never played it but hear it's considered a classic. My 10 year old nephew seems to like playing third person RPGs; Would Skyrim be too mature for him?

It's 18 rated to the authorities definitely think so. In detail it's hard to say because it's a very 'open' game. You basically get dropped in a big map (literally, it's like the size of a country to scale)and there's lots of stuff going on and you can involve yourself in whatever you want and not all of it is 'hard coded', some of it just goes on because the circumstances are right. So (for example) You could decide you're going to be a blacksmith and just go round finding metal and plans for armour and weapons and make stuff and that would be fine. Or you could decide to be a bandit and go around brutally murdering people. And there's also stuff like vampires and zombies so it can get a bit 'horror'.

The whole variety and 'emergent gameplay' (to use a poncy industry term) is part of what's made it such a classic but it also makes it a bit tricky to say whether it's age appropriate for a given age of child (which is probably why they've given up and just stuck an 18 on it). IIRC, there's no sex in it but there can be quite a lot of blood and stuff that's.. morally dodgy. You can do some pretty nasty stuff if you want to.

I'd probably say no for a 10 year old.

Well it starts with a scene of a guy being beheaded (not actually shown I think) and then a dragon burns down the village.

For the most part it is quests, whether searching for items or killing people etc...

There are several quite dark sections of it.

It's definitely more in depth than Runescape or World of Warcraft. If he likes that kind of thing then I think he'll like Skyrim. Just depends on the violence stuff.


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It's actually rated as a 15, the hack n slash, if fun, is acceptable, but if it's got things like torture, sexual violence then obviously not suitable. I'm thinking at the moment that it'd be best not to get it him.

? I had a look at the box art on Amazon and it had an 18 symbol on it. *sigh* never trust the internet.

PEGI rate it as an 18 (clicky) and the ESRB (clicky) gave it an 'M'.
The BBFC (who, I suppose, if they're wading into gaming, need to update to the less catchy BBF&GC) gave it a 15.

I don't recall anything that would stop me from letting teenage kids playing it.