Certain marketers would like to have us think that a gamer's diet should include copious amounts of sugary energy drinks like Mountain Dew and Monster. However, if you're after more of the finer things in life and want to give your game experiences a flourish, Noelle Brandmier's blog Wine and Game Pairing has got you covered. 

If you're after a more sophisticated drinking experience then this is the blog for you, Noelle has matched all sorts of games and gives detailed reasons for her pairings that go beyond a bottle with the prettiest label — a reason for choosing wine for which I am incredibly guilty. 

Want to know what wine evokes the rough wilderness of Skyrim? Noelle writes that it's 810 Meadworks Jewel of the Newell, a wine that's "earthy and slightly dry, with lovely notes of wildflower honey, oak, and a subtle amount of pomegranate." How about the heavy strategy and planning of Civilization VI? Noelle suggests the luxurious Silk and Spice Red Blend. "Notes of lush, ripe dark berries, spices, and a subtle earthy oaky taste accompanies each sip of this delicious red. A fine pairing that I think any strategy gamer would enjoy, whether they're building an army or the Louvre."  

It's definitely more in-depth and refined than my personal technique of buying the cheapest thing on offer. 

I ask Noelle how she decides on her pairings: "The first thing I do is think about the weight and tone of a game," Noelle explains. "Is the game dark and heavy, like Dark Souls? Time to look for a heavy, dry red. Maybe most of the game takes place in fields, so I'll try to find something with grass notes. Or maybe there's a lot of fire in the game, so I'll look for something with smokey notes. I have a lot of fun because games are so different and they can inspire me in different ways. Sometimes I'll play a game that takes place in a certain area of the world, so I'll look for a wine from that region. Or the game mentions a particular type of wine, like mead or sake, and that will point me in an immediate direction."

Wine and Game Pairings has been active since 2017 and has a hefty backlog of thoughtful and perfect pairings. In her most recent post about The Outer Wilds Noelle recommends Shooting Star Zinfandel which she describes as "full of rich, brambly berry flavours, baking spices, and a bit of tobacco. It's an exciting burst of tannin, acidity, and flavour...yet the notes are familiar and comforting. Which, weirdly enough, seems to match my experience with Outer Wilds."

Noelle has also matched Donut County, Slime Rancher, Untitled Goose Game, No Man's Sky, and Cuphead. Her posts are always fun and personal, although sometimes pairing up certain genres can be tough. "The hardest games for me to pair are games that take place in space,"  she says. "I've got a running list of sci-fi games I'd like to pair with no inkling of where to start. Obviously, I haven't been to space. I can't even imagine what things taste or smell like up there, and those are two of my biggest factors in pairing wine with a game."

There are hardly any clues that would give an indication of what space wine would taste like, like in Mass Effect, for example, wines are only mentioned in passing, although other types of booze like beer, sweet liquor, and ale are readily available. Out of the virtual booze I've come across in games, Stardew Valley's fruity wines are a must-try for me, the Starfruit wine in particular sounds fantastic.

"I just finished my first playthrough of Afterparty," Noelle says. "The cocktails in that game sound awful and delicious at the same time (keep in mind they're made for the patrons of Hell). I really wish I could try one...even though it would probably kill me. I'd also happily try a glass of arcwine from World of Warcraft if I could. Can you imagine the taste and effects of a magical wine like that?" 

Noelle not only does videogame pairings, she also matches the perfect wine to boardgames and has alcohol recommendations outside of wine. "I'm always working on more pairings!" she says. "I've actually got something a little different in the works for an upcoming pairing: I'm trying out a recipe for a tea-themed game. It involves my first attempt at home-brewing, and I'm pretty excited about it. Hopefully, I'll have a simple recipe to share with others to try out at home!"

Make sure to check out all of Noelle's full reviews over on Game and Wine Pairing and if there's a game you think Noelle should check out next, let her know over on Twitter and Instagram. 

The latest attempt to try and mod some engaging combat into Skyrim draws inspiration from arguably the best duelling game around: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Lucky Skyrim. Check out modder Lert Krush's Skyrim Die Twice test video above. 

