The game is set 200 years after the events of Oblivion and takes place in Skyrim, the northernmost province of Tamriel, a continent on the planet Nirn.

Its main story focuses on the player character, the Dragonborn, on their quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon prophesied to destroy the world.

The team opted for a unique and more diverse open world than Oblivion's Imperial Province of Cyrodiil, which game director and executive producer Todd Howard considered less interesting by comparison.

Upon release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise for its character advancement, world design, visuals, and the ability to dual-wield in combat.

The player may freely roam over the land of Skyrim, an open world environment based on Scandinavia consisting of wilderness expanses, dungeons, caves, cities, towns, fortresses, and villages.

[failed verification] Weapons, shields, and magic are assigned to each hand allowing for dual-wielding, and can be swapped out through a quick-access menu of favorite items.

Spells have several functions, both in combat (e.g. damaging or confusing enemies, resurrecting dead bodies and conjuring other entities, restoring the player's health and/or stamina) and out (e.g. showing the way to an objective, illuminating a dark room or turning iron into silver).

Motivated in part by this condition, Ulfric Stormcloak, the jarl of Windhelm, leads a rebellion against imperial rule, with the holds divided roughly evenly between the two sides.

Their hegemony was overthrown when three human warriors threw the dragon ruler, Alduin, forward in time using an Elder Scroll, a powerful and mysterious artifact.

Within their monastery atop the Throat of the World, Skyrim's highest mountain, the Greybeards dedicate their lives to the Way of the Voice, a discipline for powerful draconic spells called "shouts".

Outside of followers and Alduin (the primary antagonist) NPCs prominent to the plot of Skyrim include Balgruuf, Jarl of Whiterun, a town in the center of Skyrim; Arngeir, the leader of the Greybeards; Delphine and Esbern, two of the last members of the Blades, an order of warriors sworn to help the Dragonborn but nearly wiped out after the Great War; and Paarthurnax, the last surviving dragon and grandmaster of the Greybeards.

Other factions that the Dragonborn can elect to join include the Companions, a noble order of warriors; the College of Winterhold, an institution dedicated to the mystic arts and magic; the Thieves Guild, a league of burglars who have fallen on hard times; the Dark Brotherhood, a fellowship of assassins; and the Bard's College, a group consisting of bards, poets, writers, and public speakers.

The Dragonborn helps negotiate a truce in the civil war to prevent either side from capturing Whiterun, the Jarl of which has remained neutral in the conflict, during this delicate operation.

[32] Skyrim uses the Radiant AI artificial intelligence system that was created for Oblivion, and it has been updated to allow NPCs to "do what they want under extra parameters".

[40] The full cast consisted of three Academy Award nominees (Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, and Joan Allen) and several other high-profile actors (including Michael Hogan, Vladimir Kulich, and Lynda Carter).

[68] A Skyrim-themed expansion for the digital collectible card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends, titled Heroes of Skyrim, was released on June 29, 2017.

Dawnguard adds new content to the game, including weapons, spells, and armor, and expands the abilities afforded to players who choose to become either a vampire or a werewolf.

It adds two new areas to explore outside of the mainland of Skyrim: the Soul Cairn (a plane of the realm of Oblivion) and the Forgotten Vale (a secluded glacial valley).

The add-on takes place on Solstheim, an island northeast of Skyrim, belonging to the province of Morrowind, which is presented as an additional open world.

[81] The 74 Creations were also separately packaged together on Steam and GOG.com as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Upgrade, which was sold as a single DLC pack for the Special Edition in 2021.

[82] A wide variety of official and fan-created mods, short for modifications, are available for Skyrim, which are generally made using the packaged Creation Kit.

It causes a fictional device known as the Space Core from Valve's video game Portal 2 to fall from the sky and land where the player can recover it.

The Space Core acts as a non-player character voiced by Nolan North which follows the player around the world of Skyrim and dispenses space-related comments.

Jason Schreier of Wired described the land of Skyrim as a "Viking-inspired treasure trove of flavor and charm", noting its contrast to Cyrodiil, which he considered generic by comparison.

[116] Shibley praised "the lack of copy-and-paste level design that's plagued Bethesda's previous games, ... giving a lived-in and handcrafted look to the world".

[112] Bedford noted that the improved graphical fidelity over Oblivion allowed the game world to feel more lifelike, praising the "misty mountain setting, complete with swirling fog and high-altitude snowstorms".

[105][113][115] Tom Francis of PC Gamer noted that it was difficult to explore the world without becoming distracted by things to do, stating that, "it's hard to walk for a minute in any direction without encountering an intriguing cave, a lonely shack, some strange stones, a wandering traveller, [or] a haunted fort".

Onyett pointed out their "predictable attack patterns",[107] which Francis agreed with, claiming that "fighting them never changes much: you can just ignore them until they land, then shoot them from a distance when they do".

The total number of sold copies on the PC platform is difficult to confirm because Valve does not publicly publish digital sales.

[186] Skyrim spawned a number of noteworthy Internet memes that circulated as image macros or video parodies and achieved viral popularity.