13 Games Like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
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If you’ve explored every corner of Skyrim and still crave that feeling of adventure, freedom, and discovery, you’re not alone. Skyrim set the standard for open-world RPGs:letting players forge their own path, build unique characters, and lose themselves in massive fantasy worlds.
The good news? Plenty of games capture that same magic. In this list, you’ll find the best games like Skyrim that deliver rich exploration, immersive storytelling, and the freedom to play exactly how you want.
Table of Contents
About The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The fifth game in the series, Skyrim takes us on a journey through the coldest region of Cyrodiil. Once again player can traverse the open world RPG armed with various medieval weapons and magic, to become a hero of Nordic legends –Dovahkiin, the Dragonborn. After mandatory character creation players will have to escape not only imprisonment but a fire-breathing dragon. Something Skyrim hasn’t seen in centuries.
Why Gamers Love The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
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Massive Open World A huge, explorable fantasy landscape packed with secrets, quests, and freedom.
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Play Your Way Magic, stealth, archery, melee, or a mix of all four. Skyrim lets you shape any build or playstyle.
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Endless Discovery Caves, shouts, dungeons, NPCs, and hidden stories make every run feel fresh.
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Immersive Atmosphere Music, lore, and world design pull players into a rich Nordic-inspired setting.
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Infinite Replayability Mods, side quests, and sandbox freedom keep players returning for years.
Similar games
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#1
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Huge open world, rich quests, deep lore, and exploration-heavy RPG adventuring like Skyrim.
The third game in a series, it holds nothing back from the player. Open world adventures of the renowned monster slayer Geralt of Rivia are now even on a larger scale. Following the source material more accurately, this time Geralt is trying to find the child of the prophecy, Ciri while making a quick coin from various contracts on the side. Great attention to the world building above all creates an immersive story, where your decisions will shape the world around you. CD Project Red are infamous for the amount of work they put into their games, and it shows, because aside from classic third-person action RPG base game they provided 2 massive DLCs with unique questlines and 16 smaller DLCs, containing extra quests and items. Players praise the game for its atmosphere and a wide open world that finds the balance between fantasy elements and realistic and believable mechanics, and the game deserved numerous awards for every aspect of the game, from music to direction.
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#2
Starfield
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Bethesda’s signature open-world freedom, exploration, faction quests, and player-driven storytelling.
Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery. The year is 2330. Humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people. From humble beginnings as a space miner, you will join Constellation – the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy – and navigate the vast expanse of the Settled Systems in Bethesda Game Studios’ biggest and most ambitious game.
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#3Dragon’s Dogma 2
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Open-world adventure with dynamic combat, exploration, and tons of freedom. Skyrim with a pawn system.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an action RPG set in a living fantasy world where you step into the role of the Arisen and set out on a journey shaped by combat, exploration, and choice. The game focuses on dynamic, physical combat, letting you climb massive monsters, react to unpredictable encounters, and adapt to fights as they unfold. Instead of tightly scripted paths, the world encourages wandering, experimentation, and learning through experience. With its sense of scale, emergent moments, and emphasis on player freedom, Dragon’s Dogma 2 feels less like following a story and more like surviving inside one.
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#4
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Fantasy RPG with fast combat, big open zones, quests, and tons of loot. Classic RPG freedom.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning takes place in a fictional region called Faelands which is one of the Kingdom of Amalur. There the immortal Fae of the Summer lives, but immortality means only that after death you will become something else in another body. There are five different regions of Faelands and four playable different races with three different class trees. The player starts as a "Fateless" being before the choosing between three classes. The combat of the game is timing based and similar to other action-role-playing games with addition of QTE elements during cutscenes. While in combat, player gains fate points and with required amount of them player can enter Reckoning Mode, which is a slow-motion berserk-like mode which lets player to quickly kill all the enemies. Not only a player has the ability to jump or swim on the water, but also can communicate, rob or kill NPCs, which has its consequences. It is said that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning mixes up ideas from games such as God of War and The Elder Scrolls series.
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#5
Dragon Age: Origins
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Expansive worlds, quests, exploration, and party-driven fantasy storytelling.