Creaky animations aside, it looks like a pretty faithful adaptation of Sekiro's incredibly tense sword fights. In Skyrim, unmodded melee amounts to just hitting stuff and occasionally blocking. It's not great, but it is very accessible. With this Sekiro mod, however, you need to wear your opponent down by deflecting their attacks, which drains their stamina and eventually staggers them, giving you an opening. 

Enemies can do the same to you, but thankfully the mod also gives you ninja-like agility, letting you roll out of the way and, if your enemy is a cowardly archer, deflect their arrows. The mod also borrows some of the visual cues Sekiro uses, helping you to nail the timing. 

While the mod is finished, you can't rush off to somewhere like Nexus Mods to download it just yet. Lert Krush originally created it just for themselves, but the reception to their videos has been positive enough to make them want to release it so we can all give it a try, but there's one speed bump. It's a modification of Ultimate Combat SE, so they'll need to get permission from its creator before the mod can be published. 

Hopefully we'll be able to take it for a spin soon, and in the meantime you can practise deflecting in preparation. Or you could browse our list of the best Skyrim mods.

Cheers, PCGamesN.

It was announced last year that Shirley Curry, better known by as the 80-year-old 'Skyrim Grandma' from her YouTube channel, was being made into an NPC follower mod in Skyrim. You'll get to hang out with Shirley sooner than you think because it's been revealed by one of the developers that the mod will be ready sometime early this year. 

One of the developers, phantom_scribbler on Reddit, has released a short teaser trailer and progress update about the development of the mod. Curry's NPC will be just like other follower mods and come with her own quests, interactions, observations and, of course, is voiced by Curry herself. She's going to be a classic barbarian with light armour using two-handed weapons and archery for ranged attacks—perfect for a granny who likes to brawl.  

Curry unexpectedly launched herself into the spotlight after she started posting videos of her Skyrim playthroughs on YouTube. After her very first let's play she received 11,000 emails, becoming an internet celebrity overnight and getting the wholesome nickname of Skyrim Grandma.

Not only will Curry be immortalised in Skyrim, she is also going to appear as an NPC is The Elder Scrolls 6 as the result of a successful fan petition of 45,000 signatures. If you ever wanted to watch a Grandma take on a dragon in one video and then watch her tend to her Hygrengas in another, then I suggest you go check out her YouTube channel. 

Imagine a cataclysm so potent that it entangled the very threads of time, creating multiple realities and solidifying every choice made by 100,000 players across those realities canon, for all time. That is the Warp in the West, which treated all six endings of Daggerfall—the second game in the Elder Scrolls series—as equally canonical, even though they clearly contradict each other. This is not how it works with other games, which may give players choices, but ultimately decide on one "true" outcome for the sake of lore and sequels. But when it comes to lore, The Elder Scrolls isn't like other games.

Complex, competing Elder Scrolls histories like these are argued over by the fictional scholars of Tamriel, and provide just as much material for the Elder Scrolls lore community to pore over and debate endlessly in real life.

The Warp in the West may seem difficult to comprehend, but it's just one of the many fantastical events that make up the Elder Scrolls lore. Fans who want to know more can always plead with Bethesda to crack open the lore bible. Unlike the devs of most games with expansive backstories, though, the Bethesda team has few concrete answers to offer; in fact, they prefer to keep much of the lore ambiguous, which makes The Elder Scrolls canon difficult to grasp for newcomers and intoxicatingly complex the deeper you get. There are incredibly heavy documents that teach enthusiasts how to start understanding The Elder Scrolls' history, like How to be a lore buff, which is so dense it even comes with its own guide. 

It would all be complicated enough without fans and creators writing about Tamriel on the internet, but they do that too, of course. Former Elder Scrolls writer and designer Michael Kirkbride, for example, still writes the occasional lore-related texts at the Elder Scrolls fansite The Imperial Library—a cause of endless debates on their canonicity by its community.

Kirkbride, who was the writer and designer behind the Warp in the West, told me in a Skype interview that the Elder Scrolls team did not want their personal voices to interfere with the series' lore. "When we were rejigging the worlds post-Daggerfall, we made a commitment—the writers, designers, developers—to never release anything into the world that wasn't written by somebody that lived there," he said. "The voice of the author should not come in there, and dictate what's true or not. It just shuts down conversation [around the game's lore]."

