Skyrim is a beautifully vast and sweeping game. Also vast: the possibility of its modding potential. The nomadic fans of Morrowind are crossing those rolling plains of creation, as part of their quest to settle within the safety and shelter of this newer game's engine. Their journey started just over a year ago, and now - while still far from the home stretch - they've made great progress. They've even released a trailer showing just how far they've come.



Skywind is currently on version 0.91, and, according to its makers, still very much in alpha. "You can move around the world, interact with a few things, but the full content of questing, gameplay and many other various elements are not part of the game yet," they write. "These Alpha releases are more for getting people interested, inspired and up-to-date with development so they can help with the project."

Nevertheless, it's a fantastically ambitious project that appears to be progressing nicely. You can download Skywind from the Morroblivion website, stopping only briefly to appreciate how great the word "Morroblivion" is. To play it, you'll need both Skyrim and Morrowind (along with the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions) installed on your computer.

Thanks, RPS.

Internet. Internet never changes. Which is why, once again, we're having to cross the irradiated wasteland of rumour and speculation. There's a chance - remote though it may be - that Bethesda are readying the broadcast signal and preparing to announce Fallout 4 to whichever isolated pockets of humanity care to listen. Of course, there's also a chance that this is nothing, and that Fallout fans will be left to starve on a diet of broken, empty dreams. It's how they would want to go.

The first clue was the emergence of the website TheSurvivor2299.com. It's a countdown site, ticking down to the 11th December, and featuring the logo of the series' Vault-Tec company. The site also plays a Morse code signal, which translates to '11-12-13'. A WHOIS lookup of that site shows that, apparently, it was registered by Bethesda's parent company Zenimax.

So far, so good, but a number of factors cast doubt on the site. You can find a great rundown of evidence for and against the site's legitimacy on the Fallout Subreddit, but, to summarise, it was both registered by a different company than Zenimax usually use, and is using a different, self-branded DNS. Eyebrows were also raised at the date, which is in the dd/mm/yy format so beloved by myself and my countrymen.

Of course, the counter-argument is that Bethesda have done this to foster such uncertainty - with believers citing when Blizzard did a similar thing with one of their viral teaser sites. It's also worth nothing that the 11th December is the date of the VGAs, an award ceremony which is known for its game announcements. And for being embarrassing to watch. People have also pointed out that of course they were going to use dd/mm/yy, because 11-12-13 looks cool.

We're not done yet. There's another twist: a Fallout 4 trademark has been registered by Bethesda Softworks. Even that's far from definitive. A recent EU trademark for Half-Life 3, supposedly from Valve, was later removed when it turned out to be a hoax.

Given all this, we turned to Bethesda in the hope that they could act as the Geiger Counter against these deadly rumours. Their response? "No comment". Make of that what you will.

Isn't starting a new character in an RPG the best? Sure, it's great being a high-level badass with an arsenal of weapons and spells and enough loot to choke a dragon. But there's something about starting over from scratch, when every rusty dagger is a priceless treasure and every minor monster is a genuine threat. Let's all start a new character in Skyrim, and let's all use the Skyrim Unbound mod. It makes starting over an adventure in itself.
Skyrim Unbound is designed to give you a fresh start to the game. You've played through the original Helgen opener enough, right? You've been the Dragonborn plenty of times. You've slain so many dragons you need to build an extra room on your house just to store their bones. This time, let's skip all that. You can save the world later. For now, let's just get busy living in it.


There are tons of places to start your game. Or you can let the mod pick one for you.
When you start a new game, you'll see the Skyrim title card, and then a notification to visit the mod configuration menu. There, you can select the options you want to start your game with. You can pick a specific starting point, the place in the world your new character will appear, or just specify the type of area you’d like to start in (city, town, wilderness, inn, even a jail cell). Don't care where you start, or want to be surprised? Leave it on random, and the game will decide.
There are several types of characters to choose from: you can be a hunter/explorer, a warrior, a mage, a merchant/traveler, a thief/assassin, and even a beggar. The type of character you pick will determine the type of gear and clothing you begin with. A hunter will have a bow, a mage will have a staff and a couple spells, a warrior will have a starter set of armor and a nice big melee weapon, a merchant will have a fat purse of gold. A beggar, naturally, will have just some ragged clothing and a few coins. None of this modifies your actual stats, just your starting gear, and you'll still get to customize your character's race, gender, and appearance before you begin playing.


I picked a thief/assassin. And that is definitely the vibe I am getting.
As far as dragons themselves go, you’ve got a number of options. You can turn them off completely, allowing yourself to pretend they have not yet awoken. You can activate just the scripted dragon encounters (which take place at word walls and burial grounds) so you'll still have a few dragons to slay. Or, you can turn on the random encounters as well, so they'll appear in the game as they usually do.
You can turn dragon soul absorption off, allowing you to fight and kill dragons without absorbing their souls, as if you were a run-of-the-mill adventurer instead of the fabled Dragonborn. Best of all, you can always adjust your dragon options later, meaning you won’t be married to any particular dragon-related setup. If you do want to become the Dragonborn at some point in your game, just enable the dragons, absorb a dragon soul, and then visit those old guys on the top of the mountain. That’ll kick off the main Skyrim quest. And, until then, no one will accuse you of being the Dragonborn.

