I didn’t think, when I saw the other day that Swedish furniture sellers IKEA had commissioned a group of modders to stick an advert for their wares in Skyrim as an official Bethesda-approved Creation, that I’d now be sitting here noting that I dug said creation’s dungeon designs.
I am, though, because I think that sums up the entire experience of playing through Kallax Storageborn. If all you do is read a headline about it or scan through the premise with a smirk, you might assume it’s just a soulless corporate stunt aiming to play off The Elder Scrolls 5’s well-established viral memeality, but without any depth that makes it worth dedicating the time to check out. That was largely how I felt about it too, up until I learned that highly skilled Fallout 4 Sim Settlements makers Kinggath Creations were the modders behind the free creation, and decided to check their work out for myself.
The secondary motivation I had for doing so was that in-game advertising feels like it’s being floated more often than ever at the moment as a way games might help pay for themselves, as the squeeze is felt across an industry desperate for maximum financial returns. Fantasy RPGs like Skyrim are arguably among the toughest places to naturally fit such ads, especially compared to the likes of sports games or James Bond adventures with special watches.
In terms of how it fits in Tamriel, you’ll probably be glad to learn that outside of loosely meshing with Skyrim’s established mechanics, Kallax Storageborn isn’t trying too hard to pretend that its additions are in any way lore-friendly. The first time you’re overencumbered after grabbing the mod, your character is sent a magical talking telegram informing them that a solution to their storage woes can be found in a dungeon called Storereach. Yep, that’s the tone set then.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Bethesda
Storereach starts off as a regular Skyrim cave, but grows into a well-made Dwarven dungeon assembled mostly from recognisable vanilla building blocks. Things really kick into gear when you reach the second level, Storereach Workshop. Here, the standard swells of Skyrim’s orchestral soundtrack morph into the quiet, but unmistakable jingle of distant elevator music as you wander into a Dwarven department store. In case you’re unsure, an apparition materialises to welcome you. If you’re anything like me, you’re completely distracted by the fact that next to him are specially made Dwarven versions of IKEA’s flatbed shopping trollies.
From there, you negotiate a maze of dioramas showing off Dwarven furnishings for different rooms, some of which have buttons you can press to trigger a short demonstration by ghostly salespeople. You learn about Stenrygg seats, Tavan rugs, and Gruskok kitchen sets. The place isn’t just an empty show hall, though: there’s some unique gear and a couple of secrets that are easily missed if you don’t peek around as many corners as you might in a standard dungeon delve. While some of the gags – such as a shield with a deflection enchantment dubbed the ‘Shield of the Returns Policy’ – are rather groan-worthy, a couple properly tickled me. For instance, I stumbled across a skeleton in the loos, bearing a note indicating they’d died after simply getting lost among the labyrinthine halls of the shop. That’s the sort of joke people make about going to IKEA, rather than one the retailers themselves would necessarily make, since it suggests their signage is a bit crap. It’s the sort of touch that stops the creation feeling too reverent or robotic in its efforts to convince you to buy a flat-pack bookcase called Billy, even when it’s giving you a spell that fires the retailer’s famous Swedish meatballs.
The mod’s main draw and namesake awaits in a chamber behind the store. Armed with a tome perfectly mimicking an IKEA instruction manual, and a staff shaped like an allen key, you assemble Kallax. Once its shelves have been inserted, this unit springs to life and starts speaking in comedian Matt Berry’s dulcet tones. He’s a new follower who’ll scrape along the ground behind you as you adventure and carry all of your burdens, much like a certain base game lady whose name rhymes with an STD. Cool. This is about where I expected the adventure to end, once I’d taken one more wander around Storereach to make sure I’d maxed out a loot haul that’s very potent if you rock up at a low level fresh out of Helgen. I can confirm that because I had to start over to try the IKEA mod, as a result of still not having gotten around to making sure my mod load order’s been updated to match last month’s new patch.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Bethesda
Alas, my adventure with Kallax was only beginning. After I’d crafted him his own version of Skyrim’s iconic iron helmet, he had me off to two more dungeons in search first of heirlooms from his missing master, and then in search of an assistant who might be able to shed light on his reason for existence. Along the way, I grew to love not so much Berry’s array of unique lines responding to places I visited and hijinks I got up to, but the more subtly hilarious touch of his footsteps constantly resembling the low rumble of wooden furniture being dragged along stone roads and through grassy undergrowth.
Eventually, we cornered the assistant in an ancient Nordic ruin chock full of clutter that you can order Kallax to clean up in order to unblock passages. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will note that the final chamber’s utterly majestic, and that along the way you’ll encounter the last few long-running Skyrim jokes the mod’s yet to hit. Many who’re sick of such gags and have low tolerance for any form of advertising will understandably roll their eyes so many times they end up unable to stop looking at the inside of their own heads.
I found it creative, well-crafted, and self-aware enough not to grate on me. I’m not even much of a Matt Berry fan either, which I think speaks to the job Kinggath and co have done of taking what could have been a licence to phone it in and trying just as hard as they would with a non-ad project. Even if they did miss out one key item from their Dwemer emporium. Without having to lean on the mad Daedric prince Sheogorath – the ever-present crutch of any Elder Scrolls wackiness which threatens to tap on the fourth wall – they’ve created an officially rubber-stamped gag that’s worth more than five minutes of a player’s time.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Bethesda
That said, I don’t think Kallax Storageborn should necessarily serve as an example any corps or developers should look at when trying to insert their own palatable ads into Skyrim or any other game. The line it walks between endearing – if nakedly corporate – charm and off-putting cringe is very thin, and successfully negotiating it relies heavily on the unique blend of British and Scandinavian humour at play. If it were, say, an advert for a more American brand like Monster Energy or Little Caesars, I think it’d feel a lot more in-your-face and forced. Due to its meme-filled reputation, in large part built on the back of unofficial joke mods, Skyrim also suits this sort of tongue-in-cheek salespersonship a lot more easily than other RPGs. It’s an exception to the rule, rather than an ideal test case.
So, leave the neatly stored memories of captivating, if not overly lengthy, dungeons alone please. This shelving unit came together well, but it shouldn’t inspire legions to believe they can assemble an entire floor’s worth of bookcases without ending up with at least one screw out of place.