Farkas, useless. J'zargo, irritating. Argis the Bulwark, weird. If you want something done, you're best doing it yourself. Or is that with yourself? PsykotikKrymes' The Doppelganger Follower lets you add yourself as a companion in Skyrim Special Edition. 

Found in Riverwood's Sleeping Giant Inn, your new pal shares you likeness. They share your name, your learned shouts, and your spell arsenal. And as if that wasn't narcissistic enough, The Doppelganger Follower lets you marry yourself. Perhaps you'll treat yourself better than that cantankerous Moira.

More information, including installation instructions, for The Doppelganger Follower lives on its Nexus Mods page. 

There, creator PsykotikKrymes provides the following advice regarding player-set companion dialogue: "If you have a voice for your character that does not have the normal follower Dialogue, then you will need Relationship Dialogue Overhaul for this to work with the proper follower dialogue (High Elf, Khajiit female, or Elderly)[/left]."

I thought ending this story with something like have fun playing with yourself was too on the nose. So I'll instead leave you with this:

The timeline of the Elder Scrolls universe is divided into four ages—except there are also two ages before those, and one of them is entirely non-linear and yet somehow manages to contain a sequence of events in which supernatural beings come to existence from nothing. And then, at later points in the timeline, this timeless primordial chaos leaks through into the physical world and recurs, like reality itself is having an acid flashback.

The Elder Scrolls games have a complicated history, is what I'm saying. 

That's part of what makes them appealing to a certain kind of player. They give you the surface stuff of big, freeform open-world fantasy roleplaying, but if you want to dig for it there's more to find. There's even a recurring theme of the game's internal histories being contradictory because they're told from biased viewpoints, as if they're predesigned to be fodder for competing fan theories.

This timeline presents a broad overview of things that happen on the world of Nirn, and also puts the games in order. Each of the mainline Elder Scrolls RPGs is separated by years, sometimes a lot of them, and The Elder Scrolls Online confusingly leaps back in time to fill in a gap. You don't have to know this to enjoy them, but then you don't have to read the books and yet some of us do it anyway. Getting a handle on the history and metaphysics is entirely optional, but it adds to my enjoyment and maybe if you take a dip into it, it'll add to yours too.

The Dawn Era 

There are multiple creation myths in The Elder Scrolls, but the easiest one to grasp is the Anuad, because it comes in a handy children's version. According to the Anuad the first two beings to exist when everything else was void are the brothers Anu and Padomay, who represent order and chaos, light and dark. Where the light and darkness mingle Nir is brought into existence, and both brothers fall in love with her. She loves only Anu, however, and their coupling brings into existence 12 words. In his jealousy Padomay kills Nir and destroys the 12 worlds, but Anu saves enough of their fragments to create one: Nirn.

Anu and Padomay fight a final time, and where Padomay's blood falls it creates the demons or Daedra, while Anu's blood creates the stars, and where their blood mixes the gods or Aedra are made. That's the kid's book version.

Among the first of those gods is Lorkhan, a trickster, who convinces the Aedra to create the mortal plane, while the Daedra go off to make their own planes within Oblivion. Some of the Aedra realize Lorkhan isn't being upfront about the cost of this creation, that they'll have to sacrifice much of their own power in the act. They leave for Aetherius, a plane of pure magic, allowing magicka to leak into the world through the holes their departure leaves. Other Aedra step back to resume their godhood, becoming the Divines. According to human myths the gods then create mortals, while the elves believe some Aedra stay permanently to sacrifice their immortality and become their ancestors. 

But before that, the Aedra convene to determine how Lorkhan should be punished for tricking them. Akatosh, dragon god of time, builds the Adamantine Tower on the continent of Tamriel to be their courthouse. Lorkhan's punishment is to have his heart torn out, and it forms the Red Mountain on the island of Vvardenfell.

That's just one version of the story of course. The in-game book called The Monomyth is a handy collection of competing creation stories.  

The Merethic Era 

Known as the Merethic Era because it's dominated by the Mer, a.k.a. the elves, this period of 2,500 years begins with the construction of the Adamantine Tower and ends with the founding of the Camoran Dynasty. In between, the elves travel to the continent of Tamriel when their homeland of Aldmeri is lost, settling in different areas. The Dwemer take up residence underground, the Altmer on Summerset Isle, the Bosmer in the forests, the Chimer (who later become the Dunmer) in Morrowind, and the Ayleids take slaves from the local human population and found the Ayleid Empire. The Orsimer are corrupted by Daedra and become the orcs, while humans from the northern continent of Atmora also emigrate to Tamriel under the leadership of Ysgramor. 