If you don't want to choose a character class or starting spot, the mod is happy to do it for you. Just launch the game with everything set on random, and see what happens. Once I spawned as a warrior at a campsite. A couple hunters were staring at me as if I just stepped out of the gloom to warm my hands at their fire. Another time, I appeared as a thief inside a fort filled with bandits, as if I'd just snuck in to loot the place. Another character of mine appeared at a tavern, as if he were just another weary traveler looking for a drink before going on his way. It's fun, and it lends itself to role-playing and building a little story for your new character. Who are they? What are they doing here? And, where are they going next?


Normally I'd pick the lock, but this time I'm just a lowly merchant. I know: I'll sleep my way out!
One time I got a merchant character who started in a jail cell. Perhaps he'd been doing some shady dealings. Maybe he was more of a con man, a thief in merchant's clothing. Boom. I've already got a story for him. Another time, I appeared as as an assassin in the town of Rorikstead. I could only assume I was there to murder one of the residents. Boom. Story. Another time, I spawned near a Forsworn settlement near Morthal, and they immediately attacked. Now my character is committed to wiping out the Forsworn. Whoops, no, he's dead. But if he hadn't died, he'd totally have a story!


No need to create a back-story for this fellow. The Forsworn saw to that.
Skyrim Unbound is a great way to kick off a new adventure. (I only wish I'd had it back when I wrote The Elder Strolls.) Leave the Dragonborn stuff aside for the moment, roll up a new character, and see where they land. It won't be long before you've created a new story and are living a new life.


Who is that mysterious Argonian at the bar? Somebody? Nobody? I guess it could be anybody.
Installation: Two choices here. You can subscribe to it through the Steam Workshop. When you start a new game, you'll be presented with a series of prompts on the type of character you want, where you'd like to be placed in the world, and so on.
To get the most out of this mod, however, you’ll also want to subscribe to SkyUI, which means also installing and launching the game with the Skyrim Script Extender (long-ish video on how to install and launch the game with SKSE here). This will allow you to configure the mod through the menu screen and change your dragon-related options later in the game. This is how I used the mod for this column, and I definitely recommend using it alongside SkyUI and SKSE.

Those silver metal briefcases you see secret agents using in movies are cool. Walking away from explosions as if you’ve seen a million of them is cool. Destroying your enemies and slipping away scot-free is cool. You can find all of that combined cool in Briefcase Bombs, a mod for Fallout: New Vegas, which lets you build timed charges into briefcases, plop them at the feet of your enemies, set the timer, and then stroll casually away. Boom.
First things first. If I’m going to be carrying around slick silver briefcases like some kind of secret agent, I need some secret agent duds. When I load my game I find myself looking like this:


I can't carry a briefcase around in this get-up. I'll look insane.
This look is fine for bashing in members of Caesar's Legion, but I'm going to be carrying out calculated assassinations in population centers. Too suspicious.


That's more like it.
Playing as a woman, naturally, I had to use this mod just to be able to put on a suit. Also, I killed a gangster and took his fedora, but when I put it on my womanly-woman head, it turned into a pillbox hat with a veil. BOOOO. I’m an agency assassin, not a debutante. Stupid magic hat.
Now, I visit my contact, Mr. Holdout, outside a casino in Vegas. The mod lets him sell me schematics for the briefcase bomb, both versions: regular ‘splodey version, and nuke version. Yup. Nuke in a briefcase. Want. I buy both, and start gathering the ingredients. First up: briefcases! The mod makes them not just storage containers but items you can pick up and take with you. As chance would have it, I was recently at the Atomic Wrangler Casino, and noticed a bunch of briefcases in the cashier’s booth.


I'll be back.
I pick the lock, creep in, and take ‘em all (along with the money). Next, I’ll need dynamite, and I know where to find that: Powder Gangers have got plenty. I apparently was very helpful to the Powder Gangers at some point in my life, because they're all very nice and think nothing of me visiting their camps, poking through their things, and killing them to search their bodies. Weirdly, killing them in cold blood gives me karma, but stealing dynamite from their camps loses me karma.
Now I’ll need some egg timers, and that’s where being a slick secret agent is put on hold for a while as I scour every kitchen and scrap pile I can find. Since the Powder Gangers are being so nice about everything, I head to their stronghold, the NCR Correctional Facility, and nose around in all their drawers and boxes. Eventually, I find one near some guy named Hannigan, and later (much later) locate a few more in random spots in the world.
I head to Novac to use the workbench there and raid the shelves for the rest of the scrap needed. Now, to dispatch my enemies. Which enemies? The ones I’ve just made. See, every secret agent knows the first rule is to leave no traces. And I’ve been leaving traces all over the wastelands. Mr. Holdout, for instance. He knows I bought the schematics. When people start dying of exploding briefcases, he'll know who's doing it. He's got to be dealt with.


