Oblivion's Imperial City actually feels like a real place and Skyrim's holds don't

[EbonyWarrior]

I've been replaying Oblivion after like a decade and I forgot how dense the Imperial City actually is. There's districts, actual neighborhoods, people with routines, the whole thing feels lived in. You can spend hours just walking around and stumbling into stuff.

Skyrim's holds feel kind of... hollow by comparison? Whiterun is basically a main street with some side alleys. Solitude looks big from outside but the actual interior is like three zones. The Imperial City has this organic sprawl where you can get legitimately lost and it feels intentional, not like a level design problem.

I think it's because Oblivion didn't have the huge open world thing to the same degree. The city had to be the main event. Everything was crammed in there. Skyrim spread itself too thin across the whole map and the holds suffered for it. Which, fair trade-off probably, but man do I miss just wandering the Imperial City and finding random NPCs doing their thing, stumbling into a Daedric shrine in a basement, whatever.

Does anyone else feel this way or did I just get lucky with my nostalgia glasses this time around?

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

you're not wrong, but I think it's also just two different design philosophies and what each game was trying to do. Oblivion committed hard to making the Imperial City feel like an actual place you'd live in - the waterfront district, the temple, the market, all these interconnected neighborhoods. it was the heart of the game. Skyrim's holds are more like... hubs? They're functional, they're where you do your business and pick up quests, but they're not really the point.

that said, I think Skyrim's approach works better for what Skyrim is. the whole game is about exploration and the wilderness. the holds are supposed to feel smaller and more isolated because you're supposed to be out in those mountains and caves and Nordic ruins way more than you're supposed to be sitting in a tavern. Whiterun might feel hollow compared to the Imperial City, but it doesn't feel hollow when you're actually playing - you've got the Companions hall, the Drunken Huntsman, Warmaiden's, Breezehome if you settle in, the various quest threads pulling you through. it works as a functional space.

I do think you're onto something about the density though. even Solitude, which is the biggest hold, feels kind of sparse when you actually walk around it. more rooftop shortcuts and hidden alleys would've helped sell that "lived in" feeling without needing to add a ton of NPCs. but yeah, that's the trade-off - Oblivion was tighter and more vertical, Skyrim wanted to be this massive explorable world.