Ysgramor's creation of the runic language allows human recorded history to begin, ushering in the First Era and some actual dates. 

The First Era

0

King Eplear unites the Bosmer wood elves, founds the nation of Valenwood, and begins the Camoran Dynasty. 

143 

Harald, a descendent of Ysgramor, is crowned first High King of the Nords and declares Windhelm the capital of his nation, Skyrim. 

240 

High King Vrage the Gifted of Skyrim begins a campaign of conquest in various elven lands, taking High Rock, all of Morrowind except Vvardenfell, and parts of Cyrodiil, most of which is at this time held by the elven Ayleid Empire. 

243 

Human slaves in the Ayleid Empire rebel and take control of the White-Gold Tower at its centre. Their leader Alessia declares herself first Empress of the Cyrodillic Empire, goes on to formalize worship of the Divines, and is later declared a saint.

369 

A dispute over who will be crowned High King of the Nords leads to the War of Succession, and the Nordic territories outside Skyrim take this opportunity to begin struggling for independence. 

416 

The Chimer and Dwemer unite to drive the Nords out of Morrowind. 

700 

When the Chimer learn the Dwemer are constructing a golem called the Numidium powered by the Heart of Lorkhan and that this "brass god" is intended to become a blasphemous new deity, the peace between them is broken. They go to war at the Battle of Red Mountain, during which the Dwemer vanish—an event that's never explained. 

The Chimer lord Indoril Nerevar, favored of the Daedric Prince Azura, dies under mysterious circumstances, for which Azura curses their people to be transformed into the Dunmer or dark elves. (There's a lot going on here and you should honestly just play Morrowind for a much fuller explanation.)

792 

The land of Yokuda is destroyed and the survivors flee to Hammerfell, where they eventually become known as the Redguards. 

950 

The city of Orsinium, capital of the orcs, is attacked by a union of neighboring kingdoms. The siege lasts 30 years, after which the city finally falls and is razed. 

1029 

High Rock joins the Alessian Empire. 

1200

A monotheistic sect of anti-elf extremists called the Alessian Order, who have dominated the Alessian Empire since the fourth century, attempt a ritual to separate the elven god Auriel from Akatosh, the Dragon God of Time (the two are closely connected, and possibly just aspects of the same being viewed by different cultures). This goes so wrong that time shatters and the non-linearity of the Dawn Era recurs in an event called the Dragon Break. For 1,008 years time ceases to function properly.

This is all just a theory, and an alternate theory states that a clerical error left official records blank during this period.

2321 

Western Cyrodiil attempts to gain independence from the Alessian Empire in a decade-long conflict called the War of Righteousness.

2703 

Invaders from the land of Akavir land in Tamriel, forcing Cyrodiil to unite against them, forging the Second Empire and beginning the Reman Dynasty. 

2714 

The Second Empire conquers Valenwood. 

2811 

Reman II goes to war against the Argonian lizardfolk, and their home of Black Marsh becomes an Imperial province. 

2920 

A truce between Morrowind and the Empire is broken when a Dunmer fortress is sacked. In response the dark elf assassins guild, the Morag Tong, murder Reman III and his son. An Akaviri Potentate takes over and declares the end of the Reman Dynasty and the beginning of the Second Era. 

The Second Era

230

The Mages Guild is formed by Vanus Galerion after he leaves an older magical fraternity called the Psijic Order. Galerion opposes the practice of necromancy, and proposes to make magical items and potions available to the public for a price.

283 

Potentate Versidue-Shaie declares martial law across the Empire, beginning 37 years of warfare that leaves the Imperial Legion the only military force of any strength in Tamriel.

309 

The Khajiit cat-people found the province of Elsweyr by uniting two minor kingdoms. 

320 

In response to a rise in banditry due to the absence of military forces beyond the Legion, the forerunner of the Fighters Guild is founded. 

324 

The Morag Tong assassinate Potentate Versidue-Shaie. 

430 

Potentate Savirien-Chorak and all his heirs are assassinated, bringing the Second Empire to an end. Historians dispute who was responsible but what do you want, three guesses?

431 

No longer protected by the Empire, the rebuilt orc capital of Orsinium is sacked again, this time by the Bretons and Redguards.

567 

The Daggerfall Covenant unites High Rock, Hammerfell, and Orsinium, and the orcs are given the right to rebuild their capital one more time. 

