
However, I took a break from Skyrim when my gaming laptop finally died a couple of years ago. Even if I was happy for a while, new mods were coming out every week, and I just had to try them all. On PC, every time I finalised my load order and began a new game, within a few hours I’d spot something I wanted to change.

The problem with the near limitless potential modding Skyrim offers is that things can always be tweaked, you’re always chasing perfection - something that doesn’t really exist. What I spent very little time doing, however, was actually playing Skyrim. I spent hours watching Brodual’s mod roundups, searching forums for the best Thieves Guild add-ons, and testing to make sure all my mods were compatible. My girlfriend scolded me and taught me about load order - I am truly abysmal when it comes to tech stuff. When I first started modding Skyrim, I installed about 150 of the buggers and my game promptly crashed. She linked her Steam account to mine, and taught me the basics of how to instal mods, joking that I’d spend more time modding than actually playing - eight years later, it turns out she was right. I liked it, but I wasn’t hooked until I saw her modded PC version. I picked the cool cat dude, grabbed a couple of axes, and windmilled my way through a few hours of the campaign. That all changed in 2013 when my girlfriend physically sat me down and forced me to play through it on her PS3.

Even though I loved Fallout 3 - the best Fallout game - I had no interest in the swords and dragons of Tamriel - I liked guns and power armour, not shouting at fancy lizards. I didn’t get into Skyrim when it first launched way back in 2011.
