Wintersun Mod review

 Dorime

I typically am the type to gravitate to heavily story-focused topics when it comes to reviews, as writing and narrative construction are areas that I'm heavily invested in personally. It just happens to follow that I usually end up playing narrative mods for games over gameplay effecting mods, as I'm usually more trusting of modder's ability to be able to craft a fun new adventure then I am for them to totally rebalance a game in a manner that is totally fair from all angles. It takes some amount of research and debate to convince myself to try out a significant game-affecting mod, not least of which because I'm very careful with arranging my mods so that I play a sustained and stable game. I'm not a 'dip in to play this one mod' kind of guy, I like to embroil each mod I might possibly want to try into a total playthrough experience so that the new content flows in as naturally as it can. As such, it can take me a good many years and playthroughs to bring myself around to a mod as non-intensive as Wintersun.

In dozens upon dozens of serious modded Skyrim playthroughs over the years, I have never tried one with this mod installed despite it's fame and popularity, probably because I didn't think it would be the type of content I'd get value out of interacting with. Wintersun introduces gameplay mechanics into the faiths of The Elder Scrolls, so that players can choose a deity to worship and receive tangible gameplay benefits for their choices, similar to D&D. It's not all boons and bonuses though; because the favour of your chosen god must be earned through regular prayer or a specified task distinct to your chosen deity. Something to slide into your gameplay routine until it becomes part of your playstyle in an immersive and grounding fashion. It really is an elegant little concept that the mod author, 'Enai Siaion', conjured up here.

Religion is one of the most important aspects of the Elder Scrolls lore, with the convergence between various pantheons, conflicts, hierarchies and substitutes, taking up a vastly significant space in the critical questlines of all of the core games. Skyrim alone features several clarifications within it's literature about how the legend of the Dragon Alduin isn't just a Nordic variation on the Imperial Pantheon's Akatosh, the Dragon of Time. (Anyone who has played Skyrim through knows the importance of establishing that distinction) And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The cultural split between the Empire and Skyrim which spurs the civil war central to that game's political situation is due to a ideological debate about what legendary figures are viable gods for worship, specifically whether or not Talos belongs in the Nine Divines. Morrowind was all about the worship of the Tribunal, Daggerfall's multiple endings are only viable because of Akatosh's time-warping involvement and Oblivion literally turns into a clash of the Aedra versus Daedra near it's story apex. The gods and their worship are cornerstones of the lore, so why don't they have a role in the vanilla gameplay more?

Vanilla Skyrim gives us shines to the Nine Divines that players can spend a small sum of money at in order to get a brief temporary buff and a quick 'cure diseases' spell shoved on them. That's about the extent of interactions between the player and their gods in the entirety of the gameplay loop. No commitments to a certain pantheon or figure, none of the thematic offerings or rituals that you'll hear other in-game aspirants mention, and no meaningful interaction with the core gameplay loop of Elder Scrolls- dungeon diving and looting. (Beyond the buffs that vanish in a 20 minute period or so anyway.) Of course, these RPG games don't need to go into explicit detail for every aspect of the world for the title to still be 'immersive', but that's why we have mods, isn't it? To fill in the obvious feeling blanks that Bethesda left open to us.

In all honesty I haven't actually had the chance to try out every individual religion that the mod has on offer, especially given the amount of effort it takes to really become embroiled in a few of them. But I have played around 400 hours into my current playthrough with Wintersun installed and active the entire time, so I'd say that gives me enough experience to provide a general opinion on it all. With this mod comes the power to pray, that's not an affectation the ability is listed under the 'powers' tab, and this will be the main way you commune with your deity. Every day give-or-take you are expected to pray to your god and each day you remember it will build up your conviction and everyday you forget that conviction will drop. Once you reach 100% conviction, you will be crowned a 'devotee' which will give you a distinct power to make all the praying and adherence to your god's tenets worth the effort.

Where it really gets interesting is in the breadth of pantheons open to you. I started the game devoted to Shor, a Nord specific god who grants a hero spirit from Sovengarde whether a boss enemy aggroes on you, and the various races all have their own unique gods that cater to their region's lore. There's the Yokundan pantheon, The Elven Ancestors and even the Daedric Princes. That's right, you can worship a Daedric Prince. What makes that lot an especially interesting bunch is the fact that simply praying all day hardly does anything to increase your conviction points because, true to their nature, Daedric Princes prefer you prove yourself with action in order to become their blessed devotees. Through this the basic framework of religion can actually begin influencing your playstyle by dictating your daily routine and the goals you work towards.

A few hundred hours into my playthrough I accepted the Lovecraftian-themed Hermaeus Mora into my life, and his peculiarities proved quite interesting to the way I play. True to the maddening search for knowledge that so many Lovecraftian protagonist's fall for, Mora's religion demands the player seek out uniquely spawned pages of ancient apocrypha carrying dastardly secrets in order to further their convictions. These pages are spawned at random on the corpses of slain humanoids both in the vanilla drop list and on modded bad-guys. (I think it's limited to humanoid enemies though, I haven't checked for certain but that seems to track with my 200-odd hours of playtime with Mora thusfar.) Gather enough of these pages and you can craft them into special tomes that buff your magic and shouts, and grow enough to become one of Mora's Devotees and you can sacrifice 5% conviction in exchange for a free skill point! That's some pretty powerful reward system, and certainly worth checking the various corpses of enemies who you'd otherwise have long started ignoring by that point in the game.

In my mind the best mods are one's that function just like this. Sliding in seamlessly into the gameworld in order to provide a side of the gameplay experience you didn't necessarily know you needed, but which enriches your playtime regardless. There's nothing so overbearing about Wintersun that it impedes your ability to play the game how you want to, and if even the daily prayers prove too much of a nuisance you can just shirk the whole process and go agnostic. (Although at that point it would really be a wonder why you have the mod installed at all.) If you've interest in a little bit of immersion being imbued in a woefully underloved portion of Elder Scrolls lore, I'd have to recommend Wintersun as the solution that you're looking for. Simple, immersive, fun. The best of all worlds.