1008 year period where time goes all fubar, where the sun is literally a hole in space, where we have hermaphrodic demi-gods that likes to pierce meteors and slay things with his "muatra", where we have walking, talking cat-people whose physical form is dependent on the phases of the moons whence they were born, where we have walking, talking lizard-people and sentient, psychic trees...

Oh yeah, and a dragon who's about to come eat the world. Low fantasy much?

Huleed, you should of added '/thread' to that since you basically just hit the nail on the head. To make this low fantasy Beth would have to address and rewrite the whole world and lore.

Yeah, Huleed and Xarnac had it right. Also, I'm pretty sure that the equipment in TES has always been this way.

And when Tood spoke about makiing it more "low-fantasy", he was talking about the places, not the equipment.

There, now you can lock it, it's settled

Pretty much this

Even fantasy has a hold in realism; check a song of fire and ice.

One thing I love about :tes: is that it can be considered even high fantasy without being unrealistic or absurd.

Its seem alot of people are using High fantasy for both. The most common uses wins when it comes to definitions. I think of TES as high fantasy because it fits the classical def which has been around for decades, I was unfamiliar with the low term it was brought up on on this forum. If I see more people use the low term I may switch.

LOTR is classic high fantasy it defined the term.

will you guys be upset when the blades of claymores are larger than surf boards?


thats the way i feel about the armour

all armour and weapons appear fine to me!