572 

A second Akaviri invasion captures Windhelm in Skyrim but is defeated after being trapped between the Dunmer and a united force of Nords and Argonians. Morrowind, Skyrim, and Black Marsh sign the Ebonheart Pact to make this temporary alliance permanent. 

580 

Elsweyr, Valenwood, and the Summerset Isles unite as the Aldmeri Dominion.

583 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls Online. 

852 

Tiber Septim begins the Tiber Wars in an attempt to unite the nations of Tamriel and form the Third Empire.  

864 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. 

896 

Tiber Septim uses a rebuilt Numidium to complete his conquest of Tamriel, destroying the golem afterwards. Then he declares the Second Era over. 

The Third Era

38 

Tiber Septim dies. Followers of Talos believe he ascends to godhood. 

119 

Pelagius III, later known as Pelagius the Mad, becomes emperor. (He's worth a mention just because his hip bone forms the basis of a fun sidequest in Skyrim.) 

172 

Start date of An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire. 

249 

The Camoran Usurper invades Valenwood. 

399 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls: Arena. 

405 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.

417 

The Numidium is rebuilt again. Something about this powerful artifact's use results in another brief Dragon Break, called The Warp in the West, during which the Numidium is seen in six different places at once, fulfilling the aims of different factions. (This conveniently makes all six potential endings of Daggerfall canon simultaneously.) 

427 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.

433 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. 

The Fourth Era

5 

In Vvardenfell the large rock containing the Ministry of Truth that hovers over Vivec falls, devastating the city and causes floods and landslides. The Red Mountain erupts. 

22

The elven supremacist faction called the Thalmor take over Summerset Isle, and the high elves leave the Empire. Within a decade they take Valenwood as well, beginning a new Aldmeri Dominion. 

98 

During the 'Void Nights' both moons, Masser and Secunda, vanish from the sky. The Khajiit, who are bound to the Lunar Lattice and whose children have adult forms determined by the phase of the moons they're born under, are particularly distraught. When the Thalmor take credit for the moons' return, Elsweyr agrees to join the resurgent Aldmeri Dominion. 

171 

The Aldmeri Dominion demand tribute from the Empire, as well as the banning of Talos worship, the ceding of a significant portion of Hammerfell, and the disbanding of the Emperor's order of spies and bodyguards, the Blades. Emperor Titus II refuses all demands, and the Great War begins. (The singleplayer campaign of The Elder Scrolls: Legends takes place during this war.)

175 

The Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire sign a treaty called the White-Gold Concordat, agreeing to enforce a ban on Talos worship.  

201 

Start date of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.

If you managed to make it all the way through this, why not follow it up with Major events in the Fallout timeline?

In 2015, modder gg77 created a Skyrim mod which let players shapeshift into creatures other than werewolves, like werebears and werebats and also Godzilla. Ordinary things like that. But what if you want to, say, ride Godzilla instead of become him? To tower over your foes in the afternoon but still be able to fit through a doorway in the evening? More importantly, what if you want to ride Mecha Godzilla, who is a mech and therefore better than regular Godzilla? Well, now there's a mod for that too, also courtesy of gg77: it's called Godzilla and Company, and it adds not one, but three kaiju mounts to Skyrim. 

As you may have guessed, the headlining act is Mecha Godzilla, in all his shiny metal glory. You can also ride vanilla Godzilla if you're wrong, as well as the pterodactyl-like Rodan. Temper your fantasies of burninating the countryside, though: the mod's massive mounts are meant purely for riding and won't help you in combat. That being said, using the mod's monster eggs, you can at least spawn an army of giant monsters in Whiterun. I think we net zero on that. 

You can find download and installation instructions on Nexus Mods. You'll need to fiddle with some game files to get the camera to work properly, and the end result is still a little janky, but that's a small price to pay for a view like this: 

With so many to choose from, our list of the best Skyrim mods spans a whopping ten pages. Filipe's 'Strength of the Gods' is my newest favourite because, well, have a gander at the footage below and tell me it's not hilarious.

With the simplest of descriptions—"strike your enemies down with the power of a god and watch them fly away!"—Filipe's project grants the Dragonborn superhuman strength. As the footage above shows, punching enemies around the map yields some pretty funny results—and doing so in vaults and keeps and the likes sends baddies pinballing off walls, floors and ceilings.  

