I'm not sure it will be so in Skyrim but has been in MW and Oblivion. If you see a building, you can enter it and each one is filled with decor and interesting stuff. The number of books to read alone is massive, the graphics may not be top notch (no Crysis) but they are very good. It is not linear and has nothing to prevent you from leaving the path or road to skip cross country and still every space is full of things to do and see. It was not uncommon to see some NPC in the middle of nowhere hunting for food then see him back in town later on eating with his wife in his home. It's huge, it's a complicated game world as far as game worlds go.

I can't think of any other game world that has all of this and decent graphics to boot.

If I want crysis graphics I will load it up and go for a spin in a game that limits my movement by the hills and the shark. :shrug:

I like how you put this.

I would also like to add, that while other modern games have more realistic graphics, Skyrim has just as good graphics for its universe. IMO, the type of graphics Skyrim has adds to the effect of the game, making it still feel like a world of fantasy. So Skyrim's graphics are just as good because they are just as well suited to the game itself.

I think graphics are technically fine, what's generally more important (for me at least) is the design.

of course skyrim is not going to reach a crysis 2 better-then-life graphics... but they are amazingly beaultiful. The cool thing about cryengine 3 is that it is able to make really big maps (i dont know better saying, cryengine 2 could handle 262144x262144 of terrain size) maybe a little bit less or even more then oblivion, cuz im using it now, its really huge! but seriously skyrim is using a engine suitable for its genre and style, crysis woudn't fit exactly, i dont know why, it doesn't fell like it, even tough i've been thinking into trying some medieval fantasy temples and castle models i've done on cryengine 2, is just that im to lazy to import it into cryengine 2 lol, skyrim is going to be really amazing, the graphics are going to show us the true power of bethesda and may even be one of the most beaultiful looking games of 2011, of course, behind crysis, lets face it, crytek expended years improving ONLY the graphics and a suitable gameplay to play around , and it worked, crysis 1 and 2 is a really funny game, even tough it lack a history, but it gives you freedom and gameplay elements that suit everyone, from the hardcoes to the casual players, "but skyrim is :tes:" ... just by saying this last phrase i already made my point that skyrim is going to BE AWESOME...


edit: PLUS of course it gives me the sensation of better graphics only because im comparing it to oblivion and morrowind, the two last games of the elder scrolls series, oblivion being , graphicaly, the closest one to "what if it was real" would look like, but now we have skyrim, its ALOT BETTER THEN oblivion, meaning that it is a shock to people like me at least, how amazing , is like playing morrowind or oblivion with these next generations graphics, is somenthing amazing!