@Chief Wiggum

I mean its common sense they are blatantly saying it is "About the same size as Oblivion" What does that tell you? If it was bigger they'd be all like hell yeah its huge bigger than Oblivion.


I watched an interview with Pete where the interviewer was like "So Pete in terms of explorable area is it bigger than Oblivions" Pete: "Well there are alot more quests than we had in Fallout" Lol avoiding the question made me laugh.

I agree but saying its about the same size means its not as big as Oblivion but its close.

I believe you're right. If it was only a square inch larger than Oblivion they would say "Skyrim exceeds Oblivion in terms landmass." A lot of people don't understand that the whole point of PR is to put a positive spin on everything.

Well yeah definitely.

No, there is more content in the same amount of space. How many dungeons and caves can they put in that trek over the mountain?

Theres another thread with this exact same discussion

I'll copy and paste my post though, which I hope tries to make sense of the situation for some people.

I'm really looking forward to exploring Skyrim, as I never actually got to every place in Oblivion so, it will be more rewarding to explore Skyrim as much more content and not looking at grass for half an hour, instead I may be greeted with a burnt out cottage which was described or another dungeon.

This.

Oblivion isn't "bigger" there is just more map expanse...many of it is blocked off by invisible walls, unclimbable mountain ranges or just empty land...Skyrim is about 16 miles of open land filled with caves and mountain ranges with up to 2 hours of traveling content. Not to mention the extensive tombs and dungeons and other large areas that have yet to be discussed. A SLIGHLTY smaller map but a ton of more content.

Thats not proof that Skyrim is smaller. If you go look at the Skyrim map and count up the cells its around 16 sq miles.

Oblivion cities are tiny for an Elderscrolls game. They are reducing the number of cities to make each one bigger, which is a good thing.

I'm much more worried with limitations like you can't climb or levitate above a city wall or you can't look inside an house through a window because interiors and exteriors are separate.

How many times do the Devs need to say Skyrim is about the size of Oblivion until its clear? and that Mountains are not explicitly areas to traverse and serve as barriers not playspaces there is a reason they are pathed

This this this

I knew from day 1 that Skyrim may be a tad smaller than Cyrodiil, but hey if it is ES, it is fine by me! ;tes:

Size is everything.

Not it's how you use it!

Age old discussion.

but what if they dont know? maybe they just havent counted all of the cells

Bethesda will release DLC after Skyrims initial release, so that should make Skyrim feel even 'bigger' than Oblivion :yes:

I think most mountains will have caves that will put us through to the other side of it. Perfect opportunity for more content and making the world feel bigger. A few of the newest hands on previews mentioned caves going through mountains, so it sounds good. BTW, where you been?!?! Haven't seen you in a while, good to see you back :tongue:

Suspended yeah good to be back, no the wait for Skyrim has not gotten easier.

I'm not worried about the size (even though I definitely wish Bethesda had aimed for a bigger world). I'm worried about the world being very cramped up, unnatural and having ridiculous scales.

well consider the distance from the beginning of Vids to the arrival of Riverwood, not to bad, and the town itself looks cozy and nestled by the base of the mountain. why we start so close to throat of the world is beyond me, kind of irking.

You mentioned Morrowind, and this isn't against you but a general misunderstanding that many players seem to have (it doesn't help that the title of the game was misleading). We never played the entirety of Morrowind, only Vvardenfell. Vvardenfell only represents about 1/3 of the total area of Morrowind. Minor issue, but this goes for calling Cyrodiil "Oblivion" just because that was the name of the game.


Exactly. As you can see from the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:TamrielMap.jpg, Skyrim is definitely smaller than Cyrodiil. However, they are saying about the same size because - as Mr. Howard very clearly points out in the above linked interview - the mountainous terrain artificially inflates the "feeling" of size, so it will feel about as big because it takes longer to explore area via climbing or winding paths.

Of course, the scale of Vvardenfell, Cyrodiil and now Skyrim are making the world of an awful lot as compared to what we say in Daggerfall. Using the scales they are giving us and the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:TamrielMap.jpg, we are only looking at about 250-300 square miles at best. Also, they are saying that both Cyrodiil and Skyrim are/will be about 16 square miles, but they also said that Daggerfall (which just covered the Iliac bay region) was 62 square miles. Yet from the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:TamrielMap.jpgyou can easily see that the Daggerfall content is not nearly 4 times larger than Cyrodiil or Skyrim.