It hasn't worked out that simply, of course, given how many writers and designers have contributed to the series over the past two decades, forming an extensive tapestry of history. Some of their stories may contradict each other, or contain differences that can't be reconciled. And trying to deal with these discrepancies officially has been controversial. One example: In a book in The Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda's said that wildly different descriptions of Cyrodiil in books in past Elder Scrolls games had been mistakes. Mistakes by the fictional authors of those books. "The use of the phrase 'endless jungle' to describe Cyrodiil appears to be an error in transcription. Close study of the original, badly faded manuscript reveals that the phrase was miscopied," said the ESO book.

A genius retcon? Maybe. But this was scoffed at by many Elder Scrolls fans, with many accusing Bethesda of "breaking the lore." One quote from the FAQ section of /r/teslore sums up this unique philosophy: "There can't be an objective corpus of 'truths' that could serve as a summary of all lore."

Some fans remain skeptical. As redditor GigaTomato said on /r/ElderScrolls, "I'm sorry r/teslore wants to belive (sic) that their fanfictions are true and canon. Many of them spend more time talking about Vivec's dick than the actual lore which many of them are shockingly clueless about."

Others, like UrQuan from the official Elder Scrolls forum, are gradually coming round to the idea.

"'Accurate' is not a word that should ever be associated with TES lore," they wrote. "The lore is built up from many different sources, none of which are completely reliable, and some of which contradict each other. The only way you can ever be completely sure about how an event happened is if you were there and experienced it (and even then you might still be wrong about what really happened). It has always been much like the real world that way."

To allay concerns that The Elder Scrolls Online is abandoning its lore-intensive roots, the developers came up with the Loremaster's Archive, an online collection of scholarly in-character blog posts, and penned by the Loremaster of the Elder Scrolls Online himself, Leamon Tuttle. It's also another effort by Bethesda to tackle the many questions fans may have through the personalities of the Elder Scrolls, keeping responses in character. Take for instance this blog post, which is an interview with "famed Argonian 'historian' Jee-Lar" as he tackled questions posed by the Elder Scrolls community, or a text unearthed from deep within the archives that delves into the colonization of Hew's Bane.

"Many works of fantasy present a top-down description of the world as it is. In other words, creators describe the world in detail from the perspective of an omniscient storyteller," shared Tuttle. "TES lore goes the opposite direction; we develop the world from the ground up. So, every aspect of the lore comes from a character in Tamriel. These characters—like people in real life—have unique perspectives that provide a glimpse of the world as they understand it. Their words might carry some truth, but that 'truth' is often skewed by personal biases and it's always incomplete." 

That's why some of the most fervent fans of The Elder Scrolls are particularly zealous about the lore, scrutinizing every morsel of information to interpret its centuries-long backstory. And there is just so much to delve into. For instance, are there LGBTQ+ characters? What happened to the mysterious dwarven elves known as the Dwemer, whose entire race simply vanished overnight? And why are there so many skulls kept in people's homes? 

Discussions flourished on the /r/teslore subreddit and the official Bethesda forums. Elder Scrolls fan fiction writers also thrived, because Bethesda encouraged them to share their works. From the earliest days of The Elder Scrolls' development fans and developers would freely discuss the intricacies and theories of The Elder Scrolls lore in forums and message boards. Tucked within the official Elder Scrolls forums as well are also handy editorial guides and even writing prompts to help aspiring writers.

One of the most prominent fan lore projects is The Uutak Mythos, a comprehensive write-up on the obscure isle of Yneslea, an island mostly relegated to inconsequential footnotes in in-game tomes. The Uutak Mythos is written by Redditor Al-Hatoor with help from Kirkbride himself. It falls under what the community labels 'apocrypha', used to refer to quality fan writings "that were executed with technical skill" while expanding upon the lore. 

These efforts add to what The Elder Scrolls lore community deem collaborative worldbuilding. "Imagine the TES franchise as a blank sheet of paper," wrote Al-Hatoor on a Reddit thread. "The developers then begin to sketch a great map on this paper, filled with continents and oceans but they do not place every label on the map, leaving large spots on the continents and in the seas depressingly empty. It is our job as the fans to use world-building to fill in those empty spots and give them their own meanings, their own stories to make them much more enjoyable and fascinating." 