Activating it is straightforward, too: head to the Shrine of Talos in Whiterun, pick up and read the tome, and, voila, your latest conjuration spell is good to go. You can't miss it, really, but here's what you're looking for:

I'd suggest Strength of the Gods is a mod best explained in practice. To achieve the same results as the footage above, know that Filipe also has variations of Floating Damage and Floating Healthbar installed. 

Strength of the Gods is available to download for both regular Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is happening! We don't know when, and in fact it might be quite a long time before the game is far along enough to give us a proper trailer. Still there are a few details out there that have allowed us to speculate about the RPG's setting, and the mountains in the announcement sure are pretty.

Until we know more, we'll simply have to speculate about the improvements Bethesda might be planning. Will it be a bigger world? Probably. Will it have swords and sorcery in it? Almost certainly. We'd like more than that, though, as ever. Here's what we want from The Elder Scrolls 6.

Better faces and conversations

Bethesda Studios makes remarkable, atmospheric open worlds, but the NPCs who inhabit them look like they have come from a different era. They tend to suffer from stiff posture, stilted animations and faces that can’t emote very much. That’s fine for cool robo-companion Nick Valentine in Fallout 4. For humans we’d like to see huge improvements. 

Character faces and performances have generally improved a lot in the last five years and when a game falls behind, like Mass Effect Andromeda, it’s painfully obvious. Likewise conversations could be much more engaging than they have been in previous Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. Fallout 4 introduced a Bioware-style cam that improved interactions, so that’s a sign the Bethesda RPGs are moving in the right direction.

Some memorable NPCs

It might be easier to forgive stiff NPC performances if most of the people you met in The Elder Scrolls games weren’t quite so boring. You meet powerful Jarls and master wizards but they tend to grumble mildly about this and that and then ask you to go fetch them something. There are a few memorable characters, often skulking about in the Dark Brotherhood, but for the most part I’m struggling to remember many NPCs of note. Oddball Fallout characters wouldn’t fit the grandiose fantasy tone of The Elder Scrolls, but some humour, romance, and the odd argument would do a lot to make the world more lived-in.

More varied, hand-crafted dungeons

Some of Skyrim’s dungeons were great. The transition from Dwemer city to glowing mushroom underworld in Blackreach is sublime. Typically, though, the typical Falmer dungeons became samey fast. There might be a trap or two, a couple of caves full of enemies, and a few chests along the way. If you happened to wander into a cave of plot significance you were more likely to see more unusual puzzles and some interesting architecture. More consistently interesting dungeons would be sweet.

Bigger towns

Skyrim’s towns each had a separate sense of identity. Riften was grubby and a little sordid, Markath looked like a sweet piece of concept art made real. However compared to The Witcher 3’s Novigrad, or even the Imperial City in Oblivion, the cities felt like limited settlements—a shop or two, a few residential buildings and a central hall. It would be fascinating to see what Bethesda Studios can do with a proper town with distinct districts and a sense of daily working life.

Oblivion-style spellcrafting

Oblivion and Skyrim both had spellcasting, but Oblivion let players become real magic users through spell-crafting, a feature that didn't make it into Skyrim. By using an altar and combining various spell effects they'd learned, players could design their own custom spells, including range, duration, and effects. With crafting becoming such a big part of so many games, including Bethesda's RPGs, I'd love to see a return of spell-crafting. It would be optional, of course, since there will be plenty of pre-existing spells to learn, but for those who really want to dabble in magic there's nothing better than a little DIY.

A polished third-person view

It’s nice to hop out of your skull and see your character’s cool armour or wizard robes, but actually moving and fighting in third-person feels off compared to first-person in Elder Scrolls games. Part of it is down to your janky animations as you hop and slide around the terrain, part of it is that attacks that look cool in first-person look a bit silly when viewed from behind your character. Having said that, on balance I’d probably prefer to have a janky third-person view than none at all—how else are we to take celebratory selfies once we’ve climbed to the highest part of the world?

Settlements

Fallout 4's settlement system had its ups and downs, the up being it was an enjoyable activity to partake in between quests, and the down being that the interface was clunky and the buildings generally looked like shit. Freed from a post-apocalyptic setting where building materials could be made from healthy trees instead of bombed out buildings, I can imagine founding your own town in the Elder Scrolls universe to be an immensely enjoyable pastime. You'll be meeting NPCs from all over the land, so why not invite some to live and work in your town? You could raise livestock and grow crops, build your own house, staff your own city watch, attract vendors, build a pub, stables, maybe even form your own guild, and become mayor of a growing community. We always want to establish a home (or several) in Elder Scrolls games, so establishing an entire town feels like a logical extension.

