Why are there vampires and werewolves in Skyrim?!

This is not original at all! Not to mention the giant spiders, rats and the walking dead, etc. If all of those were removed from Skyrim, then I wouldn't miss them at all.

After 15 years of playing RPG games, I am now completely convinced that most game developers are unable to come up with new ORIGINAL enemies, so they keep recycling the same old enemies for the seven billionth time...

Oh well... still a better love story than Twilight, though.

Vampires. Volkihar vampires are from Skyrim
Werewolves. Hircines little pets.
Draugr. Ancient Nord undead.
Spiders. because spiders.
Skeevers. Because Skeevers.

Because they are staples of fantasy themed games. Plus there are variations of high fantasy and low fantasy, with low being closer to real life. Skyrim sits slightly on the low side.

For every generic enemy, we've got a dozen wierd ones: Ash Spawn (cremated undead), Netches (glowing, flying jellyfish), Horkers (fish-seals)... and Dwarven robots.

I don't know, maybe the developers wanted to retain the vampire and werewolf lore they've put into TES over the years? Same goes for the other creatures. I have no issues with vampires and werewolves, they are a feature of TES, and the developers aren't about to retcon them or completely remove them just to appease you. They also aren't about to go crazy and arbitrarily add all sorts of creatures inspired by Japanese, Chinese, [insert non-Western culture of your choice here], etc into an already established universe. The more unique creatures are bound to be found in places like Black Marsh and Elsweyr, and especially if we ever travel to the other continents elsewhere on Nirn.

This.

There are lot more unique-to-TES enemies than there were in Oblivion. Plus the lore behind many of these "generic" enemies is often radically different to most.

Although I do have to give them credit for calling the zombies 'Draugr' and not naming them 'Generic Zombie Warriors', even though that is only a label and doesn't change what they actually are...

That's true. I guess that even the game developers themselves are finally getting sick of creating the same old enemies. ^^

Zombies say "uuuugh" and hit with their hands
Draugr say things like "Fus ro dah" and things like "Qiilaan Us Dilon" and they use weapons.
Not the same.

They didn't call Draugrs Zombies, because they aren't Zombies.

Besides, why wouldn't there be Vampires and Werewolves in Skyrim? It's just another State of Tamriel. They have rats and spiders in Skyrim just like every other place. Mudcrabs are common and there are a lot of enemies that are in Morrowind and Cyrodiill that aren't in Skyrim. And I don't remember fighting against Dragons in previous releases either.

Skyrim has a portion of the depth that Morrowind has and Oblivion doesn't have the same depth, but afaik werewolves was introduced in Bloodmoon and vampires was common in Oblivion, so that's probably the reason why Skyrim have both vampires, werewolves.

Well OP, if you really think it's easy to come up with an "original" idea in this day and age when the word original is so subjective and hard to apply to anything 100%, why don't you give us an enemy that you think is original and we'll tell you whether or not it's been done before.

I highly doubt you'll be able to.

This.

Draugr and zombies are only similar in the sense they are both undead and still have (some) flesh on their bones. That is where the comparisons start and end.

No Bethesda game would be complete without an oversized rat!

Edit: Also, all fantasies live in the shadow of Lord of the Rings. Those books literally created the genre.

Bethesda always love including their fair share of "rodent" creatures.

Also this.
OP, google Draugr in Norse Mythology. That's where the idea came from and you'll find that they are quite different from the typical hollywood/horror story zombie you are thinking of.
LOTR popularised it, but pretty much all the ideas and creatures involved borrow heavily from ancient cultures and their mythology.

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While we see lots of Skeevers, we never get to see a normal "rat" which is supposed to be the measurement and description of Skeevers.

The Winking Skeever's owner said "they were a lot smaller back then". Most probably, skeever is indeed "rat", only in Tamrielian

Well all of the creatures you mention are long time enemies in the ES games Skyrim is not the first Elder Scrolls it is the fifth.

Research your lore and creatures and you will learn all about the vampires and werewolves as well as the Draugr as mentioned these are ancient Nord warriors.

If you want unique creatures unlike traditional fantasy I highly recommend TES III Morrowind.

Yeah, they're more like mummies

Werewolves were actually introduced in TES II: Daggerfall, as for vampires being common well, they're more in your face than they were in Morrowind that's for sure, vampires were more of an easter egg in Morrowind. In the lore there are several different types of vampires such as the Quarra, Aundae and Berne clans in Morrowind or the Volkihar in eastern Skyrim all with different tactics for hunting and powers etc...

I personally like the enemies in Skyrim, I think they're anything but generic. At first glance they may seem generic but in the TES universe every creature has a unique interesting background, like the dragons, elves or creatures with lycanthropy.

Like others have said, provinces like Morrowind or Black Marsh have all the alien like creatures like the Guar or Nix-hound.

What you're failing to consider here is that the Elder Scrolls is a persistent universe. The series strives to remain plausibly constant across all the games in the series. It would make no sense for each game to introduce a completely different collection of enemies.

Would you also complain if the Star Wars games or movies discarded enemies like Rancors and Tusken Raiders and introduced an entirely new set of enemies with each new installment? I sure hope not. Doing so would ruin any sense that this was a coherent universe. And the same thing applies here.

I'm guessing this is your first TES game. I'd venture to say that, for those of us who play many games in this series, encountering familiar enemies adds to the experience of playing a TES game. Familiar enemies create a sense of continuity between games.

I kind of agree, it would be interesting to have a few new creatures.

But werewolves, vampires, giant spiders etc, they all have justifiable means to be in Skyrim. If you went to Australia in 1606 you would find the same crocodiles there as the ones there today.