Here’s one to put on your Fus Ra-Dar. A Skyrim multiplayer mod is about to enter closed beta, and will soon offer you and up to seven friends the chance to explore the snowy bit of Tamriel together. The devs say the closed beta won’t last long, and an open one will be hot on its heels.

It is worth bearing in mind that they said the mod was almost ready back in 2017. You’d be forgiven for thinking it would (Duh) Neh Viir come out, but if you Lis Slen Nuz your doubts should be set to rest.

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The Elder Scrolls Online is both an attempt to further the Elder Scrolls formula into something more dynamic and living, and a game that often seems dependent on nostalgia for its continued existence. 2017’s Morrowind expansion took us back to Elder Scrolls’ finest hour, last year’s Summerset was our first return to a land not seen since Arena, the original Scrolls game, and next, here be dragons. Again. And also many, many cat-people.

Pictured above is a photo of my cat wearing a promotional Skyrim hat in 2012. On brand, yeah?

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is as much a platform for mods as it is an open-world RPG about dumb dragons and dumber Vikings. Over the last seven years, an inconceivable number of them have been crafted, and while plenty have fallen by the wayside, others have become essential mainstays in anyone s mod library.

With Skyrim Special Edition, things got a bit more complicated. Some old mods worked, some exploded, some sort of worked and then exploded – they were unpredictable. Now, though, things have calmed down. Most of the big mods have been ported over, and there are alternatives in those cases where they haven t been. Regardless of which version you have, your biggest obstacle will be setting aside the time required to sift through them all. That s where this list comes in.

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Skywind – a grand mod project to rebuild Morrowind using Skyrim‘s slightly more contemporary tech – may be shooting for the moon, but those stars feel almost within reach thanks to its latest trailer, released yesterday. Taking us on an ominously (and professionally) narrated tour of House Dagoth’s volcano-side properties, it’s a testament to what a small team can achieve with the right tools, enough time and a lot of dedication. Check out the video below, and its official TES Renewal Project page here.

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Enderal: The Shards Of Order by SureAI is arguably the most impressive thing to come from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim‘s massive mod scene. While it may use Skyrim’s engine, it uses it to tell its own story in a new world, fully voiced and expertly produced. If there was any mod worthy of a high-profile release on Steam alongside Skyrim itself, it’d be Enderal. And that’s what’s happening.

While there’s some precedent for it (Skyrim Scipt Extender, a mod prerequisite, is available on Steam), Enderal is the first slab of game content to escape the Steam Workshop and establish its own store page. While there’s no date set for it yet, SureAI hope to release Enderal with its upcoming expansion on Steam soon, although you can get it direct from SureAI now.

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The Vikings have long ago invaded the coasts of pop culture on their dragon-headed longships and carved out their own Danelaw in the realm of video games. In recent years, they ve grown even bolder, taking over most genres from RTS to RPG, classic point and click adventure to action, with an utter disregard towards distinctions between AAA and indie. They ve settled in Hellblade and Frostrune, Dead in Vinland and The Witcher 3, God of War and Crusader Kings 2, and of course, The Banner Saga trilogy. Luckily, it s easy to spot a Viking. Horned helmets, mead-filled drinking horns, bloody battle axes and grim miens are a dead giveaway. When in doubt, tempt the suspected Viking with loot, then wait and see whether or not they can resist the urge to pillage.

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The Forgotten City, true to the spirit of its theme, is both a game that has yet to be released and is a game that has been available for years. While I’ve always been one of the few hold-outs that’s been annoyingly “meh” about Skyrim, I fired up my copy this week to play through the The Forgotten City, which began as an extensive mod for Elder Scrolls V. In 2019, it is getting a stand-alone version that reinvents and expands its lore, but keeps the intriguing mechanics intact. Now that I’ve played it once, I’m ready to play it a dozen more times in its next reincarnation.

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

The Forgotten City, a time-looping murder mystery which won an Australian Writers Guild Award as a mod for Skyrim, is becoming its own game. Developers Modern Storyteller announced last night that they’re “re-imagining” The Forgotten City as a standalone game in Unreal Engine. I missed the mod but this sounds like a fascinating Groundhog Day/The Last Express sort of time-looping mystery, sending us explore and alter the events that led to 26 explorers in an ancient underground Roman city being magically turned to gold after one breaks a law. Peep this trailer below. (more…)

You will, I am sure, be astonished to hear that Bethesda Game Studios are making another Elder Scrolls game. Today, during their E3 pressblast, they announced that The Elder Scrolls VI is now in pre-production. And… that’s about it. The game is a long, long way away, coming after Bethesda’s all-new Starfield – which is itself so far out that we don’t even know what it is. But! The Elder Scrolls VI exists. Bethesda don’t say where it’s set, but perhaps you can sniff some clues out in the teaser trailer below? (more…)