Cementing this ethos is an out-of-game comic book script written by Kirkbride called C0DA, which is set far after the conclusion of Morrowind. Exemplifying his belief that The Elder Scrolls should be open-source, C0DA is about how anyone should have free rein over their interpretation of The Elder Scrolls lore. "There's this part of me that wishes that a lot of licenses would just disappear, and we could have armies of modders and communities create their own games set within the same universe and consider them all canon," he said.

As Loremaster, Tuttle prefers to read these fan works at a distance, especially those that are consistent with the lore but at odds with his personal thoughts on the subject. "The Elder Scrolls community enjoys tremendous freedom when it comes to interpreting the lore, and that's absolutely by design. A big part of that is keeping the focus on questions rather than answers, and resisting the urge to set things in stone," added Tuttle. "Obviously, I have my own ideas about the deep mysteries of The Elder Scrolls, but even as the Loremaster, my opinions are not authoritative. The Elder Scrolls lore is bigger than any one of us."

Still, some players are skeptical of the approach taken by the Bethesda team and its ardent fans." I use r/teslore frequently and even I don't approve of this," wrote Redditor Hermaeus Mora on the larger lore community shunning the concept of canon on /r/ElderScrolls. "It has to do with Kirkbride, many debate on whether or not the trial of vivec, C0DA and other stories he did are canon....even though they are clearly not." Others continue to question if The Elder Scrolls Online, which is developed by Zenimax Online Studios instead of Bethesda, is also truly canon (to that, the developers have already said yes).

But as far as Kirkbride is concerned, he's willing to accept these interpretations as legitimate if they are interesting enough. He shared that during Morrowind's development, the writers had a saying that "anything that was boring was automatically wrong."

"It was great as a dismissal of things, but it also raised the stakes, [forcing us to] get more imaginative, like 'I've not seen that before, bring that element in here, put some twist on them.' That's where the excitement comes from, and if it's exciting enough it becomes true," he said.

Even ignoring the fractured history and arguing scholars, with a backstory spanning centuries, it's impossible for the Elder Scrolls writers to fit in every detail—and these gaps in history are what  the lore community is still trying to fill. Take for instance Redditor zackroot's frustration with the Mede Dynasty.

"I'm currently writing on this topic right now, but how are we all cool with the fact that there's almost 120 years where we don't know a single emperor in the Mede Dynasty? Y'all are over here talking about mantling gods and towers while I'm just wondering who was running the Empire for more than a friggin century!" By filling these gaps in The Elder Scrolls lore, the lore community believe that it's helping Bethesda and the developers decide how they can expand the history—and perhaps even its narrative—in future games. 

One last anecdote sums up just how deep the lore community dives. There's a conversation surrounding the Adoring Fan from Oblivion on /r/teslore, and why he specifically exclaims, 'By Azura! By Azura! By Azura!"—the name of one of the 16 divine entities known as Daedric Princes—when he sees the player character. One reply to the Reddit thread: 'Azura is one of the 16 acceptable Blasphemes in Cyrodiil, so it is perfectly okay to thank Azura in a moment of excitement.' Another: 'But maybe he worships Azura?'"

Even how open to interpretation and easy to obsess over even the smallest stories in The Elder Scrolls are—and how more are still waiting to be discovered and redefined by fans of its lore.

Sprawling The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind total overhaul mod Morrowind Rebirth released the final part of its 5.0 update today, marking a six-month journey from start to finish on this phase of the project. By far the most developed and ambitious project in the Morrowind modding scene, Rebirth is a huge mod that smooths out literally hundreds of small inconsistencies, adds new quests, varies familiar locations, and really just shakes up the whole game.

It’s a mod I’d call essential for anyone who ever loved Morrowind because it brings new life to the game as a whole. The tens upon tens of new models and quality of life changes are fine, sure, but it also deepens the game and adds detail that takes advantage of the leaps in technology since Morrowind first released. If you’ve never played Morrowind, this might be a great way to do it, especially if you’re looking to experience the "original" game by playing Skywind when that finally gets to you.

The centerpiece of the 5.0 Part 2 update are reworked versions of many of the game’s towns and outdoor locations, all of which I’m quite fond of:

You can check out the update post for everything else that’s included in the 5.0 Part 2 update, or the 5.0 Part 1 update. If you like it, don’t worry. The author still intends to do more work on Morrowind Rebirth. You can find Morrowind Rebirth at ModDB. For my part, I just want a hug from this guy: 

He's adorable.