Hey? Can you watch my stuff for a minute?
I approach Mr. Holdout, put a briefcase down beside him, and set the timer for 25 seconds. Then I stroll casually away.


Thanks.
No one suspects me or comes running. It's just an unfortunate explosion with no one to blame, especially not the woman walking calmly away in the other direction. Now, to take care of that cashier at the casino. He's missing seven briefcases. He's bound to wonder why. He might start asking questions about that woman who came up to his cage and stared at his seven briefcases thirty seconds before they vanished.


Looks like he... CASHED OUT.
Next, I head back to the NCR Correctional Facility where I found that egg timer. Egg timers just don’t disappear, and that Hannigan guy has probably been wandering around asking if anyone’s seen his egg timer in a loud voice. Time to silence that voice.


Hey, Egg Timer Boy. Looks like your TIME...

... is EGG. I mean, UP. Your time is UP.
That’s all of my enemies taken care of! Of course, I still want to build a briefcase nuke and blow something up with it, but I haven’t come across any mini-nukes, which is the main ingredient. I finally find one, at Nellis Air Force Base, where a Boomer tending to a cornfield has a nuke launcher on her back. I try to pick-pocket a mini-nuke off her, but she catches me. I’m super popular here at the base, for doing good deeds I exactly can't remember, so it’s not a big deal, but I still need that mini-nuke. How to get it?
I decide to use my last briefcase bomb to bomb the Boomer to death so I can take her nuke and make a new briefcase bomb. If that sounds convoluted and pointless -- bombing someone just so you can build another bomb -- you just don’t understand the secret agent game. I shadow her until she stops to water the crops, then place a briefcase at her feet.


Looks like this year's HARVEST...

... is going to b-AGGGGGH STOOD TOO CLOSE TO THAT ONE. WAY TOO CLOSE.
After healing my wounded limbs, I build my briefcase nuke. Where to use it? Where have I left evidence that needs to be erased? Oh, wait, I know.

No witnesses. No evidence. Mission accomplished. And listen, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? I still have a briefcase or two lying around. I’d hate to have to use them.
Installation: You'll need the official Gun Runners Arsenal DLC to use this mod. It's a couple bucks on Steam.
Download the mod, extract both the .esp and .bsa files and drop them into your New Vegas data folder. Make sure you checkbox the .esp file when you load the game.

Remember when buying a game didn’t feel like a guarantee of seeing the ending? There are still hard games out there, Dark Souls flying the flag most recently, but increasingly, the challenge has dripped out or at least softened, often leading to sadly wasted opportunities. What would Skyrim be like, for instance, if its ice and snow wasn’t simply cosmetic, but actually punished you for going mountain climbing in your underpants?

With a quick mod – Frostfall in this case – you’re forced to dress up warm before facing the elements, and things become much more interesting. That’s just one example, and over the next couple of pages you’ll find plenty more. These aren’t mods that just do something cheap like double your enemy’s hit-points, they’re full rebalances and total conversions. Face their challenge, and they’ll reward you with both a whole new experience and the satisfaction of going above and beyond the call of duty.

Misery
Game: Stalker: Call of Pripyat
Link: ModDB



All those weapons scattered around? Gone. Anomalies? Now more dangerous. Magic mini-map? Forget it. Valuable quest rewards? Good luck. Things you do get: thirsty, and factions who send goons after you if you anger them. On the plus side Pripyat is much more active, with a complete sound overhaul, and new NPCs to meet – who all have to play by the rules too, with no more infinite ammo. If you can survive here, you’ve got a good chance when the actual apocalypse comes.

Project Nevada
Fallout: New Vegas
Link: Nexus Mods



Nevada is a good example of making things more difficult without being openly psychotic. Levelling is slower, players and NPCs get less health, and obvious features are now in, such as armour only being a factor in headshots if the target actually has head protection. It’s also possible to toggle some extra-hardcore options, such as food no longer healing and taking care of hunger/thirst/ sleep on the move. There’s a sack of new content, and an Extra Options mod is also available, offering even more control.

Brutal Doom
Game: Doom
Link: ModDB



Despite what modern ‘old-school’ shooters would have you think, Doom was a relatively sedate experience – fast running speed, yes, but lots of skulking in the dark and going slow. Not any more! Brutal Doom cranks everything up to 11, then yawns and goes right for 25.6. We’re talking extra shrapnel, execution attacks, tougher and faster monsters, metal music, and blood, blood, blood as far as your exploding eyes can see. It’s compatible with just about any level you can throw at it, turning even E1M1 into charnel house devastation. The enemies don’t get it all their own way, as Doomguy now starts with an assault rifle rather than simply a pistol, and a whole arsenal of new guns has been added to the Doom collection – including the BFG’s big brother.



