I’m relatively new to the world of Skyrim story mods. My previous playthroughs centered largely around two things: visual overhauls and modded followers. This time around, I decided I’d rather not slog through Brynjolf’s quests or bounce between High Hrothgar and Sky Haven Temple for the fifteenth time, so I went and grabbed as many story quests as my PC was able to handle.
Which is to say, all of them.
This review contains unmarked spoilers.
Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil
From the project’s official page, Beyond Skyrim is:
[A] fan-made project that adds new lands and quests to Skyrim, such as Cyrodiil, Morrowind, and Atmora.
Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is the prerelease to the far more ambitious Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil, which promises a DLC-sized experience and an epic questline to crown a new Emperor. On paper, it certainly sounds enticing:
Travel beyond the borders of Skyrim and explore Bruma, the northernmost county in Cyrodiil. Delve into Ayleid ruins, meddle in local affairs or explore the wilds – the journey begins now.
There’s just something about crossing the border south of Helgen, then coming down the Jerrals and getting a glimpse of the White-Gold Tower in the distance. I haven’t played any Elder Scrolls games aside from Online, and it still gave me the chills.
Questing in Bruma
For a prequel, Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is certainly ambitious. The map is almost as large as the Skyrim vanilla one, although the bounds of the playable area are considerably smaller. Although the terrain is lovingly crafted, with plenty of unmarked flavor locations to be discovered, I struggled wit the lack of roads, particularly when going up and down the mountains. Which, considering Bruma is mostly mountains, made landscape traversal a pain in the ass at times.
It happened a fair few times to follow what I thought was a path or road, only to have it abruptly vanish under rocks or vegetation, and suddenly I had no idea where the heck I was. That’s a minor annoyance, though. I always had tcl in a pinch, and modded spells like Energize and Featherlight to see me through my travels the rest of the time.
Going back to the fact that Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is just to whet our appetite before the full Cyrodiil release, perhaps that’s why the whole thing feels so… unfinished. What’s there is pretty much impeccable, mind; from the writing to the voice acting and gameplay mechanics, Bruma is a blast to play through, and it certainly leaves you waiting for more. Still, I found myself looking for the “main” quest, something to anchor the zone and make it feel like your actions matter on a grand scale. I don’t mind waiting for the full thing, though. I know it’ll be worth it.
The mod’s main quest hub, the eponymous Bruma city, is a surprisingly target-rich environment. The tone is much lighter than I’d expected, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just a different take on Tamriel. We’re south of the border, Skyrim’s civil war is creeping in, but — for the most part — the people and nobility of Bruma carry on like they’ve always had. There’s even a nod to the Lusty Argonian Maid, which got a healthy chuckle out of me.
Some quests are small and hit hard (like the innkeeper mourning his dog, whom you meet pretty early). Others are far more ambitious and involve delving* into intricate dungeons and solving age-old mysteries. All of these are voice-acted by real humans, too — which, in the age of lazy, AI-generated VA, is a breath of fresh air.
That isn’t to say that everything’s peachy in Bruma. If you read some of the books and notes you find, they paint a pretty grim reality of what the Thalmor and Imperials have been up to south of the Jerrals. A handful of quests pick up that thread, too, and at least one of them leaves a meaningful choice up to you so you can preserve your Dragonborn’s alignment (Stormcloak or Imperial)… or do a face-heel turn when one side turns out to be far more gruesome than you’d expected.
Even the Thalmor envoy at Bruma Castle has some surprisingly nuanced things to say about the conflict. It’s worth sitting down with him for a chat. If this is a preview of the writing and voice acting in Cyrodiil, that’ll be a day-one download for me. It’s clear this team knows what they’re doing, and the story is in very good hands.
* I know “delve” is a hallmark of alleged AI writing these days, but I, a human, have chosen to use it in the literal sense. We’ve already let Americans take perfectly good words away from us. If we start letting bots do the that, too, where does it end?
Bugs and gripes
I do have two… okay, three big gripes with Bruma, and all three of them are dungeon-related. They don’t take away from the overall experience enough to make it not worth it, but you do need to gird your loins for some jankiness. I didn’t download the unofficial patch that’s meant to fix any of these — largely because I didn’t know it existed — but I’ve made note of it for next time. Maybe it helps.
First, Skyrim’s vanilla dungeons are mostly linear, and that’s a good thing. When I enter a dungeon, I want to kill some baddies, grab the loot, and get out. Bruma’s dungeons, on the other hand, are a multi-layered network of rooms and tunnels that make it stupid easy to get lost in (no, it’s not just me). Big dungeons like Frostfire Glade also have cell loading bugs which sometimes make it look like you have to step out of the game world and into the purple void just to progress.
Frostfire Glade, by the way, has one of the more touching questlines in Bruma, and I highly recommend reading all the books you find along the way. It’s one of those rare instances where braving the bugs is worth it. That said, when you get to the end of it, either there’s no obvious way to get out without backtracking through the whole-ass dungeon or I couldn’t find it. I had to coc solitudeorigin out of it, then fast-travel back to an exterior cell in Bruma. Boo.
Second, the combat bugs are… something. As a ranged Dragonborn, my spells and arrows habitually went through enemies, especially large ones like Frost Atronachs. I had to rely on my followers to whittle them down in melee combat, and buggy dungeon pathing meant my followers tended to get lost a whole bunch. I ended up using Kaidan for most of the playthrough and just summoning him back to me whenever he got stuck in a rock.
Finally, we need to talk about balance.
I played through Bruma around level 40-45, as a heavy armor spellblade with the occasional bow play when my mana didn’t regenerate fast enough. I’d love to know who thought putting 3-5 high-level magic casters in the same room or narrow corridor was a good idea. Either I suck at the game despite having close to 2,000 hours in it across all platforms, or there’s something wonky about how certain areas were balanced to begin with.
TL;DR
Quests: 👍👍👍
Gameplay: 👎 (I’m sure it’ll get better)
Rewards: –
Music: 👍
Voice acting: 👍👍👍
Story: 👍👍
So, should you play Beyond Skyrim: Bruma?
Yes. And go give the mod team some love, too. They friggin’ deserve it.