Dragon Age: Origins is the first game in BioWare’s RPG franchise Dragon Age. The game is considered to be the spiritual successor of BioWare’s classic fantasy RPG titles like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Developers describe the game's setting as a mix of high fantasy and low fantasy. The storyline is centered around the event known as Blight, which occurs once in several hundred years and marks the demonic invasion in the world of Thedas. The player creates its character by choosing its appearance, class, and race. There are 3 and three races in Dragon Age. The classes are the warrior, mage, rouge, and races are human, elf, and dwarf. The combination of class and race determines the character’s background story and the beginning of the game. The interaction between the player, his teammates and NPC’s is an integral part of the game. The game’s storyline often makes the player take moral decisions which affect his later interaction with characters and the game world in general.
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#6
The Elder Scrolls Online
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Tamriel exploration in an MMO setting. Deep lore, open areas, quests, and classic Elder Scrolls atmosphere.
Includes The Elder Scrolls Online base game and the Morrowind Chapter. Join over 10 million players in the award-winning online multiplayer RPG and experience an ever-expanding story set across Tamriel. Explore a rich, living world with friends or embark on a solo adventure – the choice is yours to make in a persistent Elder Scrolls world.
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#7
Baldur’s Gate III
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Rich world, freedom of choice, deep quests, and impactful decisions. Skyrim-style choice freedom.
Return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of power, corruption, and unlikely alliances. A Mind Flayer parasite grants you dangerous abilities—fight its influence or embrace the monster you’re becoming. Baldur’s Gate 3, from the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2, is a next-gen D&D RPG where you choose your race, class, or a unique origin hero. Adventure solo or with up to four players as you battle, explore, and build relationships that shape your story.
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#8
GreedFall
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Choice-driven RPG with open zones, factions, quests, and story-focused exploration.
GreedFall is the latest RPG from Spiders, currently in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Set in a 17th century setting embedded in magic, Greedfall has a unique visual identity inspired by European Baroque art, depicting grandiose sceneries in muted warm colors and dark undertones. Explore a fresh new world as – along with many other settlers, mercenaries and treasure hunters - you set foot on a remote island seeping with magic, rumored to be filled with riches and lost secrets. A grand journey filled with mystery follows, as you find yourself in the middle of ever-increasing tensions between the invading settlers and the locals, who are protected by manifestations of the island’s earthly magic in the form of supernatural beings. With a strong focus on its core RPG identity, GreedFall follows Spider's experience in building intricate worlds filled with mysteries to discover, weaving deep character interactions, and offering players freedom to achieve quests and objectives in many different ways – through combat, as well as diplomacy, deception or stealth. The island of GreedFall is a living, ever-evolving world. Your actions, from seemingly trivial choices to the most important political decisions, will influence and alter its course, as well as the relationship between the different factions established on the island.
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#9
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Massive open world, freedom to explore, climb, discover, and solve things your own way.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an adventure game developed by Nintendo. It is the nineteenth installment in the series. After awakening from a hundred year sleep, memoryless Link hears a mysterious female voice that guides him to a destroyed kingdom of Hyrule. He finds a Wiseman who says that a ruthless creature, Calamity Ganon, was imprisoned for 100 years. Even though the creature is trapped, it is still gaining power. Link sets out to kill Ganon before he frees himself and destroys the world. In contrast to the previous titles in the series, Breath of the Wild the player to explore a vast open world. At the beginning of the game, a small tutorial is given to the players and they are free to travel the world at the pace they see fit. Link can climb almost every surface in the world, cook food to restore health. Fast travel to certain places in the world is also available for the players. The world is highly interactive thanks to the chemistry engine.
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#10
Ghost of Tsushima
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Open-world exploration, atmospheric landscapes, quests, and player-driven progression.
The year is 1274. Samurai warriors are the legendary defenders of Japan--until the fearsome Mongol Empire invades the island of Tsushima, wreaking havoc and conquering the local population. As one of the last surviving samurai, you rise from the ashes to fight back. But, honorable tactics won't lead you to victory. You must move beyond your samurai traditions to forge a new way of fighting--the way of the Ghost--as you wage an unconventional war for the freedom of Japan.
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#11
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Dark fantasy open world, first-person exploration, quests, and atmospheric storytelling.
