So I think that justifiably many people’s (and my own) greatest fear when it comes to Skyrim is the return of leveled content on the scale of Oblivion. The reason why non leveled content is important is because it ensures that each “dungeon” is hand tailored to be a memorable experience and that many forms of loot retain a rarity that makes acquiring them feel like a true accomplishment. Non leveled content also makes it so that the player can feel both vast superiority towards an enemy but also complete inferiority which makes for a more dynamic and interesting game.

Oblivion was unfortunately riddled with cookie cutter dungeons and frankly uninspiring items. It’s a testament to Bethesda that despite all of that it was still a good game. Morrowind on the other hand employed leveling minimally and perfectly creating a unique game world that always felt interesting. (Of course it had faults in other areas. Combat….ugh)

That being said this recent information on Skyrim has me fairly torn. On one hand we have a quest narrative where the hero enters a very interesting and well done dungeon on what seems to be a side quest. On the other hand we have the information that some side quests will be placed in random nearby unexplored dungeons and that the enemies in said dungeon will be level scaled to the hero.

At first this seems like a worst nightmare scenario leaving me wondering how dull that dungeon might be to enter without a side quest corresponding to it, on further thought though I realized that this idea alone wouldn’t stop each dungeon from having the little quirks that make great elder scrolls dungeons great namely interesting level design and subtle but cool storyline. That feeling that you can almost piece together the history of a dungeon and why the current inhabitants are there wouldn’t necessarily disappear with an associated side quest or slightly leveled enemies the worry I think is rather that level design will become streamlined in order to accommodate various different quests. The quest narrative in the article I think offers a very hopeful answer to that worry by hinting at dungeons that have multiple goals and storylines that can be seamlessly integrated with one another. The only avenue left unexplored is that of loot and how it will be affected by leveled enemies, in that area I can only hope that Bethesda has learned its lesson from the armies of extraordinarily well equipped bandits that became the norm in Oblivion.

My point I think is that we, the fans, don’t have near enough information yet to write off Bethesda’s leveled content in Skyrim as a poor choice as many seem to have chosen to.

In the past few hours I’ve gone from being concerned and disappointed about Skyrim to being tentatively hopeful. I think that almost all of the other design choices mentioned (better combat, overhauled leveling system, new menus and display, better graphics) were not only necessary but inevitable with a company like Bethesda at the helm. If a greater degree of item variation returns and skyrim lives up to the hints they seem to be giving about leveled content I think we may have an extraordinary game on our hands. Fingers crossed

What do all of you think?