UI designed for PC, please

Both Oblivion and Skyrim's UI were serviceable but ultimately felt like they'd been designed for someone playing on console, not on PC. The UI was overlarge and clearly made for navigation by cycling through options rather than just clicking with a mouse. Modders, bless them, offered much better and more sensible UI for PC, with the Darnified mod for Oblivion and SkyUI for Skyrim. I'm sure modders will once again retool whatever UI Bethesda creates, but it sure would be nice this time around if more thought was put into the UI for PC by the developers.

Mod support

This one almost goes without saying, but it’s worth mentioning that the mod scenes for The Elder Scrolls and fallout games are astonishing. The mod scene is the reason we got a proper PC UI for Skyrim in the first place. We’ve seen modders transpose old Elder Scrolls games into more current engines. We’ve seen dramatic visual overhauls, new monsters, quests, and much more. Mod support will be essential to the longevity of a new Elder Scrolls game. Hopefully we’ll see that in The Elder Scrolls 6.

What would you like to see from the new Elder Scrolls?

Bethesda joined with Keegan Michael Key to reveal a big surprise today during its E3 press conference: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is coming to multiple new platforms in a Very Special Edition release that will enable you to play the game in ways you never imagined. 

The Skyrim Very Special Edition will be available on Amazon Alexa, the Etch-a-sketch, Motorola pagers (specific models to be determined), and Samsung smart refrigerators, which will bring a whole new level of depth to those trips to the Nordic north. 

The trailer is a joke, of course, a bit of self-referential fun about Skryim's presence on all sorts of different platforms. But it's a good one too ("That's no horker, that's my wife!") and even better, it's a brilliant idea—you can be damn sure I'd be all over it if it actually worked. And... could it work? I mean, I don't think it would, and I don't have an Alexa so I can't test it myself. But I'm going to try talking someone into firing one up as soon as I can, just in case. I'll let you know how it goes. 

Update: It's real. "That’s right, the version of Skyrim you never saw coming has finally arrived on the platform you never asked for," an Amazon listing that appeared shortly after the end of the Bethesda presser states. It's free to activate, but of course you'll need an Alexa in order to play. 

And in case that's not enough to convince you, James actually took it for a spin. I think it went well.

Whether it’s an Easter egg, a joke character, or just a little nudge at a competitor, developers love slipping the odd reference to other games into their own. Sometimes though, they go beyond just slapping a Dopefish on a wall or quipping about a ‘doomed space marine’, and we get to see our heroes stride into entirely new, often completely inappropriate new worlds.

Here are a few of our favourites, along the ones that caused the most ‘wait, what?’ blinking on discovery. 

Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Jedi

Yes, he can hold his breath underwater for ten minutes and quip his way through any sword-fight… but only The Force Unleashed II let him try his luck with a lightsaber. Turns out that you don’t need a sharp wit if you’re waving around two of the universe’s deadliest glowsticks and aren’t afraid to use them. Guybrush Threepkiller is so famous in-universe, he even has his own statues. We’re almost positive that’ll be brought up at some point in the next movie. After all, Rey does need a new teacher. Just as long as Elaine never finds out about it. 

Final Fantasy makes history in Assasin's Creed

Obviously, everything in the Assassin’s Creed series is meticulously researched and true to life, especially the alien gods and the time Ezio punched the Pope. Write it all down in your history homework! Which means that, while aliens might not have built the pyramids, they definitely got up to a bit of chocobo racing on the side. That’s according to this crossover, where Assassins ended up in Final Fantasy XV, while its villain ended up pounding sand for a bit before being dragged back to his own game by a hastily summoned Bahamut. There’s even a stuffed Moogle lying around in case you feel lonely after they’ve gone, and some fancy weapons to keep and confuse archaeologists for a few thousand years. Along with that Stargate, obviously. 

Commander Keen hangs about in Doom II

There’s a few odd appearances in Doom 2, including the severed head of John Romero as the end-boss, and a trip back to Wolfenstein 3D in the secret levels. By far the strangest thing though is what lies behind those: former id star Commander Keen… murdered and hanging from meathooks. The story goes that Adrian Carmack was the childkiller in question, having chafed at making cutesy games instead of enjoying himself with blood and guts. However, that was not enough to get rid of the boy-genius forever, for both John Romero and Tom Hall have confirmed that Commander Keen, real name Billy Blaze, is in fact Wolfenstein hero BJ Blazkowicz’s grandson… and father to the Doomguy. What a strange family tree. 

