Elder Scrolls Collection

SWTOR got it wrong – oh so very wrong – but here we are once again, looking at a mega-bucks MMO that could make World of Warcraft wriggle around uncomfortably, like it’s wearing underwear a size too small. Like it or not, Skyrim is a game which crossed to The Other Side, that strange and terrifying world of people who play games but don’t follow gaming. Y’know, Normals. As such, Bethesda’s upcoming massively multiplayer monster-stabber The Elder Scrolls Online has at least a chance at a very big audience, not purely the MMO-educated. We shall see!

Today’s big news, though, is that Bethesda have opened up beta sign-ups for TESO, and they have a fancy-pants new trailer too. Guess where I’ve put that? (more…)

They did. They absolutely, utterly, completely modded a new world into Skyrim that’s based on Super Mario. Super Skyrim Bros. adds a new instance into Skyrim, so you at least won’t be converting all of Bethesda’s chilly wastes to the blocky nightmare you see here. Just a corner of it. A nightmare of question mark blocks, coins, Goombas, Koopas, secrets, and even Bowser. Want to see it in action? You’ll need sunglasses and a quiet room to lie down in after. I’m about to hit my sofa and hide under some cushions. (more…)

I don’t know who the head of Bethesda is. I’ll assume it’s John Bethesda Softworks. Hello, Mr Bethesda Softworks! Mind if I call you John? Nope. Grand. I have an idea for you: crowd-source the content for next Elder Scrolls. Calm down, John. Stop throwing things and hear me out. I know your games are lorey love letters to the world you created with Adrian Elder Scrolls, but things are moving on. Fans of games don’t need developers, just tools and assets to make their own game. You could spend all your time churning out huts and swords, and leave it to the people to make something from it. I have proof: this Skyrim mod Interesting NPCs adds over 100 new NPCS to the game, with over 90 of them voiced by actors. (more…)

Bethesda have announced that Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC will be available on PC early next year, following a gestation period on the MicroBox. The content is out shortly on the console of 360 exclusives so the internet will be full of details soon but a leak has already occurred in Bethesda’s dam. Apparently. There’s a great deal of plausible information, apparently courtesy of a beta tester, trapped like a fly in the interweb and if you so wish you can look peruse the info-spillage at The Outhousers forum where it first appeared. The bit about dragonbirth labour pains is particularly enlightening. The link contains a million spoilers, of course.

Bethesda still haven’t announced the big Skyrim expansion, Dragonborn, for PC. 360 owners are getting it on the 7th December, but for reasons that absolutely elude us, the PC is left unmentioned. What’s more frustrating is that this is normal for Bethesda. The chances are it will come to PC, and therefore your seeing the screenshots below will be a worthwhile whetting of your appetite. But they so far haven’t acknowledged even the possibility that the machine on which the Elder Scrolls games have thrived for decades will be graced by the extra content. Which is rather lame.

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The next set of DLC for Skyrim has its first adver-trailer, although no PC date is confirmed. In fact, only the 360 date is listed and it’s a not-too-distant December 4th. Skyrim will soon incorporate the island of Solstheim, which doesn’t look like it’s completely covered in snow. There are some giant mushrooms and a house that looks like it might be carved out of a giant beetle carapace. It’s a tad Morrowindy. Story-wise, it’s all about the Dragonbeast, who is the first of the Dragonborn and an all round nasty piece of work. It also looks like dragons will be available as giant air-steeds. You’ll never go back to Easyjet again.

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Look at you, hackers. Rummaging through Skyrim’s files and turning up references to what might – but only might – be the game’s next and perhaps most ambitious DLC. If the details revealed and shared hold weight, the next pack could be called Dragonborn, and could include FLYING ON THE BACK OF DRAGONS plus new locations that fall tantalisingly close to the hallowed province of Morrowind on the atlas of Tamriel. (more…)

Bethesda send word that the latest Skyrim DLC, Hearthfire, arrives on PC today, after its pointless period of exclusivity on whichever console it was. It costs $5. The DLC will enable Skyrimfolk to build their own home – rather than simply buying an existing one – and then furnish it with “an armory, alchemy laboratory, stable, garden” and, as I understand it, adopted children. There’s some more craft stuff in there, too, with workbenches for the fashioning of things from wood and clay. Despite this healthy-sounding shopping list I understand that’s not particularly in-depth, so don’t expect The Sims with cat people.

The trailer lurks below. (more…)

Remember Morrowind Overhaul 3.0, the mega-graphical mod intended to make the bestest of the Elder Scrolls bester still? Of course you don’t, because of all those drugs you took when you were young. That’s why you can never go into politics. That and all the embezzling you did.

Look, Mister/Mrs/Ms Short-Term Memory Loss, here’s the last time we posted about it, so go read that, watch the trailer and remind yourself, then you can report back and be given your download link for the mod, which is now out at last. (more…)

“A People’s History” is a three part essay series that argues for a long-standing but suppressed tradition of non-industry involvement in the first person genre. This is part three. [Part one. Part two.] (more…)