I never played the earlier elder scrolls games, but my main criticism of Skyrim is that it’s an earlier attempt (in the live service gold rush) to be a “forever game” but it does this in a way that makes the game feel more hollow and empty. Mods help, but are mainly kicking the can down the road, not fundamentally giving the game more depth or meaning. There’s a lot to do in Skyrim and some of it is pretty detailed quest lines, but it’s hard to feel like any of it actually matters. You can do the main quest line all the way to completion or simply ignore it and it won’t really matter. You can do the civil war quest line or ignore it and… you get the idea. And the exploratory aspect of it, which could in theory compensate for how optional the main questing is, is too repetitive and meaningless; go to location, kill enemies there, get loot and XP.

AC Odyssey, a later game, has a similar design going on (but with no mod community to help it). Fairly open-ended in theory, but little of it matters. Though Odyssey at least has a decently told story, if you can get past how long the game will drag on doing all the side quests. Skyrim I think I played it to completion once and I barely remember what the plot was. Most of the fun of Skyrim for me is the power fantasy of it, but once you get to a certain power level, it tapers off and you can laugh at the most powerful enemies. This is a problem RPGs often have, but I notice it more in Skyrim because there isn’t really a set end to the game and because the story elements are so forgettable to me.