The world of Skyrim is thrilling and flawed in VR

Enlarge / The disembodied hand of fate falls on you, tree!

Since consumer-grade virtual reality became a thing last year, there has been some criticism over the lack of lengthy, meaty VR experiences that can draw players in an epic story for dozens of hours. As if to answer that criticism, Bethesda has released Skyrim VR, a PlayStation VR exclusive version of one of the meatiest RPGs of the last decade.

Consumer virtual reality was barely even a gleam in Palmer Luckey's eye when Skyrim came out in 2011, though, and that fact comes into stark relief when trying to play the game in a brand new medium. While Skyrim's world makes some impressive first impressions in VR, a few hours with the game is enough to show some significant problems with the conversion as well.

To be sure, seeing and exploring Skyrim's world in VR brings some immediate and impressive improvements over playing on a monitor. From the jump, the stereoscopic 3D and head tracking of the PSVR headset make you feel like you're actually in Skyrim like never before.

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