I know it's been said they're "roughly" the same size, but Skyrim feels way bigger to me. Truly massive in scale.

It feels about the same to me, but the mountains certainly make it feel a lot bigger

Feels similar in size to me :turned: the glaciers are grand though :tongue:

Those mountains are a pain in the ass, no matter where you need to go you always find your wrestling with them lol

Skyrim seems massive to me. Oblivion was one big forest inside of a bowl. You could see one end from the other. Skyrim's mountains and geographic diversity make it seem huge by comparison.

I'm 63 hours in, level 29, and have only done 6 side quests and 3 Daedric quests + some miscellaneous quests. I've explored A LOT though and have discovered 304 locations and cleared 77 dungeons. I haven't done the MQ or any Guild quests yet. Haven't fought any Dragons. I've found 13 word walls from just exploring. It truly feels massive. Only cities i've been to are Markarth and Riften. Still haven't been to Whiterun, Windhelm, Winterhold, Dawnstar, or Solitude. Haven't even talked with Alvor yet to progress the MQ.

It does handle the sense of scope well, but I find it hard to navigate through mountains using the 3D map.

It all has to do with the content of the land. In Oblivion you could run from end to end and not run into anything interesting at all, just rolling hill after rolling hill. Skyrim has that "Oh, what's this over here?" factor.

That's why Morrowind seems 3x as big as either of them to me. :shrug:

Skyrim is 3800 x 3800 , Ob is 4200 x 4200 fallout 6000 x 6000 approximatevely told by Lighwave in his comparison post about heightmaps ...

I for one dont think it feels biggger. Do Skyrim feel slighty bigger than Oblivion? Yes, but it isnt huge.

Morrowind also had going for it that you had no distant land. That caused you to overlook a lot that you would have noticed more easily otherwise. I've been replaying it for a while with the graphics extender that add distant land and it really feels a lot smaller with that. On top of that, it had a much, much slower movement speed. In terms of interesting places, I don't think Morrowind has Skyrim beat. There's a lot to see in Skyrim and a lot of ruins have their own story tied to it.

So yes, I agree Skyrim feels a lot bigger than Oblivion. Both due to layout (Oblivion was a bowl, which didn't really help) and due to the fact that there are many more place of (real) interest.

Same basic idea though - whether you liked Morrowind or Skyrim better, or found one more interesting it all boils down to the fact that they have two things: obstacles (mountains, etc) that you have run run around and can't go over (unless you're determined, but even then it'll take 20 minutes) and they have that factor of "Wow, that looks cool. I'm gonna go check that out." Oblivion had neither of those.

:tes:

I don't care about heightmaps. Skyrim feels way bigger and more lived in. The little activities like chopping wood and mining ore adds a lot to the world.

How is Fallout bigger? It was said that its about the same size as Oblivion for that.

Skyrim feels bigger because there is a lot more to get sidetracked by and be like 'oooo what's this?' sort of thing.

I'd say it's probably a little smaller, but it 'feels' bigger in part because of the mountains and in part because of the highly variable environments. I mean Oblivion was mostly one giant forest. You had wet forest, dry forest, thin forest, thick forest but there really wasn't any other environment then that.

Skyrim on the other hand has tunda, mountains, cliffs, pine forests, hot springs, birch forests, swamps, etc.. etc.. etc.. so it makes the world just feel more diverse and alive and thus, bigger.

I agree. Oblivion had dungeons that I would go through over and over again because they generally held people who had gear I could make a pretty penny off of, and that was pretty much the extent of wasting time. Here, I've got bounties that send me off to new dungeons where I can just find gold and valuable items on people, raid their stuff looking for books to fill my bookshelf for later reading, mine ore for smithing of stuff I could sell down the line or just make for the sole purpose of raising my Smithing Skill, and so much more. I don't mind the amount of Fetch Quests, as they generally lead me to a dungeon full of enemies to kill and loot, making doing the quest just as rewarding as taking the item to the NPC that wants it, if not moreso. I could never really get into Morrowind as I came into the Elder Scrolls games with Oblivion, then Skyrim, so I can't really say anything for Morrowind.

Skyrim has far, far more interesting side content than Oblivion. I actually want to explore all those places off the side of the road, instead of just saying, "Oh look, another copy-pasta Ayleid ruin" and moving on.

It's taking me forever to progress the MQ because I feel compelled to explore as I make my way from location to location.

The Northern part of the map has some really cool stuff.

It's 'bigger thAn' not 'thEn'. Simple English and I see all over the internets!

The set movement speed helps as well; no 100 Speed/Athletics characters.

They are the same size, but the layout of Skyrim makes it feel larger because you no longer can see all the way across the province because of mountains and clouds, not to mention you need to go around mountains or through narrow passes.

I agree.