When your online handle is "winedave," you're perhaps setting yourself up for certain expectations. I expect this modder is a man named Dave, and that he likes wine. I'm surprised from looking at winedave's profile on Nexusmods that he hasn't made any wine-related mods, but that's forgivable considering the quality and utterly perfect name of this mod, Rum Induced Mountains.

As mod names and descriptions go, I can't think of one much better than this. It's funny. It tells you exactly what it contains. And it tells you about how the mod came to be, which is a window into the modder's life we rarely get. "I had a bit of rum and this is the result," writes winedave. I think we can all tell that Dave had a pretty good time making this mod.

Also: The mod looks really nice! Take a look at that texture work, which is at 8K resolution. Those are some quality rocks. They're so detailed, you're definitely going to need a Skyrim install modified with some other realism mods to make sure they fit in. If you're the kind of Skyrim player who often walks awkwardly up the side of a mountain, determined to go over instead of around, you might as well do it on these very pretty rocks instead of some lower resolution ones.

If you're as into the creative process as I am, you may be interested to know that winedave elaborated on his choice of rums in the discussion thread for Rum Induced Mountains. "Oh some different ones," he wrote. "Cpt morgan black spiced, apleton estate 12 years aged and the one bottle I cant find."

So far this is the only winedave mod explicitly motivated by alcohol, but the rest of his collection of hi-res Skyrim textures look great nevertheless. Check out our guide to the best Skyrim mods for more recommendations.

Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.

As someone who likes to think about ancient history as others might their favorite sports, I definitely have "teams" I like to root for and others I love to boo. My favorite happen to be the vikings (the ones from Scandinavia, not Minnesota), and my least favorite are the Romans. When I discovered Skyrim's Civil War questline was basically vikings vs. Romans, I got pretty pumped.

This questline took on even greater significance when I realized the people of Skyrim were being religiously oppressed because of some treaty signed with Nazi elves in a faraway golden tower. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's authoritarians telling others which mythological sky people they’re allowed to build statues of. Needless to say, I was pretty much all in on the Stormcloak cause. Maybe not Ulfric himself. He's kind of racist and probably belongs at the bottom of a well. We'll sort that out after the war is won and he has to explain why he should be High King instead of me, the Freaking Dragonborn. But religious freedom? Skyrim's independence from a dying and ineffectual empire? Telling the Thalmor where they are at liberty to stick it? Let's do this.

It started with smaller skirmishes, claiming forts and ambushing bands of imperial soldiers in stony mountain passes. But it came to a glorious crescendo with the Battle for Whiterun, which might be the longest my body has run on pure adrenaline playing any videogame. With my blue-clad brethren by my side, we charged the outer defenses and cut down the boot-lickers without hesitation. When wooden barricades stood in our way, I hacked them down single-handedly with my battle axe like the badass viking demigod I was always meant to be. I might have inadvertently screamed out a battle cry or two in real life, surely to the confusion of many an unaware dog-walker.

And at last, we fought our way into that traitor Jarl Balgruuf's throne room and taught him one of the great lessons of history: It doesn't really matter what your arguments against me are. I am now in your house with a lot of angry, armed men. And that makes you, as far as the records going forward will show, entirely wrong.

Balgruuf didn't get it so bad, after all. Being locked up in the dungeons of Solitude while I went off to chase Alduin and get distracted by every single cave along the way isn't the worst fate any of my enemies faced—some of them got shouted off of a mountain and fell a good mile or so to their death. But he did earn his place in history by putting up a defense of Whiterun that I will never forget tearing through with the wrath of an authority-hating berserker. Even when I was gleefully cutting down Thalmor dignitaries hours later, nothing compared to the pure rush of liberating that city.

Now it's all over, I need to have some words with Ulfric about who’s in charge around here. I'll give you a hint: the first of these words is "Fus."

Redditor u/o0PETER0o decided to give a friend the gift that keeps on giving, by which I mean a videogame-themed pillow. Unfortunately most videogame-themed pillows are kind of gross, but that's no reason to give up. Armed with a screenshot from the game's overlong introductory sequence and a link to a website that makes personalized pillows—and socks, towels, and so on—by printing customer-submitted images on them, u/o0PETER0o created the memetastic present you see above.