Full Combat Rebalance 2
Game: The Witcher 2
Link: RedKit



This streamlines the combat and makes the action closer to how Geralt’s adventure might have played out in the books. He’s more responsive, can automatically parry incoming attacks, begins with his Witcher skills unlocked, and no longer has to spend most fights rolling around like a circus acrobat. But he’s in a tougher world, with monsters now figuring out counterattacks much faster, enemies balanced based on equipment rather than levels, and experience only gained from quests, not combat. Be warned this is a 1.5GB file, not the megabyte Hotfix that’s claimed.

Requiem
Game: Skyrim
Link: Nexus



Elder Scrolls games get ever more streamlined, and further from the classic RPG experience. Requiem drags Skyrim back, kicking and screaming. The world is no longer levelled for your convenience. Bandits deliver one-hit kills from the start. The undead mock arrows, quietly pointing out their lack of internal organs with a quick bonk to your head. Gods hold back their favour from those who displease them. Most importantly, stamina is now practically a curse. Heavy armour and no training can drain it even if you’re standing still, and running out in battle is Very Bad News. Combine this with Frostfall, and Skyrim finally becomes the cold, unforgiving place it claims to be.

Radious
Total War: Shogun 2
Link: TWCenter



Not only is this one of the most comprehensive mods any Total War game has ever seen, its modular nature makes it easy to pick and choose the changes that work best for the experience you want. Together, the campaign AI is reworked, as are the skills and experience systems, diplomacy and technology trees. There are over 100 new units. Campaigns are also longer, providing more time to play with all this, with easier access to the good stuff early on in the name of variety. There’s even a sound module that adds oomph to rifles. Add everything, or only the bits you want. It’s as much of a tactical decision as anything else on the road to conquering Japan.

Game of Thrones
Game: Crusader Kings II
Link: ModDB



Real history doesn’t have enough bite for you? Recast the whole thing with Starks, Lannisters, Freys and the rest and it will. This doesn’t simply swap a few names around, but works with the engine to recreate specific scenarios in the war for the Iron Throne. Individual characters’ traits are pushed into the foreground, especially when duels break out. Wildlings care little about who your daddy was. It’s best to know a fair amount about the world before jumping in, and the scenarios themselves contain spoilers, but you’re absolutely not restricted to just following the story laid down in the books.



Realistic Weapons
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Link: GTAGarage



Guess what this one does. A bowling league for Roman? Cars that drive themselves? A character who appears to tell Niko “You have $30,000 in your pocket, you don’t need to goon for assholes” after Act 2? No, of course not. These guns put a little reality back into the cartoon that is GTA. The missions weren’t written with that in mind, obviously, but there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a shot. Worst case: murdering random civilians on the street is much quicker, easier and more satisfying. At least until the cops show up to spoil the fun. Range, accuracy, damage, ammo and fire rate are all covered, though be warned that you shouldn’t expect perfect accuracy from your upgraded hardware. This is GTA after all. Realism is not baked into its combat engine.

The Long War
Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Link: NexusMods



You’re looking at eight soldier classes, many more missions, invaders as focused on upgrades as your own science team, and a much longer path to victory. Research is slow, not least to make early weapon upgrades more useful, while the aliens are constantly getting more powerful. Their ships are better, their terror missions are more regular, and more of them show up for battle. In exchange, you get to field more Interceptors, the council is easier to appease, and the ETs don’t cheat as much.

Ziggy's Mod
Game: Far Cry 3
Link: NexusMods



Ziggy makes Rook Island a more natural place, removing mission requirements for skills, cutting some of the easier ways to earn XP, increasing spawn rates to make the island busier, and throwing away the magic mini-map in favour of a compass. The second island is also unlocked from the start. Smaller changes include randomised ammo from dropped weapons, being able to climb hills that you should realistically be able to, and wingsuit abilities made available earlier to get more out of them.

Terrafirmacraft
Game: Minecraft
Link: Terrafirmacraft



Minecraft has a Survival mode, but it’s not desperately challenging. Terrafirmacraft takes it seriously, with hunger and thirst that must be dealt with at all times, and key elements added such as the need to construct support beams while mining to prevent cave-ins, and a seasonal cycle that determines whether or not trees will produce fruit. Many more features are to be added, but there’s enough here already to make survival about much more than throwing together a Creeper-proof fort.



Synergies Mod
Game: Torchlight II
Link: Synergies Mod



This adds a new act to the game, over a hundred monsters, new rare bosses, a new class – the Necromancer – more and tougher monsters and the gear to take them on. There are also endgame raids to add challenge once the world is saved yet again, and more on the way – including two new classes (Paladin and Warlock). It’s the top-ranked Torchlight II mod on Steam Workshop, and easily the most popular. Be aware that it’s still in development, and has a few rough edges.

