Two Doors
I can’t remember the last RPG I played with genuine devotion. Chrono Trigger, maybe. Final Fantasy 9. Or Pokémon—I must have checked every corner of those games a hundred times, looking for more, always more. I was relentless about it.
Everything after that I just sprinted through. Quest to town to quest, kill the boss, finished. Play through again with better gear? Explore the optional dungeons? Unlock bonus characters? Fuck that. I’ve got better things to do. Not really, but I’m not doing it anyway.
Some days I want to cry thinking about how easily I vanished into those games, how I never regretted a second of that time even though it could’ve gone to parties or getting in shape or actually talking to women. But that’s not quite the point—it wasn’t wasted. It shaped me somehow. Changed how I see things.
Now it’s the holidays and two perfect games exist simultaneously. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Both have perfect review scores. Both deliver everything they promise. Two massive golden gates to two completely separate worlds, and I can only pass through one.
I love Zelda. A Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, even Wind Waker. I would’ve died for any of those games. But I’ve already played through so many Zelda games. By the time Twilight Princess came around, I was just trying to finish it. I want something different this time.
The Elder Scrolls games before this one didn’t do much for me. I’ve heard they weren’t great. But Skyrim has this hype that’s hard to ignore. Enormous dragons. A snowy wasteland you can ride through on horseback. It all sounds excessive in exactly the right way.
But the real reason I’m choosing Skyrim—and this might sound strange—is because I’ve always played games because my friends were playing them. Super Mario World because my friends had it. Pokémon because that’s what we were all doing. World of Warcraft for the same reason. I’m not just a follower, not about most things anyway. It’s more that I love the idea of people I actually like moving through the same world I’m moving through. Hitting the same walls, finding different solutions, discovering different secrets. Getting just as lost.
I can compare notes with them. We fail at the same boss fight but figure it out different ways. Spend hours on the same mystery or find our own paths. That shared experience—I thought I’d lost it somewhere in my early twenties, but it’s what pulls me back to games. The sense of playing alongside other people, even if we’re not doing it at the exact same moment.
So I’m installing Windows on my Mac, which should tell you how committed I am. Downloading Skyrim on Steam. For the next few weeks I’m going to completely disappear. Get pale and fat and lost in Tamriel. By spring they’ll have to drag me back out.
Sorry, Zelda. Maybe I’ll save you next time. But hello again, RPG love that I thought I’d killed off. If Skyrim can’t bring you back to life, then I’m finally done with all of it. Just Solitaire from here on out. Forever.