The website in question was bagsoflove.co.uk, by the way, which is not a name that suggests wholesome gifts like this one but whatever. After u/o0PETER0o posted a photo of the pillow to the Elder Scrolls subreddit yesterday it was then ripped off by someone else and reposted to r/gaming without attribution, because of course it was. Go upvote the original and restore some justice to the world.

Every week, YouTuber Mitten Squad finds a way to complete a game in an unusual, improbable way, and this week it was Skyrim's turn. He set out to beat the main quest using only a torch, and it turns out that it's not only possible but, with the right setup, it's actually fairly straightforward—it just takes a very long time.

It took a while for Mitten Squad to find a torch (he had to get himself arrested and thrown in the dungeon to do it), but from then on he could grind up his Block skill, which determines how much damage you deal with a torch power bash. At level 50, he grabbed the Deadly Bash perk, which made his attacks deal five times more damage, and then set to hunting dragons.

It was a slow process, because bashing drains your stamina, so he was constantly waiting for the bar to regenerate before he attacked, and only whittled a slither of health from his enemies with each bash. The turning point was soup: vegetable soup, specifically, which regenerates one point of both health and stamina every second for 12 whole minutes.

With a large batch of soup cooked and portioned in his pack, Mitten Squad was able to beat the toughest enemies in the game. Power bashing with the torch staggers enemies and only requires a single point of stamina, so after glugging the soup he was able to put his foes into an endless staggering loop, including dragons.

In a couple of instances, Skyrim forces you to damage an enemy in a specific way, such as with a shout, but I wouldn't consider them rule breaks because they're hard-wired into the game. He also used magic to heal himself and other shouts that didn't damage enemies, such as Dragonrend to keep dragons on the ground, letting him stagger them. I'm still mighty impressed with his patience—I can only imagine how long it must've taken to beat down enemies with the largest pools of health.

You can watch his full recap of the run in the video at the top of this post.

Thanks, Polygon.

If you're looking for more reasons to return to the home of the Nords, check out our list of best Skyrim mods and best Skyrim Special Edition mods.

Werewolves in Skyrim are pretty overpowered. First of all, they can maul the scales off a dragon’s back in a mere five swipes. They can also feed on corpses to regain health at an alarming rate. To top things off, their stamina is essentially undepletable. They’re lean, mean, wolfy machines. 

I like being a werewolf in Skyrim, but even when I crank up the difficulty it feels a little too easy. The only real downside is that, well, people kind of hate werewolves. That's never really a problem, though: I can browse for trinkets and treasures along the high streets of Solitude without having to worry about anybody finding out that I’m a lycanthrope, and if the going gets tough I can just press the Beast Form key and turn into a ripped wolfman capable of claw-punching every single enemy in the game. Where’s the fun in that?

Instead of playing Skyrim with the same conveniences again, I decided to make things a little more interesting by cursing myself as an Accidental Werewolf. By equipping the Cursed Ring of Hircine, you lose control over your transformations. They become involuntary, and once you feel that rumbling in your tummy you’re left with no choice but to accept what’s about to go down. Obviously I don’t want to become a vicious murderer—I’m a human first and foremost.

But again, humans hate werewolves. I'll kill them if I have to, but I'll feel bad about it.

Now that I'm wearing the ring, I’ll have to be careful when I enter towns. No telling when I might, whoopsie, accidentally metamorphose into a bloodthirsty beast. No more hour-long antagonizations of Nazeem. I’ll have to settle for a Fus—there’s no time for a Ro Dah.

I decide I’m going to try it out in a safe place first, so I fast-travel to Whiterun and make toward Markarth. I quickly realize that it’s actually been a minute since I last played Skyrim, so I start to press every key on the keyboard to rediscover how the werewolf control mapping actually works. Accidentally, I unleash an almighty bellow, which is immediately met by the roaring cry of a too-close-for-comfort dragon. It’s fine though.

Rock beats scissors, werewolf beats dragon. Funnily enough, two rogue mudcrabs somehow find their way into the midst of this epic brawl, but they weren’t exactly the fiercest contenders in Skyrim. 