Earthworm Jim digs into Battle Arena Toshinden

He’s the world’s mightiest worm! He fights aliens! He travels galaxies! He gets flattened by a lot of cows! And he’s one of the few 90s mascots to actually be awesome, starring in two excellent platformers, one surprisingly good cartoon series, and… well, let’s not mention the sequels. Like Bubsy, 3D was not kind to Earthworm Jim, though unlike Bubsy, people actually cared. His most successful jump into the third dimension turned out to be this Easter Egg in the PC version of Toshinden, where with the help of his super-suit and a really big club, he was finally able to make the future of gaming eat dirt. Pound them into the ground. Bury himself in glory. Be cut in half and yet… no, wait. Not that one. But it was still as good as fans were going to get.

Everyone plays Poker Night at the Inventory 

Easily the most ambitious gaming crossover in recent memory… and it’s all about hanging out between games. Telltale’s Poker Night series combined, amongst a few others (deep breath) The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, Max from Sam and Max, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade Adventures and also some webcomic whose name we forget off-hand, GLaDOS from Portal, Brock Samson from the Venture Bros (not a game, but never mind), Claptrap from Borderlands, Sam from Sam and Max replacing Max from Sam and Max, and Ash from The Evil Dead. Phew.

They weren’t great poker games, but that wasn’t really the point. It was about the banter between the different competitors as they sat back and shot the shit without the customary heavy artillery. We could also have had members of the cast from The Walking Dead and Back to the Future, but they were deemed unsuitable for the atmosphere. They didn’t want anyone crying, or any kids seeing Doc and Marty in a sweary environment. A pity. When the game revved up, they could have seen some serious shit.

Portal 2’s Space Core invades Skyrim 

When Bethesda showed off DLC for Oblivion, it was horse armour. And everybody laughed. Come Skyrim, the laugh was far more positive. One of the earliest additions saw the exiled Space Core (spoilers for a decade old game there) crash-land in Tamriel, still just as eager to explore SPAAAAAAAACE. Going bizarrely unnoticed by the locals, all probably fretting about that whole dragon invasion thing, it came crashing down in a plume of smoke. Pick it up and it still kept blinking and talking in your inventory, delivering… well, not very varied dialogue. In summary:  “Space. Space. Space!” And yet, still it was less annoying than all those guards and their epic tales of glory curtailed by the sudden impact of a ballistic stick to the lower-leg.

XCOM defends Civ V: Brave New World

What does XCOM do when there are no aliens to fight? Apparently, they learn to ****ing shoot straight. The XCOM Squad in Civ V is an elite tactical unit that gets the job done, air-dropping into friendly territory and laying down the law. Specifically, Thou Shalt Not Screw With XCOM. In the absence of aliens, they have their eyes set on "Giant Death Robots," and are happy to act as shock troopers or defensive units while they watch the skies and await their destiny. But since there are apparently no aliens interested in Earth during the Civ games, they’re probably going to be waiting a while. Should have taken the flight to Alpha Centauri.

Princess Rosella favours Leisure Suit Larry 3

Sierra On-Line loved its in-jokes. Not one but two sequels (this one and Space Quest III) ended with the characters somehow finding their way to the developers’ own offices for a chat with studio leads Ken and Roberta Williams, with Larry also taking trips to a Westworld style factory where adventure heroes are rebuilt after every stupid death, complete with King’s Quest’s King Graham being readied for duty, and finally showing up in the Old West for a cameo in Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist. By far the strangest cameos came at the end of Leisure Suit Larry 3, where the trip to Sierraland involved trekking through scenes from games like Police Quest and Space Quest 2, before meeting Roberta Williams directing a particularly annoying scene from King’s Quest IV, in which Princess Rosella is trapped in the slobbery mouth of a giant whale. Strange.

Frank West covers Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

He’s covered wars, you know. But oddly, Dead Rising’s original and best hero doesn’t seem to know how to cover himself in this odd outing. Despite Lost Planet being set on a frozen world, everyone’s favourite photographer show up not only without his camera, but also without his trousers. Somehow avoiding hypothermia, he runs around in nothing but underpants, while still managing to rain destruction on the armies of insects happy to not have to peel their food for once. What a trooper. 

Scorpion goes mental in Psi-Ops

Fighting game characters are probably the most cameo-friendly of all, whether it’s a full game like Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, or bonus combatants-without-a-k-because-that’s-how-it’s-spelled in the likes of Injustice. But they show up in other games with curious regularity too. Lightning god Raiden for instance showed up in Unreal Championship, while invisible fighter Reptile could have popped into basically any game. Ever seen a flicker on your screen playing, say, Fortnite? As far as you know, it might be him.

