I used to criticize a lot of things in Skyrim, but then I took an arro - I mean, walked into Blackreach. Holy crap. It's simply amazing. The concept of an underground city, the size alone (I couldn't finish exploring it in like 2 hours), the details present. There's that feeling you get with Skyrim that every rock is different from the other, and it would have been easy for them to just make a huge circular dome and put generic Dwemer buildings in it, but you walk in and you can barely see up to half the city's extension.

I really have to take my hat off to Bethesda. Blackreach alone didn't change my mind, but going there allowed me to realize of how vast the game is, it made me see how every mountain is difference from the other. I can live with hearing NPCs say always one of the same 2 things, with Guild members treating their leader like crap, with the fact that there's a dragon skeleton breakdancing in front of the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary (that's actually a bug I can very much live with ^^) because I realize the game is bigger than I can see. It's the difference between being in a large field and being in a field so large you don't even have an idea of how far it goes.

A weird glitch happened for me on my second visit to it - the "weather" effect abruptly changed and it all light up - I could see the entire cavern and it looked spectacular... Even better than how it originally looks I thinks.

I'll upload a pic

Exactly, once you realize how big this game is you can really see how blessed we are. In no way is this game perfect and there are a few miscues here and there, but my god, how detailed it is for the size.

I love blackreach, had an orgism when i walked in and wanted to stay... and so i did.

Here you go.... Blackreach without the darkness....

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7033/6704938739_9015ab796a_o.jpg



(I think it looks better than it does originally, but there needs to be shadows still... Not sure what caused this glitch when I entered it).

Yeah, even ignoring its size (which isn't entirely apparent when you first set foot in the place), the artistic style of Blackreach had me going "wow." I've also been playing this game for two months now, and I'll still get radiant quests directing me to entire caves I've never seen, all of them having unique and usually interesting layouts and their own "wow" moments.

Blackreach was huge and beautiful, but seemed empty and unfinished from a content perspective. Sure there was the quest that brought you down there in the first place, and a gathering quest that gave you a reason to explore every inch, but there could have been so much more and still have kept the abandoned city theme going.

Perhaps Blackreach content was another casualty of the 11/11/11 hard deadline.

Blackreach is amazing. The game designers did a good job to make it not only look, but feel like a dream. I can't say how many hours I spent in there, but I still haven't seen everything.

Blackreach isn't that city build on or in or what you call it a dwemer ruin ...

By accident I walked into Rorikstead and started with that drinking contest quest, a night to remember ...

Before I did know it I awakend at the Temple of the Godess of Love in that city ...

When I walked out I had something like wohooohooooohooowhooo, I really this city ...

But than I must admit Solitude is also cool ....

Blackreach is amazing,I explored it yesterday,tried to find every crimson nirnroot but ended up just exploring.also found a giant there.
and the falmer and the falmer servants creeps me out D:

Skyrim is lacking in many areas but gameworld design is not one of them. Blackreach reminded me alot of that mod for Oblivion that added a huge underground complex (also with giant mushrooms) and had Drow in it. I am glad that they took some ideas from it.

skyrim is 16 square miles and blackreach is about 4 square miles... so yeah... its huge

Does it snow in Blackreach for anyone else? I fount it odd to be snowing underground.

Blackreach is amazing. It was when I walked in there that I decided this was one of the greatest games I'd ever played. Kind of an aesthetic moment.

I think Blackreach is really good but it doesnt even come close to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQJt-GghxWQ

You need quests to dictate how you play and enjoy the game? Too many quests in that place would have made it too forced to be enjoyable.

I don't personally feel that Blackreach 'changed' my mind about anything (my criticisms about the game are still there), but it did give me a nice feeling about the potential of Skyrim's caves and their scope.

It was probably only a cave they could've made something of that size with. I don't know if they could have demonstrated anything like that with a fort or ruin. A daedric prince's fortress of that size may have been interesting. It would take a long run just to get to the throne, though :{D~

No, not to dictate play, but to add to plot and storyline. That's what good quests do - tell the story, relate the history. I was hoping for some backstory to the human thralls down there, or some story behind the named buildings, what's the significance of the orange globe to the Vulthuryol?, and how did a Giant get down there anyway? Just having those things down there as stuff to kill is unsatisfying to me.

am I the only one who doesn't like Black Reach? I don't like Dwemer ruins how they're done in Skyrim so having an entire cave with this theme... I just rush through it every time I need to go there. The least time I spend there, the better.

I spotted a mod on nexus where someone was replacing the stone structures with more metallic brass textures like they were originally in morrowind if that is what you are talking about. I plan on using that myself when it gets done.

It's not only that.

According to own Bethesda Lore, the Observatory in Hammerfell was supposed to be the only large ruin outside Morrowind and now we have Dwemer cities all over Skyrim?!? They should have gone with elves ruins, from the time when elves ruled the land until they were driven off or -rather- under the ground.

It's lacks good content though like a lot of places in Skyrim. Epic place with no epic quest to back it up and that's repeated in the entire game.

Bleah. It looks all shabby and run-down now. In the normal half-light it enjoys it looks like Tolkien meets Avatar.

I too was gobsmacked by this lovely city. The apartments, the different municipal buildings. I will be back.

Lore evolves as the story / game does. Perhaps at one time it was true that they knew of no other ruins except the observatory but that was hundreds of years ago. Since then a large concentration of ruins were discovered in the province of Skyrim and new books were written, speculating on what it all means. Think how many ancient egyptian tombs were unearthed since the very first one was discovered hundreds of years ago. It's the same thing more or less.

Besides, they did Ayeleid or "Ancient Elves" ruins in Oblivion. Why would you want more of the same? Although I guess one or two would not have hurt for the sake of continuity.

Anybody else fought the dragon Vulthuryol in Blackreach?

That one took me by surprise wasn't expect to fight a Elder Dragon underground.