I know I’ll probably turn into a human again pretty soon, so I decide to head back to Whiterun. It’s high time I paid my pal Balgruuf the Greater a visit, and I’m keen to net some catharsis after my bloody encounter with the world’s bravest mudcrabs. My plan fails immediately.

I transform into a werewolf right in front of Carlotta Valentia’s food stall and within seconds the whole town is out to get me. For the first time in a long time, Gray-Manes and Battle-Borns fight as Shield siblings, working together to expunge the monster before them. Even Nazeem joins in—there’s no place for werewolves in the Cloud District. 

I really don't want to murder everyone in Whiterun. I like these people! Desperate to avoid any conflict, I beeline for the sewers in the northeastern corner of the city and hide until I’m human again. Under the cover of darkness I slip out of the city undetected, wallowing in the fact that I can never return.

I run non-stop to Solitude in search of a fresh start. In between transformations, I frequent the Bard’s College before going down the Skeever for a pint. One pint only, though. Transforming at the bar because I stuck around too long to get sloshed would be a really embarrassing way to get kicked out of another town. The locals will turn against me in a heartbeat. As night falls, I decide to leave the city—it’s been a while since I last wolfed out, so I’m well overdue. Sure enough, it happens just past the hill that brings you down to the East Empire Company. 

I barely have a second to consider my luck before things take a turn for the worse. A wickedly powerful dragon descends from the heavens and starts spitting some kind of frosty fire at me. I really didn't expect to spend this much time fighting dragons. This is supposed to be an inner struggle with my own humanity, dragons! Butt out.

It's not really that inconvenient—I kick the dragon's ass without busting a sweat, but then I see red on the screen. What hit me? A bear? A bandit? A blooded vampire, jealous of my lycanthropy? 

Nope. Staring at me through eyes teeming with hate—at least that’s what I imagine, his helmet’s kinda hard to see through—is a young Stormcloak soldier, arrow nocked on a cheap longbow. 

I’m caught. For some reason, even though I’m covered in thick wolfy fur and stand a solid three feet taller than usual, guards in Skyrim are instantly able to recognize me when I'm a werewolf. My bounty goes up just for being seen! What am I supposed to do, guard? Wait it out until I turn back into a human? Werewolves don’t carry gold. 

These guards won’t leave me alone and I have the game difficulty cranked up. I’m in trouble. I think to myself: What would a werewolf do in this situation? It's time to really get into character. Probably retaliate with bared fangs and slashing claws, right? So that’s what I do—no more Mr. Nice Wolf. I let out a roar and before these unfortunate souls can swing their swords, they’re all dead. 

I feel conflicted now. I managed to play for hours before having a moral hiccup like this (a murder hiccup). I decide to venture back to Solitude to snoop around a little. I quickly realize I don’t have a bounty anymore, probably because I killed all of the witnesses. After about 20 seconds of deep thought, I conclude that I should probably try to make it up to society, to use my wolven powers for good. So I make my way to the Blue Palace to visit my good friend Elisif, hoping she’ll have a cave that needs clearing out or a bandit camp worth bringing down. 

Turns out I’m fresh out of luck, and so is everyone else. I didn’t think it was possible to turn again so quickly, but here I am stood in the Blue Palace, eight feet tall with wolf hair sprouting out of my shoulders. Ah. Fuck it. 

“Never should have come here!” yells Falk Firebeard. Poor Falk. You don’t even know what’s about to happen, do you? 

I bound around the Blue Palace on all fours, lashing out at anybody who gets in my way. Due to Skyrim’s annoying mechanic that has essential NPCs drop to one knee instead of actually dying, I’m unable to kill everybody in the palace. I also realize that I’ve been checkmated: As a werewolf, I can’t open the door leading back out to Solitude. But these NPCs keep coming, jumping back up from their one-knee respite pose with fully rejuvenated pools of health and stamina. 

They keep stabbing me, and the ring's curse means I won't be turning human again soon enough. My health is dropping rapidly, the screen starts fading into darker hues of grey, and… I'm dead. I ungracefully fall down the stairs, defeated by the Cursed Ring of Hircine. Werewolves are OP in Skyrim, but I’ll be damned if I’m good enough to play one who can't control himself.