Civilization Nights
Game: Civilization V
Link: Steam Workshop



While Brave New World has officially given Civ V a big shake up, for many players Nights remains its most popular add-on. It’s a comprehensive upgrade, adding new buildings, wonders, technologies and units, with a heavy focus on policies and making the AI better. The single biggest change is how it calculates happiness, citizens adding cheer simply by existing, but the slow march of war and other miseries detracting from the good times. Annexed a city? Don’t expect too many ticker-tape parades. Yet keeping happiness up is crucial, as it’s also the core of a strong military. This rebalancing completely changes how you play, while the other additions offer plenty of scope for new tactics and even more carefully designed civilisations.

Ultimate Difficulty Mod
Game: Dishonored
Link: TTLG Forums



This makes Dishonored’s enemies more attentive, faster and able to hear a pin drop from the other side of the map. When you get into a fight, it quickly becomes an all-out street war. The biggest change is to Dishonored’s second most abusable ability: the Lean (Blink of course being #1). Corvo can no longer sit behind scenery, lean out into an enemy’s face and be politely ignored. He’s now much more likely to be spotted – especially in ghost runs, where his advantages are now limited to the Outsider’s gifts rather than the Overseers’ continued lack of a local Specsavers.

Hardcore
Game: Deus Ex
Link: ModDB



New augmentations! Altered AI! Randomised inventories! Also a few time-savers: instead of separate keys and multitools for instance, a special keyring has both, while upgrades are used automatically if necessary. Difficulty also changes the balance considerably, from the standard game to ‘Realistic’ mode where you only get nine inventory slots, to ‘Unrealistic’, which makes JC Denton the cyborg killing machine he’s meant to be, but at the cost of facing opponents who warrant it. In this mode he gets double-jumping powers, and automatically gobbles health items when he gets badly wounded. Good luck though, I still got nowhere.

Necromancy has a bad rap in Skyrim, which is a little weird. With the mountains of corpses the Dragonborn leaves in his wake, you’d think bringing a few of them back from the dead wouldn’t be such a big deal. Undeath, created by modder Antioch08, tasks you with snuffing out a teeming cabal of  necromancers... but it also gives you the option of continuing their evil work, learning their dark secrets, and performing a ritual to transform yourself into a powerful Lich capable of commanding an army of the undead. Which path did I choose? Here's a hint. That image above? That's me.
(A couple notes up front: your character needs to be level thirty or above to play this mod, and it uses assets from the official Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLC, so you’ll need both of those. You're also going to need your enchanting skill maxed out, and you should have almost 300 Magicka to really enjoy the fruits of this mod.)


Slaughtering a bunch of innocents? But... that's MY trademark move.
The mod begins with a request to investigate a missing (dead) convoy of Vigilants of Stendarr (those goodie-goodies who stroll around in robes looking for evil-doers). After searching bodies at the scene of the ambush, I discover one of the attackers was kind enough to carry his orders with him, nicely written down on paper, just as you'd expect from a super-secret cabal determined to hide their existence from the world at large. This clue leads me to a secluded tower, where one particular necromancer has left a few journals detailing his plans to unlock a dark ritual that will allow him to become a powerful Lich. He’s also sent some followers on several missions across Skyrim to collect important objects he’ll need to complete the ritual.


Since they already dug him up... couldn't hurt to open the coffin for a little peek. Right?
After tracking down one of these groups, who are digging up a dead priest with the intent on cutting out his heart, the mod gives me a choice. I can rebury the priest and go on with my mission to extinguish this evil plot, which seems like the sensible thing to do. OR. I can, y'know, finish digging up the priest and cut out his heart and stick it in my pocket, thus completing the necromancers mission, only without the necromancers, because I just killed them.
I take the heart. Why not? The hard work is already done, and the guy is already dead, and I've been meaning to dabble in necromancy anyway.


A human skull in the pot, throw in a couple mushrooms... baby, you've got a stew goin'!
After tracking down and killing another group of acolytes, I find that they were brewing a weird potion up top of a hill. They’ve done most of the work already, and the recipe is nearby as well. Again, I'm given the option to dump their cauldron on the ground, putting an end to this evil business! But, I hate to see a meal go to waste, and most of the ingredients are close by... what the heck! Soup's on!


The commute is a bitch, but the necromancers must pay very little rent out here.
Eventually, I've killed all the necromancer dweebs and completed their tasks for them, because they're all to busy being killed by me to do it themselves. Now that I've got all their leader's precious belongings, it only stands to reckon that I hunt him down and kill him too, thus ending his evil plot. And beginning mine.


