Exploring and fighting through The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s many dungeons, caves, and crypts are some of the major reasons why the game is so addictive, even over a decade after its 2011 launch. Combat aside, each dungeon has a prize at the end of the tunnel, often a Word Wall with a new Shout, some leveled gear, and gold. There are many great weapons and pieces of armor to be found, but none quite so unique as the Daedric artifacts. But some of these artifacts are far less interesting in practice than they might sound, and The Elder Scrolls 6 should work to make them better.
Most Daedric artifacts are callbacks to earlier Elder Scrolls games, since the Daedric Princes themselves are immortal, seeking a new champion to wield their gifts in each successive game. The Princes are typically evil, chaotic entities (or at least of a less black-and-white morality), the thematic flipside of the pantheon of Divines. As such, their quests can involve schemes, murder, betrayal, and even cannibalism, in addition more pedestrian affairs. Most of the rewards for completing Daedric quests are creative tools like Mehrunes’ Razor, Spellbreaker, or the infamous Wabbajack, but some are sub-par, inferior even to craftable gear.
While artifacts like Azura’s Star or the Skeleton Key sound great at first, their practicality is sometimes lacking. While Azura and Nocturnal are two of Skyrim’s most underrated Daedric Princes, the value of their gifts is lessened due to the way Skyrim plays. Azura’s Star, for example, is a refillable soul gem that can restore charge to items, or be used to enchant gear. As with all empty soul gems, however, a soul-trapping weapon cannot distinguish where to store souls, meaning Azura’s Star could well end up housing a petty soul. Similarly, the Skeleton Key is an unbreakable lockpick, but lockpicks in Skyrim are ubiquitous - it’s easy to horde hundreds of them. Worse still, the Skeleton Key must be given up in order to complete the Thieves’ Guild questline.
The Elder Scrolls 6 Should Make Daedric Artifacts More Powerful
What makes Dawnbreaker or Spellbreaker two of the best Daedric artifacts in Skyrim is that they provide unique attacks or defenses. Volendrung, by contrast, is sadly outclassed by craftable gear. It merely does 50 points of stamina drain per hit. While 50 points is more than usual, it’s hardly a unique function. It also loses charge quite fast, and relies on the character favoring two-handed weapons, which many players do not. Even another Daedric bludgeon weapon, the Mace of Molag Bal, can damage both stamina and magicka at once, trapping souls as a third enchantment. For these weapons to see more use by players in The Elder Scrolls 6, they need to be made more powerful, with unique abilities or at least more unique combinations of powers that make them more mechanically useful. If it continues the use them the way Skyrim did, many such artifacts may simply go unused, treasures stored at the back of a player's house.
Other artifacts in Skyrim are lackluster less because of their powers, and more due to their providing defenses that are unnecessary. The best example is Savior’s Hide, one of the two gifts received for completing Hircine’s Ill Met By Moonlight quest. The armor provides resistances for magic and poison, but poison damage is rare in the game, and already deals little damage. It's hard to say how The Elder Scrolls 6 will handle damage types, and if balanced correctly, a Daedric Artifact that protects against a particularly deadly element could still be useful, but if the Skyrim follow is followed too closely, these items will likely remain unused.
Daedric Artifacts in Skyrim are always better when they provide a unique new function. Wabbajack’s random spells, the Ring of Hircine’s extra werewolf transformations, or Spellbreaker’s unbreakable ward are all examples of exclusive abilities. If Bethesda wants to rebalance Daedric Artifacts so that they are all equally enticing in The Elder Scrolls 6, reflecting the powerful and mysterious natures of the Daedric Princes who empower them, a good approach might be to keep their functions both universally helpful and uniquely special.
