Fucking THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS
Every Elder Scrolls game has gotten consistently better in terms of gameplay and graphics.
And that's...IT.
In terms of story, choice, quest uniqueness, character customization, character building, explorability, challenge, detail, lore, cultural depth....I could go on and on.
In those terms, every Elder Scrolls game has gotten consistently worse.
In Morrowind you could kill main quest NPCs, as someone has already mentioned. In Skyrim, if a character has ANY involvement in MINOR QUEST WHATSOEVER they're marked essential.
Morrowind had slavery in it. Fucking slavery.
In Oblivion, during the Dark Brotherhood quests, you tracked the traitor to his secret lair and found a journal full of insane ramblings and learned that he joined the Dark Brotherhood in order to get revenge because they killed his mother, who's rotting severed head he kept on a platter.
What about a quest where you had to kill a house full of people one at a time while trying to make them all believe it wasn't you doing the murdering? Or a quest where you had to get a magic ring that was so heavy you could barely lift it out of the bottom of a well without drowning?
What does Skyrim have that comes remotely close to anything like this? "Go kill this dungeon full of draugr."
It fucking sucks, and I will continue to play Bethesda, because despite all this, they still have the hugest, deepest, most explorable worlds (although I hear Witcher 3 gives Skyrim a run for its money, haven't played it yet), but they dumb down every game to appeal to an ever increasing fan base just so they can make more money. It's hard to blame them, but who's going to put out a game with that kind of depth ever again? I don't know man, I don't know.