Yes, I strongly recommend Skyrim Legendary Edition in 2024 for both new and returning players. With over a decade of experience analyzing game design and industry trends, I can confidently say Skyrim LE remains one of the most rewarding open-world RPGs available today. This comprehensive guide will break down exactly why it‘s still worth playing, who should consider getting it, and how to make the most of your experience.
What Makes Skyrim Legendary Edition So Timeless?
Before diving into specifics, it‘s worth reflecting on why this decade-old game still holds such appeal in 2024. Here are the core factors that contribute to its enduring popularity and playability:
Unmatched Open World Freedom
Skyrim‘s open world design was revolutionary in 2011 and still holds up brilliantly today. The ability to freely explore its valleys, mountains, forests, villages, and dungeons makes for an unparalleled sense of immersion and discovery. Skyrim captures the pure thrill of open-world adventure better than virtually any other game.
Hundreds of Hours of Handcrafted Content
Between the base game and DLC content, Skyrim Legendary Edition offers over 150 handcrafted questlines boasting 200+ hours of content. Nearly all of it completely optional side content beyond the 25 hour main story, yet expertly woven into the game world through fully-voiced characters and lore.
Customize Your Ideal Dragonborn
Skyrim‘s progression system is incredibly flexible, allowing you to organize skills and perks to create your ideal playstyle. Effortlessly switch between warrior, mage, stealth archer, assassin, bard, or hybrid builds. Respect perks anytime to experiment with new character builds.
Active Modding Community
Skyrim boasts one of the most prolific modding communities in gaming, with over 60,000 mods on sites like NexusMods. Thesemods allow you to massively expand content, upgrade visuals, tweak gameplay, and customize your experience far beyond what the core game offers.
Gripping High Fantasy World
The Elder Scrolls series has built a reputation for high quality world building and lore. Playing as Dragonborn weaving into a tale of grand political intrigue and mythical beasts captures the imagination from start to finish.
Engaging Gameplay Variety
Skyrim skillfully combines its open world RPG core with truly fun combat, stealth, relationship building, crafting, home customization, and even eccentric side activities like reading books for skill bonuses. There are many flavors of gameplay to sink your teeth into.
Let‘s dive into the key questions surrounding Skyrim Legendary Edition‘s value in 2024.
Is Skyrim Legendary or Special Edition Better For New Players?
For gamers new to Skyrim, I generally recommend picking up Skyrim Special Edition for these advantages:
- Remastered graphics – More modern lighting, textures, and visuals while retaining the classic art style
- 64-bit/multi-core engine – Much more stable on modern PCs with less crashing
- Console mod support – Can add free mods on Xbox/PlayStation to expand content
- Creation Club content – Extra official quests, items, and mechanics to enhance gameplay
However, Skyrim Legendary Edition remains a great option if you want to mod extensively on PC or play Skyrim on older consoles like Xbox 360/PS3 where Special Edition isn‘t available. It can often be purchased very cheaply.
What Does Skyrim Legendary Edition Include vs Original Release?
Compared to the base Skyrim release, the Legendary Edition bundles the core game with all 3 expansions:
- Dawnguard – Join an ancient order of vampire hunters or become a vampire lord yourself. 10+ hour storyline, new Dragonbone weapons/armor, and skill trees for vampires/lycanthropes.
- Hearthfire – Build your own customizable homes piece-by-piece and raise a family. Adopt up to two children.
- Dragonborn – Journey to the island of Solstheim and confront the first Dragonborn. New locations, story, and abilities like bending will of dragons.
Legendary Edition offers a staggering amount of new adventures, gear, characters, and progressions systems for hundreds of extra hours of playtime.
How Much Content Does Skyrim Legendary Edition Offer?
To demonstrate just how much gameplay is packed into Skyrim Legendary Edition, here‘s a quick breakdown of key content available:
- 150+ handcrafted questlines offering 200+ hours of adventures
- Over 300 locations including dungeons, caves, forts, towns, and unique sights
- 10 major cities with 100+ fully voiced NPC residents each
- 21 different skills to level up from combat to crafting
- 80+ unique dragon shouts to unlock
- 500+ books providing lore and skill leveling bonuses
- 3 completely different gameplay styles – warrior, mage, thief
- Customizable housing with over 40 options for furnishings
- 50+ unique companion characters you can recruit and adventure with
- 16 different guilds/factions with deep membership questlines
- Over 1000 unique items including weapons and armor sets
This enormous volume gives you endless goals to pursue and reasons to keep exploring Skyrim long after finishing the core story.
What Game Length Can You Expect from Skyrim Legendary?