Did I come at a bad time?
I find the leader deep underground in a massive network of ruins and tunnels, and mow my way through his remaining assistants and skeletons before hacking him to death. If I were interested in putting an end to his plans, I guess the mod would be over right then and there. However, I’m not looking to just kill a bunch of hooded weirdoes for the fun of it. Imma be a Lich!
Becoming a Lich is not exactly easy, however. The head necromancer is dead, but I need to figure out exactly what he was doing before I can continue his work. I read his notes and scour the massive dungeon, eventually locating some hidden items and placing them in the right spots. Then, after finding a massive Black Book, I'm whisked away to the weird library dimension of Apocrypha.


This is not a toilet.
I won’t go into details, but the library dimension kind of sucks (it kind of sucked in the Dragonborn DLC as well). You have to run around with a torch (the darkness physically hurts you) getting attacked by the same monster over and over and looking for switches to open gates so you can collect a bunch of items to place in the right spots. This takes roughly forever, but eventually, I've completed the quest and I'm whisked back to the real world.


Starting to think necromancy might be a little evil or something.
Once I’m back in Tamriel, there's more work to be done before I can Lich-out all over everyone. I require a few more items and a secluded spot to perform the forbidden ritual. As it happens, a shadowy merchant called The Broker has been watching me hack my way to the top of the necromancy ladder, and sends me a note, via courier, inviting me to check out her ghoulish shop, where I can purchase most of what I need, including the deed to a nice underground lair where I can transform with some privacy.
More work follows, of the gathering kind, then the crafting kind, then the enchanting kind, and finally, after closely following the intricate instructions, I glug an evil potion of my own making and drop stone dead on the floor. Whoops! Missed a step.


A side-effect of becoming undead is becoming dead.
I reread everything, try again, and this time it pays off. I'm a Lich!


Houston, we have Lich-Off.
Returning to the surface in human form, I step into Solitude, ready to unleash my powerful evil upon the city. I transform into a Lich, hovering above the ground, bathed in eldritch magic. All will tremble at my hideous shade! All will die at my bony hand! All will be raised as my willing zombie servants! And then a courier walks up and tells me he's got a delivery for me.


Dude. DUDE. C'mon. Tryin' to be an evil skeleton ghost monster and you're FUCKING RUINING IT.
Well. Not quite the dramatic display of unspeakable evil I spent the last four or five hours unlocking. Still, after the courier wanders off, completely nonplussed at delivering a telegram to a TERRIFYING HOVERING LICH, I'm free to (somewhat sheepishly) cast spells, terrorize the locals, blast them with magic, and raise those who have fallen to fight for me.
Except for the damn Apocrypha level, this mod is pretty great (and quite challenging). There's also apparently a ton of extra content I didn't even get to. It's also the most reading-intensive mod I've played, and knowing what to do and how to do it is dependent on the careful reading of journals and books. Pick up all the new books and journals you find! Read them! Take them with you! It's the only way you'll become a Lich like me.
Installation: Download the mod here. I used the Nexus Mod Manager to install it, and you should too, because while there's a manual download, I don't see any manual installation instructions anywhere. This mod also doesn't really hold your hand except in the early quests, so if you get stuck, read the FAQ contained on this page.

A new post on the Elder Scrolls Online blog offers a look at the creation of everyone’s favorite flaming daedra, the flame atronach. The ESO dev team has been focusing on lots of flickering flame effects and suitably creepy demonic sound effects to bring the creatures to life.



“Sound effects are critical for any creature—especially for one with so many kinds of movements and attacks,” the post reads. “Most of us are familiar with the kinds of sounds fire can make, but how do we create believable audio for a creature of animate, magical flame? Our Sound Designers get a good look at creatures and their animations before they get to work to get an idea of the kinds of sounds they’ll need to create. For the flame atronach, they imagined how its various attacks would sound right away. Utilizing huge sound libraries, they found sounds for swinging torches, campfires, and even an actual geyser.”

The video shows off a lot of details in a short time. There’s enchanted weapons, dual-wielding, a first-person perspective and dodging attacks with combat rolls. There’s also the inevitable death that comes when you charge face-first into a group of flame atronachs. And with a fire damage weapon? Come on, guy, it’s like you’re not even trying.



Elder Scrolls Online is shaping up quickly, aiming for an early 2014 launch. Check out Chris's impression from his hands-on time back in May.

Perry recently told us about a mod called Gifts of the Outsider that imports the magic powers from Dishonored into Skyrim: Blink, Possession, Bend Time, Devouring Swarm, Wind Blast, and Void Gaze. I decided to the use the mod not just for its powers, but also to reenact the plot of Dishonored in Skyrim: the tale of an honorable man seeking revenge after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. It’ll be just like Dishonored, only in Skyrim, and starring a furry woman with a tail. Just call me Khorvo.

Don’t worry, this will be supremely light on Dishonored spoilers, I'll cover a few of the activities you perform during the Dishonored campaign, Skyrim style. Let’s get started. What’s the first thing you do in Dishonored?

