27 Best Games Like Skyrim on PC to Play in 2026

If Skyrim's best moments happen between quests, start with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Cyrodiil has the same pull toward a ruin on the horizon or a house with a locked door. Build a mage, sneak through town or join a guild and let its jobs take over your plans for the night.

The Dark Brotherhood makes an especially good reason to wander. Go to sleep after drawing its attention and a visitor can turn your next day into something very different.

Avalon's villages and dungeons should feel inviting to anyone who likes exploring with a sword in one hand and a spell in the other. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon puts that freedom in a grim version of Arthurian legend, with three large regions to search and choices that complicate your place in the story.

Watch the time before heading too far from safety. At night, the Wyrdness changes the world around you and makes the creatures you meet more dangerous.

The Living Lands are full of routes worth taking just to see what's around the bend. Avowed suits Skyrim players who like first-person magic and rummaging through ruins, with companions and separate regions giving the trip more direction. You're an envoy investigating a plague, but there's plenty to investigate off the main path.

Your hands don't have to agree on a weapon. Pair a spellcasting grimoire with a pistol and a fight can become a very odd exchange of fire.

A notice in a small village can be enough to pull Geralt away from the road for hours. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a strong pick if the stories you stumbled into were your favorite part of Skyrim. You're playing a defined monster hunter, with his own history and relationships, across a huge fantasy setting.

The contracts give wandering a practical purpose. Follow tracks out of a settlement and you might discover that the monster is only part of what went wrong there.

Henry's life in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II rewards the same curiosity that sends Skyrim players into every inn and workshop. Explore the countryside, practice a trade and pay attention to how people react to what you're wearing or what you've done. The setting is historical Bohemia, with swordplay and local trouble shaping the adventure.

Blacksmithing gives those workshop stops something to do. Heat the metal and work it at the anvil, with a finished blade as a reason to keep practicing.

Vvardenfell asks you to learn the land instead of hurrying through it. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition is the Elder Scrolls choice for players who want stranger towns, more factions and the feeling of being far from familiar ground. It plays like an older RPG, so taking time with conversations and directions is part of the appeal.

A silt strider waiting outside town tells you plenty about the place. Your next ride might be in the shell of a creature towering over the road.

A trip out of town in Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen can become an expedition before you reach the next landmark. Choose a vocation, hire pawns and prepare for monsters that need more than a few swings to bring down. It's a good fit for Skyrim's wilderness and build tinkering, with a greater focus on the fight itself.

Some enemies give you a route up their bodies. Grab a cyclops and climb toward its head while your pawns keep attacking from below.

You arrive in the Valley of the Mines with very little to your name. Gothic 1 Remake builds its roleplaying around getting to know a prison colony, finding someone willing to teach you and choosing a camp to support. Skyrim fans who like factions and gradually learning dangerous territory should find plenty to investigate.

The magical barrier is a constant reminder of why everyone is still here. The people inside have built a whole society around being unable to leave.

A character doesn't need to settle on one kind of weapon in Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. Spend points across Might, Finesse and Sorcery and you can keep shifting the way you fight. The fantasy regions and faction jobs suit Skyrim players who enjoy making a build, then finding enough side quests to put it to work.

Chakrams are a lovely reason to try magic. Throw the paired rings into a crowd and watch them sweep out before coming back toward your hands.

The map in Outward shows the land, but finding your own position takes a little work. That's part of the attraction for anyone who wants Skyrim's journeys to feel more uncertain. Supplies, weather and your route all matter, and you can take a friend along for the trip through co-op.

Learning magic involves a real commitment. At the Conflux Mountain, you can trade away some maximum health and stamina to make room for mana.

A shipwreck leaves you on an island where knowing the right people can be as useful as owning a sharp sword. Risen rewards talking to locals, finding trainers and learning which paths you can survive. Its compact setting makes a good change for Skyrim fans who like seeing how one settlement connects to another.

Harbor Town is a good place to slow down. The people you help and the side you choose can pull you toward very different lives on Faranga.

The Mojave trades snowy mountains for desert roads, but Fallout: New Vegas keeps the appeal of choosing who you want to be. Build around speech, science or a favorite weapon and let that shape how you handle a quest. The factions have competing plans for the region, and your help is valuable enough to complicate things.

A skill can be a way around a fight. The right dialogue option may let you solve a tense meeting before anyone reaches for a gun.

Floating landmasses and mushroom forests make Dread Delusion a good choice when you miss the sense of entering somewhere unfamiliar. The first-person viewpoint and retro look suit slow exploration, but skills and conversations are just as important as getting to the next ruin. Charm or knowledge can open a route that a sword won't.

Look past the edge of an island and the rest of the world hangs in the sky. Even a town visit feels a long way from ordinary ground.

What if a fantasy RPG gave you a jetpack? Elex puts one into a world where swords, magic and advanced weapons all have a place. Getting to know its factions is part of getting stronger, so it suits Skyrim players who like choosing allegiances and learning where to go for training.

