It's true, though - Skyrim is one of the better open world exploration + combat + loot games to come out of this decade. I'd go as far to say it's in the top 20 games of the decade too, but that's possibly more a condemnation of the 2010s than it is praise of Skyrim.
I blame the Codex for making me hate it as an RPG when it came out, rather than enjoying it as an action game (and it is a competent action game) and sandbox exploration thing. I mean honestly, Morrowind's RPG mechanics weren't exactly hot shit - in fact, they were cold, useless shit - and Daggerfall's were lukewarm shit due to patchy implementation, so it's not even like we should have been expecting anything gameplay-wise from an Elder Scrolls game beyond "has stats", "numbers go up when you do things", and "big swords better than little swords".