Play Hide-and-Seek with a Child

This is how REAL assassins train. Next: hopscotch.

I find some kids running around in Solitude, but they don’t want to play hide-and-seek, so we play tag instead. Minette Vinius and I chase each other around, forming a close personal bond that will surely keep me motivated in the dark days to come. I catch her and tag her and then I fast-travel to Whiterun so she’ll never be able to catch me and she'll be “It” forever.

Go To Prison for a Crime I Didn’t Commit

In Whiterun, I use a Frenzy spell on some guy standing around in the city. He goes nuts and starts attacking anyone nearby. The guards run over and arrest me while he is killed in the background. I’m shocked and outraged. I didn’t kill anyone! It was all him! You won’t get away with this! I will have my revenge! Looks like I’ve been... DISHONORED!

Can you believe the crime around here, officer? Wait, what did I do?

Escape from Prison

Not a problem! Pulling a lockpick out of my butt, I open the cell door, sneak through the prison, collect my gear, and slip back out into the streets. You’ll all pay for what you’ve done, I silently vow. All of you. It’s time to reclaim my honor. But how?

Meet the Outsider

Since I’m a wanted woman in Whiterun, I need to get away to plot my revenge. I head out to an abandoned house west of Riften, where I find a book and read it. I appear in Limbo, where everything is floaty and slanty, and meet The Outsider. He gives me the Blink power, which lets me teleport short distances. He tells me there are other powers I can collect by visiting his other shrines. Could these powers be the key to destroying those who wronged me?

I promise I'll only use Blink for good or for revenge or for fun.

Assassinate an Important Religious Figure

There are plenty of religious types in Skyrim, but when I think about one I’d like to assassinate, a particular zealot immediately comes to mind: Heimskr, the Nord Priest of Talos. Even if you don’t know his name, you know him: he’s the dude who stands in the middle of Whiterun and screeches incessantly about Talos, all day, every day. Oh, and is it a coincidence that the spot he stands in is just yards from where I was arrested for my “crime?” Not a chance. His death will mark the beginning of my quest to dis-dishonor myself.

This looks cool but I'm actually sliding off the statue for the 8th time.

I creep through Whiterun, using my new Blink spell. It’s neat, it really does zip you around, even on top of buildings, though I tend to slowly slide off. I blink onto the statue behind Heimskr, then to the ground behind him, and then I stab him in the back. I blink away onto a rooftop and the guards look around, confused, having no idea where I went. Actually, they don’t seem confused at all. They immediately shoot me with a bunch of arrows. I run away, but only because I'm in a hurry to reclaim my honor.

Now to just fold up my sword and OWW IT’S NOT A FOLD-UP SWORD

Now that Heimskr is dead, it’s time to find another Outsider shrine, collect a new power, and choose a new target. In the sewers under Riften, I find the shrine, caress the skull, and acquire the Devouring Swarm rune.

Assassinate Two People in a Brothel

Haelga’s Bunkhouse in Riften isn’t a brothel, but it sort of sounds like it could be. You know there are at least a few inappropriate back-rubs going on in there. I summon up a swarm of rats, and try to kill two people with them.

The perfect crime. Good luck trying to arrest swarm of rats, coppers!

Okay, the rats sort of killed everyone in the entire building. Those rats are NOT messing around. Having killed a room full of people with rats, a feeling seeps into my heart. I haven’t felt it in a long time, not since earlier today, but I know what that feeling is. It’s honor, slowly returning to me. I collect the Possession rune near the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, and I’m on to my next mission.

Abduct a Doctor on a Bridge

The first step goes well: I head to Dragon Bridge. I run into a bit of a snag here, though, as there do not appear to be any doctors out for a stroll across Dragon Bridge today. For a lesser assassin, that would be a problem, but I’m clever enough to find the owner of a lumber mill sitting nearby. A lumberjack is sort of like a doctor for trees, if doctors killed all of their patients and cut them into pieces, right? (The answer is: right.) He’s not on the bridge, but that can remedied with my new Possession spell. I leap into his mind and run him onto the bridge, where I pop out of the back of his head.

Revenge is a dish best served inside an innocent lumberjack’s head.

Having gotten him onto to the bridge, it’s time to abduct him off the bridge, which means possessing him again. I steer him off the other side of the bridge and into the wilderness. Abduction accomplished! I figure I’ll just keep possessing him and repossessing him and making him run so far away he’ll never find his way back, thus completing the abduction, but thirty seconds later we run into a bear and the bear kills him.

Looks like I got out of this dude’s head just in time.

I’ve just used magic to get a lumber mill owner murdered by a bear. I’m one step closer to regaining my honor. I visit another shrine and collect the Wind Blast rune.

Kill a Fancy Woman at a Fancy Party

There actually is a dinner party quest in Skyrim, but I’ve already completed it, so I need to find another fancy lady at a fancy place and kill her, fancy style. For honor. I know! The Blue Palace at Solitude. It’s the fanciest place I can think of.

