Ok, I've admittedly not gotten very far in either the main quest or the empire/stormcloak factions (my play time has been somewhat limited since November, and additionally, I decided to start a new character towards the end of November).

I'm going to be resuming play this week or weekend, and I'm trying to figure out, is there ever a way to rebuild Winterhold. I mean, it seems like if the devs are going to put a destroyed city in the game, the point must be to rebuild it, right?

Why would the point be to rebuild it? Winterhold was a massive city that mostly fell into the sea. It would take years and years and years to rebuild it, and really, it's not the responsibility of the player. The player has far more important things to worry about.

So no, you cannot rebuild Winterhold.

I can support this statement.

Nope, it's no more of an option than Kvatch was in Oblivion. But at least Winterhold's not permanently on fire.

If you're on PC, there's mods in the works.

There really isn't room to rebuild the city either, its a cliffside settlement and half of it fell into the ocean.

I wouldn't mind seeing Winterhold re-built as in made into a more thriving city. Obviously it can't be rebuilt to what it was as most has collapsed and has fallen into the sea. Perhaps a port built down on the rivers edge, shops, more houses and a decent strong house / fort perhaps.

It famously has the mages Guild there which would expected become more popular due the player's success and input and at the moment it isn't really much of a small town / village let alone a city.

I was hoping Bethesda were going to release an expansion / dlc which featured a repaired Kvatch for the TES IV, Oblivion game. That would have been cool as when walking through Kvatch ruins it looks like it was once a thriving and important city

Where would you rebuild it? It was once the capitol of Skyrim and the College was near it's center.....90% of the land is gone.

Obviously you couldn't rebuild the portion that fell into the sea. But, you could get a wall around it for defense, it could expand southward along the road, it could get a stable, blacksmith, alchemist, enchanter, etc. It's also possible that you could have some quests with the College which could magically restore some of the land. I mean, that's the great thing about magic, you can potentially do anything with it - it's just like magic! In addition to possibly restoring the land, maybe some of the mages can build magical structures, similar to how the Telvanni grew those giant mushroom towers. I suppose for Winterhold, a few Ice Towers might be appropriate, or crystal. Perhaps giant trees of some sort, grown in the course of a few weeks, then carved out to use as buildings.

I mean, it'd be awesome to integrate this once the character became Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, that the player can, acting in his/her official duties, to try to do something good for the town while also improving the college's reputation/prestige. As the town rebuilds, it might attract more students and travelling scholars to the college and the town.

I'd love to investigate *why* the collapse occurred in the first place.

Honestly I would love to see someone make a mod of this place whole again. It just looks like it would make a great city.

You cannot rebuild Winterhold. However, who's to say that there won't be DLC in the future that will allow you to help rebuild Winterhold. I see something along the lines of the "Develop the Ravenrock Colony" Quest from Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion.

Do we ever find out if the College really was a cause of Winterhold's destruction or not?

If you just rebuilt the burned out houses around the town it would be as big as some other town in Skyrim. I did the quests for the Jarl to get some helm that he asked for. He said it would help Winterhold's reputation, but I can't tell it did and it didn't add anything else to the town.

I also HATE the fact that you never really find out what happened to the town. They blame the mages in the college. But I did the college quests and if there was any mention of it I missed it.

No worries. Winterhold was already rebuilt. They just renamed that part to 'Atlantis'.

Now that would be awesome... to find a domed, mythical city under the cold, icy ocean!

But yea, why doesn't the Jarl just get some people together, stop complaining and rebuild at least the ruined houses. Plus, as someone mentioned, Winterhold can expand towards the west. There's a lot of frozen tundra they can use.

Here's a thought if over half of Winterhold had falling into the ocean, shouldn't there be plenty of interesting underwater exploring going on around there i mean i haven't check it out but i hope there is and if there isn't then there dam well should be.

I just want to rebuild Whiterun from after the Civil War [censored]. -.-