Here‘s a quick overview of estimated playtime ranges you can expect with the Legendary Edition based on playstyle:
- Main story only – 20-30 hours
- Main + Guilds/Daedric quests – 40-60 hours
- Completionist run – 80-100 hours
- Heavy side quests + DLCs – 120-180 hours
- Max completionist – 220+ hours
As a data-driven gamer myself, I find these sheer hours of quality content in a single player RPG to be incredible value, especially given Legendary Edition‘s affordable pricing these days.
How Does Skyrim Legendary Edition Hold Up in 2024?
Nine years is a long time in gaming. You may be wondering how well Skyrim‘s gameplay and systems hold up by today‘s standards. Here‘s my take:
Visuals
While animations and character models are dated, the actual world design and landscapes remain absolutely gorgeous and highly atmospheric. Mods can also upgrade graphics considerably.
Gameplay Core Loop
Open world exploration, combat, stealth, magic, and character progression have a timeless quality and remain highly addicting and rewarding loops.
Quests & Stories
Top-notch writing, voiced NPCs, and compelling quest lines that avoid feeling repetitive like radiant or procedurally generated content.
Mod Support
Not only does Skyrim support mods, it has one of the most thriving mod communities actively releasing new content, graphics, and mechanics.
Accessibility
Intuitive menus, detailed quest logs, markers, manuals make it easy to jump in even for players new to open world RPGs.
So in summary, Skyrim Legendary Edition‘s core pillars of exploration, progression, and questing hold up extremely well and benefit from active ongoing support. It‘s testament to strong foundational game design that still shines.
What are Some Recommended Builds for New Players?
One of Skyrim‘s greatest strengths is allowing you to customize your playstyle through skills and perks. Here are some fun, powerful builds I recommend for new players:
- Stealth Archer – Sneak, Archery, Light Armor. Overpowered damage and stealth make this a popular build.
- Spellsword – One-handed, Destruction Magic, Light/Heavy armor. Satisfying blend of melee and ranged magic.
- Pure Mage – Focus on maxing out Destruction, Conjuration, Restoration, and other magic skills without armor or weapons.
- Two-handed Beserker – Two-handed, Heavy Armor, Smithing. Charge into battle hacking down foes.
- Thief – Sneak, Pickpocket, Lockpicking, Speech. Never get caught stealing again with this build.
Don‘t be afraid to experiment and respec as you level. Customizing your skills is key to enjoying Skyrim.
What are Some Must-Have Mods to Enhance Skyrim Legendary Edition?
On PC, mods empower you to massively upgrade visuals, expand content, and tailor Skyrim‘s gameplay to your preferences. Here are some of my must-have mod recommendations:
- Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch – Comprehensive bug fixes and quality of life tweaks
- SkyUI – Vastly improved, customizable UI screens and menus
- Ordinator – Overhaul the skill trees with new perks and progression
- Apocalypse Magic – Adds 150+ new spells with amazing effects
- Immersive Armors/Weapons – Hundreds of new lore-friendly armor and weapon sets
- Alternative Start – Skip the intro and start Skyrim in many interesting scenarios
- Legacy of the Dragonborn – Epic custom questline with customizable museum to store artifacts
The Skyrim Nexus hosts thousands of mods to browse. Modding guides like S.T.E.P. help mod newbies.
Is Skyrim Legendary Edition Worth Playing on Xbox 360 and PS3?
For gamers who want to experience Skyrim on older Xbox 360 and PS3 systems, Legendary Edition is an excellent option and often discounted pre-owned.
However, expect longer loading times, poorer frame rates, and more frequent crashes than the Special Edition on new consoles. Installing to the HDD can help. Overall though, Legendary Edition remains highly playable on older systems for more budget-conscious gamers.
Should I Get Skyrim Anniversary or Legendary Edition?
Released in late 2021, Skyrim Anniversary Edition bundles Legendary Edition‘s content with all Creation Club content for over 500 pieces of additional weapons, quests, spells, and mechanics.
I‘d recommend Anniversary Edition for players on newer consoles or PC who want the most content and features. But Legendary remains a great option, especially if playing modded on PC or getting Skyrim cheaply for older systems.
Final Verdict – An Enduring Masterpiece
After analyzing Skyrim Legendary Edition from multiple perspectives – technical, content, gameplay, mods, and more – I can wholeheartedly recommend it in 2024 for both new and returning players.
Few games offer such incredible freedom and customization to live out your perfect open world adventure. Its strongest elements like questing, exploration, and progression design remain unrivaled in the genre.
Backed by a thriving mod community and affordable pricing given the sheer volume of content, Skyrim Legendary Edition delivers one of the most rewarding RPG experiences you can have. This masterpiece absolutely still deserves to be played and enjoyed years later.
So summon your inner Dragonborn and plunge into the wintery hills, dungeons, and stories of Skyrim. An epic adventure awaits!
