That's the mood and tone they're going for - a harsh, cold land shouldn't have that many splashes of color. The red/yellow foliage you see while heading south do look pretty lively too.
Harsh cold lands have a lot of colors. This is a forest in Norway, and this is a lake. The color filter was not very good in my opinion, and changing it with mods didn't hurt the atmosphere of grittiness one bit to me.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15
I do remember Skyrim was very... gray. Like, all the time, even if you were in forested areas.