Skyrim’s Biggest Artistic Influences Were Two Underappreciated Fantasy Epics

Skyrim is forever. And forever will continue as Bethesda Game Studios brings the classic RPG to Nintendo Switch 2. But Skyrim’s immortality isn’t the result of the many re-releases it’s had (though it certainly helps). It‘s not even because its long-awaited sequel, The Elder Scrolls VI, still seems as far away as it did when it was announced in 2018. Skyrim has remained relevant because of its unmistakable sense of place.

There are hundreds of YouTube and Soundcloud playlists focused squarely on recreating the cozy feeling people get when exploring the frigid wilds of Tamriel’s northern province. Bethesda Art Director Matt Carofano says he and his team didn’t anticipate the degree to which Skyrim’s lonely, wintry world would be embraced. However, looking back at the game’s development, he understands the perfect storm of circumstances that helped them create one of the most popular single-player games of all time.

“We just hit this perfect sweet spot of a team that had been together for a long time,” Carofano tells Inverse. “We had a mature engine at that point that we'd already shipped two games on so we really hit the ground running. And then there's the luck that was involved. Did we know that the public was going to be interested in playing in a Nordic fantasy at that time? No. But it hit just right and became something awesome.”

“He drew a suite of just awesome dragons and we were like ‘Yeah, this is going to be our iconic villains for the game.’”

Carofano is, of course, referencing Game of Thrones’ meteoric rise in popularity just months before Skyrim launched in 2011. While the two properties couldn’t be further apart in terms of tone, the visual and thematic similarities were a critical part of Skyrim’s crossover appeal.

While the team was obviously fans of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic, it wasn’t at the forefront of the team’s mind when crafting their version of the Scandinavian-inspired locale. It was actually two obscure fantasy flicks that got the creative minds at Bethesda churning: 1981’s Dragonslayer and 2002’s Reign of Fire.

“Those films were good inspiration, because there's a realism and grittiness to both of them,” he says. “I remember working with our concept artist Adam Adamowicz, and we just vibed on those two inspirations. He drew a suite of just awesome dragons and we were like ‘Yeah, this is going to be our iconic villains for the game.”

Carofano says that Dragonslayer was a cult film that united a lot of the team. He personally remembers “watching it as a kid and thinking ‘this is just super cool,’” a nostalgic sentiment many of the staff also shared.

Reign of Fire, a movie about dragons entering the modern world, helped create the look and feel of Skyrim’s most ferocious beasts.

“Just the way the dragons growled and moved and crawled through the environment was really inspirational for us,” Carofano says. “We knew ahead of time we were going to do dragons that had their arms connected to the wings as that was a lore thing for us. And Reign of Fire helped us define how our dragons are a little bit different from a classic fantasy dragon.”

Though internal personal favorites exerted their influences, Bethesda’s art team was still beholden to decades' worth of lore built by previous games. Returning to older Elder Scrolls games was one of the first steps the team took.

“We pulled back from the The Elder Scrolls I: Arena map (in which Skyrim is an explorable region), looked at all the towns and cities and highlighted which ones we were going to pull forward and spend a lot of time on, and what others we wanted to change or just make minor locations. It was about seeing what was there and seeing how we can update it or reinvent it, and keeping the stuff that was great.”

What they pulled from those two classics was the variety and the sense of epic fantasy scale.

“Being able to run through the forest in the south, and then come down into the open tundra and then up into the snow areas. Having that variety was really awesome,” he says. “Also, having the big landmark of High Hrothgar, the giant mountain at the center of the map, that you can climb and look down from and see this entire world. It's a landmark wherever you are in the world, one you can always look back on. Those elements were really successful.”

The Bethesda game that immediately preceded Fallout 3 was also a source of inspiration.

“Fallout 3 was all about new gameplay for us. There were guns, we added VATS, and all these new systems. There's a lot of learning we did with Fallout 3 to make combat, and the loot loop, and the interesting points of interest that drive the player moment-to-moment, that then we pulled forward into Skyrim,” Carofano says.

Of the many things that have been added to Skyrim over the years through its many re-releases, Carofano says that his favorite additions still come down to the weather and lighting changes that the 2016 Special Edition.

“When you get some more volumetric lighting applied, you see the fog and the mist and the god rays and more color in the world. It's a night and day difference between the original release, but also respectful to you know what we did at the time.”

For Bethesda, Skyrim continued a franchise tradition and found the artistic jackpot in the process.

“All of our games have been a bit different. I could cast all the way back to Morrowind. Our tagline internally was, ‘Be a stranger in the strange land.’ It was made to feel alien and weird and a little more high fantasy. When we moved on to making Oblivion, we were more interested in a classical European fantasy setting, a reaction to coming from Morrowind.”

“And then we came to Skyrim,” he continues. “It was about doing something that's got a bit more of a stronger cultural influence. But maybe not quite as alien and unusual as Morrowind was. And the Nords were a perfect fit for that.”

Skyrim becoming the phenomenon that it is is one of the team’s greatest accomplishments.

“It's both humbling and awesome. I'm a fan of The Elder Scrolls, that's why I work here. We work super hard as a team to make a game that we hope everyone's excited about, and then we hand it over to the audience and let them live in this world,” he says. “Internally, we knew we had something special, but we didn't know what it was going to be. I don't think anyone could have foreseen how big Skyrim became, that it’s lasted this long, and that we have dedicated fans that keep coming back to it all these years later.”