After Oblivion made it cool to love RPGs again, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came along and buffed up just about everything for a modern audience. Hugely successful commercially, Bethesda's open world role-playing game is still an addiction for many players almost three years after release. Skyrim's in-house Creation Engine played a large part in the game's success, allowing the world to feel far more alive and diverse than previous entries in the series. There was also a ridiculously large list amount of fun side-quests to play through in the game, beyond the relatively weak main plot. The best part of Skyrim was the exploration. Full of mysterious locations and oddities, it was incredibly rewarding to just pick a direction and wander until you came across a haunted shack or spider-infested cave. Skyrim might not have had the greatest combat, and it had more than a few bugs on release, but it managed to succeed in offering a world that players felt that they could really live in.