Avalon is dying. King Arthur is long gone, and Knights of the Round Table are in disarray. Guardian Menhirs, the only thing that makes it possible for humans to survive in this remote land, are going dark. Your village chose its best and brightest and sent them on an epic quest to reach Kamelot, find the Grail, and save the land. You were not among them. They’ve never returned, and now it’s your turn to lead a band of unlikely heroes, the only ones this land can still provide. These ordinary people set off far too late, under-equipped for the task ahead, and with little hope of success. Tainted Grail is a dark fantasy open-world RPG with fresh turn-based exploration and combat. It is based around deep, immersive story from one of the best and most innovative board games (biggest Kickstarter project of 2018!), but introduces a whole new experience crafted directly for PC.EVERY DECISION MATTERSTainted Grail is a deeply immersive experience that takes the best elements of RPG adventures and brings them to the next level through intricately branching storylines. Written by Krzysztof Piskorski, one of the best Polish fantasy writers, it will draw you right in and keep you engaged, surprised, and invested in many secrets of Avalon. In this dying world, no decision is easy or morally obvious, and you will often face impossible choices. Other times, the consequences of seemingly minor actions will haunt you in the least expected moments. In the end, your impact on Avalon is going reverberate through deep, meaningful changes to the game world - entire towns will raise or fall, land will shatter, ancient powers will be restored, or broken forever.EXPLORE THE UNKNOWNA major part of the game involves expeditions into the land covered by the Wyrdness, an ancient force twisting people, creatures, and even space itself in all manner of ways .There will be plenty of enemies and weird, unexpected events waiting for you. While dangerous, exploration will be the only way to gather precious resources and, ultimately, to figure out what is happening to Avalon and if it can be stopped.STRATEGIC COMBATDuring combat, you will decide between using skills specific for your hero and figuring out the best possible combinations to do it. Every hero will bring a different playstyle, defined by unique skills, that you will continue to further develop based on your favorite tactic. You will supplement this rich toolset with various items and special moves. All of that makes every encounter a different and exciting tactical challenge!
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#12
THRONE AND LIBERTY
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Large fantasy world, exploration, classes, and a focus on open-world progression.
Welcome to THRONE AND LIBERTY, a free-to-play MMORPG that takes place in the vast open world of Solisium. You can scale expansive mountain ranges for new vantage points, scan open skies, traverse sprawling plains, explore a land full of depth and opportunity. Adapt your fight to survive and thrive through strategic decisions in PvP, PvE or both as you encounter evolving battlefields impacted by weather, time of day, and other players. There is no single path to victory as you seek to defeat Kazar and claim the throne while keeping rival guilds at bay. For more information about Early Access Packs, please visit: https://www.playthroneandliberty.com/forward-link?id=shop-faq
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#13
Avowed
Why it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:Obsidian’s take on open-world fantasy. Magic, exploration, quests, and narrative freedom reminiscent of Skyrim.
Welcome to the Living Lands, a mysterious island filled with adventure and danger. Set in the fictional world of Eora that was first introduced to players in the Pillars of Eternity franchise, Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG from the award-winning team at Obsidian Entertainment. You are the envoy of Aedyr, a distant land, sent to investigate rumors of a spreading plague throughout the Living Lands - an island full of mysteries and secrets, danger and adventure, and choices and consequences, and untamed wilderness. You discover a personal connection to the Living Lands and an ancient secret that threatens to destroy everything. Can you save this unknown frontier and your soul from the forces threatening to tear them asunder?
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a game feel similar to Skyrim?
Games that offer open-world exploration, character progression, rich quests, and player freedom typically capture the same appeal.
Do all Skyrim-like games need to be open world?
Not always, but most feature large areas to explore, branching paths, and a sense of adventure that encourages discovery.
Are story choices important in Skyrim-style games?
Many similar games include decision-driven quests or branching narratives that let players shape their journey.
Do Skyrim-like games usually feature first-person combat?
Some do, but others use third-person or hybrid systems. The key similarity is immersive, player-driven action.
Are Skyrim alternatives beginner-friendly?
Yes. While some can be complex, most offer flexible difficulty and progression so players can learn at their own pace.
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