But still, this was an odd one. Even though Midway was the publisher of both MK and Psi-Ops, it’s a bit of a leap from fighting game to third-person action game. Sadly, just wearing his palette-swapped ninja outfit didn’t actually make you the world’s clingiest fighter. He still had to swap out his “get over here!” attack for regular guns. On the plus side, having to beat every character in the game two out of three times would have gotten pretty darn tiring.

My least favorite sensation in all of gaming is when I'm playing an RPG, and I pick up a weapon, or a breastplate, or an incandescent bauble of no obvious importance, and suddenly my feet cement to the floor. My character is over-encumbered! I have to spend the next few minutes on the pause screen, deciding which knick-knacks in my inventory to leave abandoned on the side of the road. Once spry and light again, I continue my adventures deep into the murky chasms of whatever fantasy world I'm exploring, until inevitably I find another item I want and the exact same thing happens again. 

I am not alone in hating encumbrance. It's a source of constant annoyance for gamers everywhere, to the point of achieving meme status in certain communities. And yet, it's still common. Bethesda makes two of the most popular single-player franchises around with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and yet we've all crossed our weight limit and hampered ourselves in the middle of a fight with a rowdy sect of Super Mutants. CD Projekt Red is one of this industry's few near-universally beloved studios, and yet Geralt always seems to be one looted corpse away from completely losing control of his body. There are cases where it makes sense, obviously—of course Dark Souls has an opaque encumbrance system, given all its other intentionally draconian quirks—but it certainly seems weird that such a despised mechanic is implemented, and re-implemented, over and over again.

Why do big games, particularly open world games with thousands of objects that can be picked up and examined, so often turn to a mechanic where fun goes to die? I figure there must be a reason. I'm constantly in awe of just how much work it takes to create videogames, and generally, when I find something to be stupid and unintuitive, I'm willing to hear the experts out. There must be some method to the madness, right?

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, game director of The Witcher 3, outlined a few arguments for encumbrance when I emailed him. The first is probably the most obvious: Immersion. "Having a limit to how much equipment Geralt can carry plays a part in making the character and the world around him more believable," he says. "Yes, you’re playing as a professional monster slayer. He’s very strong, stronger than normal humans, due to experiments and mutations witchers have to endure throughout their rigorous training. But even then, Geralt has limits. It’s a small touch that packs a lot of punch for the role-playing aspect of an RPG."

Tomaszkiewicz tells me that he believes the fundamental purpose of an RPG is to embody the central character fully. That's why, he says, some players choose to unequip all of their armor before taking Geralt for a dip in a river or a lake. "They want to live the fantasy the game is enabling them to live, while keeping the experience as close to authentic as possible," he explains. It's the belief of CD Projekt Red that functions like encumbrance, while occasionally annoying, add up to a world that feels more consistent.

Oscar López Lacalle, lead designer of the survival game Conan Exiles, offers a similar justification. Exiles is different from The Witcher, in the sense that it packs a crafting system that heavily relies on resource harvesting and management, which makes it a pretty natural fit for a weight limit. But Lacalle tells me that the team decided to opt for an encumbrance mechanic, rather than a traditional inventory page, because it opened up the flexibility—and yes, the authenticity—of how you fleshed out your character.

"For example, we can set items like explosives to be artificially heavy because that makes players think on the logistics of sieging rather than just bringing unlimited explosive jars or trebuchets to breach any wall while still being able to fight at peak capacity," he says. "We can also say that all our core resources are much lighter than specialty items to enhance the feeling of rarity and the relative worth of items when compared with each other. This becomes an important factor in situations like coming back to your base loaded with riches, or relocating your base to a new location in the map. In general, it's a powerful tool to enhance and promote certain aspects of the game without adding other, more aggressive limitations."

That's just the front end of things though. Tomaszkiewicz highlights a number of  behind-the-scenes issues that make encumbrance systems necessary for a healthy experience. He mentions how too many items can clutter the UI, and that adding a limit helps "manage the chaos." Also, you can't ignore the fact that every piece of inventory takes up a sliver of memory, and for a game like The Witcher 3 that already asks a ton of your hardware, developers need to be frugal. "You've got to keep in mind what might happen performance-wise when players hoard insane amounts of items."