The jetpack changes how you read a hillside. A cliff that looks like a boundary from below might have a ledge you can reach with a short burst.

Diplomacy is a useful skill to bring to GreedFall. The island of Teer Fradee has competing factions, and the people traveling with you have their own ties to them. It's a companion-led RPG with separate areas, suited to Skyrim players who enjoy deciding which group's problems they're willing to solve.

Your companions can change the mood of a conversation. Bringing someone with the right background may give a meeting a different turn before a weapon ever comes out.

Skyrim's spellcasters have an older, stranger place to explore in Arx Fatalis. Its underground world has settlements, abandoned mines and puzzles that encourage a close look at the space around you. Build up your skills in weapons, stealth or magic and work out how you want to get through a difficult stretch.

Casting is the memorable part. Draw runes in the air with the mouse and combine them into a spell, as if you're writing the magic yourself.

For players who spent hours exploring Skyrim's magical places, Hogwarts Legacy offers a castle worth learning from the inside out. You're a student, with classes and a story of your own, but hallways and nearby villages keep giving you places to investigate. Learning spells also changes what you can do when a fight starts.

The Room of Requirement gives you somewhere to come back to. Arrange the space and grow plants before heading out for another trip beyond the school.

A faction recruiter is a familiar sort of distraction in Starfield. Build a character, pick up work and soon the journey to another city can turn into a long run of missions for a group you barely knew. The Bethesda quest loop will feel familiar, with space travel connecting separate places to explore.

Ship building gives the loot hunt another outlet. Change your vessel's parts and the ship waiting at the landing pad can start to look like something you put together yourself.

The top-down view in Drova: Forsaken Kin gives you a different way into a dangerous fantasy world. You begin as a nobody, learn from teachers and decide which faction deserves your support. It suits the Skyrim player who enjoys growing into a place, with knowledge of the roads becoming as valuable as the next upgrade.

Choosing one of its two factions is a commitment. The people you decide to stand with affect the rest of the story, so getting to know both sides first is worth the walk.

Albion has a gentler fairytale look than Skyrim, but Fable Anniversary still gives your actions room to shape a hero. Follow quests through smaller linked places, improve your abilities and watch how people react to the person you're becoming. It's especially appealing if you like an RPG where your reputation follows you into town.

Morality shows on your character as well as in conversations. A very bad reputation can eventually put horns on the hero you created.

Taking a useful skill into a conversation is part of the draw of The Outer Worlds 2. Build your agent around the abilities you enjoy, recruit a crew and decide which factions in Arcadia are worth trusting. Separate regions keep the trip focused, with a science-fiction setting for Skyrim fans who mainly want quests and character choices.

The flaws are worth paying attention to. Accepting a weakness can make your agent less tidy on paper while opening a different way to shape the build.

A village, a road and a character with a lot left to learn are enough to get Gedonia moving. This small indie RPG is for players who like Skyrim's freedom to make an odd build and see whether it works. Guilds, dungeons and recruitable allies give that character places to grow.

A quest can reward more than one kind of talent. Strength, charisma or stealth may get you to the same goal through very different actions.

Exploring Embervale in Enshrouded gives you reasons to come home carrying more than a new weapon. Pick through ruins, improve your build and use what you find to construct a base of your own. Survival and co-op give the fantasy journey another purpose for Skyrim players who enjoy homes and wilderness travel.

The glider is a lovely reward for reaching high ground. Step off a ruined tower and a long walk through the valley can become a fast trip across it.

If the setting is what you miss most, The Elder Scrolls Online opens up far more of Tamriel to visit. It's an online MMO, with plenty of quests you can follow on your own and other players sharing the world. Character classes and MMO combat change how the adventure feels, while the towns and lore keep it recognizably Elder Scrolls.

The change of scenery is half the attraction. Leave a familiar-looking forest behind and head somewhere whose architecture and creatures belong to a completely different part of Tamriel.

Your character's skills can turn the same job into a very different outing in Cyberpunk 2077. Hack a camera, slip through a guarded space or pick equipment for a loud entrance. Night City trades Skyrim's fantasy setting for crowded streets, but the pull of another side job and another useful upgrade is easy to recognize.

Quickhacks make a good reason to try a different build. A camera can give you access to a room before V has even opened its door.

Gathering a party changes the feel of a fantasy expedition in Dragon Age: Inquisition. You choose a class, get to know your companions and work through large regional maps full of quests. It's a good choice if Skyrim's dragon fights and conversations left you wanting more people to travel with and a group to lead.

The dragons make the party feel small. Watch one land and the hillside that seemed roomy a moment ago becomes a battlefield you need to move around carefully.

A tower at the edge of the view can be enough to change your route in Elden Ring. The Lands Between reward that same curiosity that keeps Skyrim players walking past their quest marker. Builds give you plenty to experiment with, and the demanding combat encourages returning to a hard encounter after you've explored somewhere else.

A lift can deliver the best sort of surprise. Ride far enough underground and you may step out into a cavern with what looks like a night sky overhead.