Making sure to avoid Minette Vinius (I don’t want to get tagged “It” again!) I run through Solitude and enter The Blue Palace, which is run by Elisif The Fair, a fancy woman. I creep into the throne room, where there are some people hanging around. Looks like a party to me. Sorry I didn’t bring any WINE, I growl from the shadows, but I did bring some WIND!

Get it? Wine. Wind. Almost the same word. And so forth.

They don’t seem to get my wine/wind joke, probably because they are being slammed all over the room by magic wind. It’s a great spell: it’s like the Unrelenting Force shout, only you can hold down the button to keep it on, sending everyone flying all over the place until your Magicka is drained. After blowing everyone around the palace for a while, I head to the nearby mountains to collect the Bend Time rune. It’s time to kill the most important person in Skyrim.

It’s Time to Kill The Most Important Person In Skyrim

I figure the Jarl of Whiterun is the most important person in Skyrim, except for maybe me. I sneak into his chambers in the dead of night, slipping past a couple guards after slowing down time. It doesn’t quite work how I want: I was perfectly hidden from them until I cast the spell, which made them aware of me. The spell slows down time just fine, though, and even having seen me, the guards don’t seem to care that I’m creeping around near the Jarl’s bedroom casting time-bending spells in the dead of night.

You can’t really tell, but he is dying in slow motion. I can vouch for that.

The Jarl has an honorable, slow-motion death as I hack at his sleeping body. The guards run over to arrest me, and I try telling them that I’d rather die than go to prison, anticipating a fun Blink-filled escape from Whiterun. Unfortunately, Skyrim does that thing where it doesn’t select the line of dialogue I’m pointing at, so I accidentally bribe the guards and they peacefully escort me to the front door. Oh well.

Skip A Big Part of Dishonored’s Story To Avoid Spoilers

My easiest mission yet! I collect the final rune, Void Gaze, so I guess we’re ready for the big finale:

Kill Someone At a Lighthouse

Back in Solitude, I run around the lighthouse long enough discover there’s no one important in the lighthouse or on top of the lighthouse. There’s only Ma’zaka, the lighthouse keeper, but he’s downstairs in his little chambers. I sneak in, and use Void Gaze, which works like Detect Life, letting you see people through walls. I could possess him, run him up to the top of the lighthouse, and Wind Blast him off, but when you’re possessing someone they can’t open doors, so I have no way to get him out of his room. If I want to kill him, I’ll have to kill him right here.

Yep. There he is.

This isn’t quite the grand ending from Dishonored, though. I know that killing people with rats and blasting a fancy woman into her own ceiling and getting a lumberjack bear-mauled were all necessary -- absolutely necessary -- to regain my honor. But killing Ma’zaka, a humble, harmless lighthouse keeper in his own bedroom to end the story... it would just be complete anti-climax, wouldn’t it?

Yep. It was a complete anti-climax.

Lesson learned: if you want Dishonored’s story, go play Dishonored. If you want to have fun with Dishonored’s powers in Skyrim, though, this mod works great.

Installation: I installed this with the Nexus Mod Manager, but the mod looks as if it's just a single bsa and esp file. So, if you're doing it manually, just download the files and plop 'em in your Skyrim data folder (Steam > steamapps > common > skyrim > Data). No magic required.

Looking for more Skyrim mods? We recently updated out grand list of the best 50 for your perusal.

At QuakeCon last night, Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls Anthology, a special edition retail release containing every TES game, expansion and DLC pack. That's a hell of a lot of prison escapes, grand adventure, and stilted voice acting being packed into a single box. But if you're not tempted by an attractive re-release of games you likely already own, the developer is also packaging the ultimate in PC gaming physical rewards: five maps, covering Tamriel, Iliac Bay, Morrowind, Cyrodiil and Skyrim.

Here's what you'll get:




The Elder Scrolls Arena
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls III DLC: Tribunal
The Elder Scrolls III DLC: Bloodmoon
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV DLC: Knights of the Nine
The Elder Scrolls IV DLC: Shivering Isles
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V DLC: Dawnguard
The Elder Scrolls V DLC: Hearthfire
The Elder Scrolls V DLC: Dragonborn


Given Bethesda's tendency to bundle the official Oblivion add-ons onto retail discs, it's a likely bet that they'll be included as well. After all, it's not much of an anthology if it doesn't include Horse Armour.

It's a lovely looking artefact for fans of the series, but if you just want the games, there are cheaper options. With Bethesda running Steam sales this weekend in celebration of QuakeCon, expect to see Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim all get heavy discounts at some point. As for Arena and Daggerfall, both have been released as free downloads directly from Bethesda.

The Elder Scrolls Anthology will release September 13th in Europe, and September 10th in North America. It will cost £49.99 / $79.99 / €59.99 / $89.99AUD

Thanks, IGN.