Skyrim General

[PrettyNier]

...Again, you're not justifying that it isn't uncreative. You're just saying "but it still looks good and works well!" which isn't quite the same thing. Furthermore, having a sense of creativity doesn't require a change in style or aesthetic - they still could have had more interesting creative flourishes, but they chose not to, or were unable to successfully do so. It doesn't have to be overt, it can be subtle and defining. But the fact of the matter is, you cannot argue that Skyrim is something that it isn't, and trying to sidestep it by trying to justify its lack of creativity because it "still looks good" does not, in any sense, make it any more creative.

Ultimately, Skyrim, like quite a lot of western games, has a mediocre-at-best art direction. It is based on a regurgitation of tropes, or, when they do try to do something that isn't literally taken word-for-word from previous things, it ends up like this:

which is really just a vaguer trope with an extra eye or added bumps and ridges; nothing noticeable, nothing meaningful, nothing interesting. It is artistically immature and undeveloped.