Skyrim and weird fear.

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Thanks for the advice people, i just play less and turn off the sound which makes it lots better.

I have a intense fear of swimming in the murky waters in Skyrim. I have the same panic to swim in deep waters IRL. I get the overwhelming fear that something with teeth or just something will drag me down. Creeeeepy.

The only relevant advice is: Man up!

ive played skyrim before and got a little stressed too
its mostly because skyrim is very open and you feel lonely on quests
also sometimes you'll get you'll die or something
im getting skyrim for my xbox because i had to sell my ps3
im also getting it for pc in a little bit
if i was you always play skyrim with FRIENDS
it helps alot
hope it was helpful
-franic

I used to feel a bit afraid back when I played System Shock 2. Anybody that has played that game will know how immensely atmospheric it is and I found myself playing it for about an hour at a time because the ambient music was just so amazingly freaky. The sounds of computers bleeping and the low hum of machinery, and the second you heard a bad guy you knew exactly what type it was because they all has distinct sounds. Half of the guys that made SS2 (Looking Glass Studios) went on to make Deus Ex and I can play that all day long and have completed it many, many times over. One of the reasons is the music and sounds are just so perfect, whenever I think of cyberpunk I always remember the sounds of Deus Ex.
Basically what I'm trying to get at is that perhaps the sounds in Skyrim freak you out. Try listening to music whilst you play. One of the problems I have in Skyrim is walking around by myself, knowing I could be attacked at any time with no one to defend me, if you feel this is the case then hire a companion OR do what I did and level up your conjuration skill. I now walk around Skyrim with 2 Dremora Lords by my side and it makes me feel a lot more at ease knowing that when a battle breaks out, they will take and hand out the damage (they are the tanks).
If you want to level up your conjuration faster then you can glitch it (I did that from lvl 85-100). All you need to do is cast the soul trap spell on a corpse then once your magika has drained wait for an hour and then repeat the process.

What another poster said above concerning the audio and fear is very true. Bethesda purposely uses the audio cues to build up the mood.

That being said, Bethesda also has a huge problem with their world-graphics engines and the way they show depth and color perception. Fallout series and Elder Scrolls have a very high incidence of people complaining about the game making them sick or dizzy because of the multiple 'fake lighting' sources (areas in the world are lit where there is no light source to illuminate them) and over-use of bloom effects (bloom=that effect that makes things glowy/fuzzy) to make up for graphic engine deficiencies.

In Skyrim you can see examples of this in almost every cavern and dungeon.

I downloaded a mod that fixes the fake lighting issues as well as the bloom effect and I no longer get sick or dizzy playing it. Ok not true... the game's 1990-style float-above-the-ground movement, non-existing animation gets me at times. But aside from that im ok.


In your case, lower the music and the 'ambient effects' sliders in options to near minimal and the noise shouldnt trigger anxiety issues. Download the lighting fix mod (its on TES nexus top 100) as well. The game will be darker (you do need the illumination spells/potions or khajjit night vision to see in many places..but hey thats immersive and COOL) though so be warned.


Since then I only have one weird fear while in Skyrim. That is that I can be out hunting little rabbits for food and pelts and have a MF'ing dragon nab me in the neck and toss me into orbit. ><