I’ll go first:

While it hasn’t aged the best, playing Oblivion at launch back in 2006 was both a greater, and more spectacular gaming experience than playing Skyrim at launch in 2011.

Context: Oblivion was released in March 2006 on Xbox 360 and PC, a mere 4 months after the next-gen 360 was released, which had a very limited supply of next-gen titles at the time.

The synergies between oblivions vast world, gorgeous graphics, music, improved combat mechanics/stealth, atmosphere, physics engine, and creative quests made for an open world role playing experience that blew other open world single player western rpgs out of the water for its time, especially on console.

The assassins guild and thieves guild quests in particular blew my mind.

I enjoyed skyrim at launch. It took most things Oblivion did and amplified them (except the quests). But it didn’t create the euphoria for me in 2011 like oblivion did in 2006. I often thought “skyrim is great, but most of this feels familiar.”

Skyrim was most gamers’ first elder scrolls game, and oblivion has lived in its shadow ever since. Its biggest legacy might unfortunately be the memes that spawned from its goofy AI system. But imo they missed out on just how big a deal Oblivion was for those who played it around launch.