Lacalle swears up and down that encumbrance systems are not designed to make players uncomfortable. Instead, he hopes to simply coerce us into interesting choices. Exiles was specifically designed around the remaining weight a character will have access to after equipping a basic set of armor. What you do with that remaining space hollows out your place in the world, and your role in guilds. When he frames it like that, it sure sounds a lot more dynamic than simply choosing a class.

"We made heavy armor and certain weapons heavier—because we wanted to steer them towards the fighter archetypes—and certain materials heavier or lighter depending on how many are needed for typical activities and how rare they are supposed to be," he says. "For building pieces, we made them lighter than their material parts because we wanted players to commit to converting materials instead of amassing tons of raw resources, with a few hand-picked exceptions like Altars and Wheels of Pain. Finally and most importantly, sprinkle in some design voodoo (lots of testing and iterating) until it feels good!"

It's true that sometimes you don't know what you really want, and as much as it might sound fun to jog through The Northern Kingdoms with Geralt sucking up loot like a vacuum, I'm willing to admit that I might be misguided. However, it's clear that the world at large is not convinced.

Websites like Eurogamer and Motherboard have dedicated blog posts instructing on how to turn off encumbrance, ostensibly because there are so many people on the internet googling for answers. A mod that gives you infinite carry capacity in The Witcher 3 has been downloaded over 30,000 times (it's the third-most popular Witcher 3 mod on the Nexus). The "100x your carry weight" mod for Skyrim has been downloaded 380,000 times. The developers I spoke to are all reasonable people who make good points, but it's hard to shake that fundamental feeling that encumbrance only slows down our fun.

All that being said, maybe there's a way to make encumbrance better without completely purging it from the code. David J. Cobb has spent the bulk of his modding career tinkering with the nuts and bolts of Skyrim to create a more realistic, more demanding weight system, and he makes a strong point about how encumbrance is often poorly implemented. There's never any warning when you're about to become over-encumbered in Bethesda games. Your momentum comes to a screeching halt after you add one extraneous item to your inventory. "Like carrying hundreds of pounds of gear effortlessly, only to stop completely in your tracks because you decided to pick a flower on the side of the road," he says. He argues that instead of creating immersion, that breaks immersion.

Cobb came up with a set of checks and balances called Cobb Encumbrance that add progressive penalties to your speed and stamina as you add more weight to your character. Essentially, it's an uber-hardcore interpretation of the core Skyrim fantasy. Personally, that doesn't sound like my kind of thing, but it also feels a tad more honest than how most other games deal with encumbrance. Maybe it's not the answer, but it's certainly an answer. 

"The encumbrance mechanic has to be viewed as part of the broader experience," says Cobb. "It influences and is influenced by everything around it."

Thumbnail GIF via the delightful Skyrim animation above by Ferhod.

I know few virtual places as intimately as Seyda Neen, the port in the southwest of Vvardenfell where your Morrowind character begins their adventures. I’ve fleshed out dozens of characters in its Census and Excise office, and I’ve bought many a starting weapon at Arrille’s Tradehouse. I’ve passed the necromancer’s tower countless times, and I’ve… 

Hang on, that isn’t right. There’s no necromancer’s tower on the outskirts of Seyda Neen. Actually, I don’t recall there being this many shacks clustered on the coastline. And was that shady-looking tavern with the red lantern outside always there? What in Vivec’s name is going on? 

Such is the sensation of exploring Vvardenfell with the Morrowind Rebirth mod installed. This enormous mod remodels huge chunks of terrain, expanding towns and adding new dungeons and adventures alongside swathes of other content. It also achieves this with such a delicate hand that, if you haven’t played Morrowind for a while, you might struggle to identify where the old Morrowind ends and Rebirth begins.

Landscaping

Morrowind Rebirth was first released in 2011, starting out as a collection of town-overhaul mods created by trancemaster_1988. Since then the mod has received 44 major updates that basically give the topography of the entire island a makeover, adding a truly staggering amount of new and modified places to explore. 

Unsurprisingly, a large amount of the mod’s focus is on expanding towns and settlements. Almost every scrap of civilisation has been altered in some way. Caldera, the Imperial mining town northeast of Balmora, has seen new buildings and shops introduced within its walls, while the perimeter has been remodelled to include farmsteads with working windmills. Meanwhile, the massive city of Vivec has seen its entrance area overhauled, with a range of shops, houses and warehouses added near the Silt Strider port. Even tiny villages, such as the northern outpost Dagon Fel, have been expanded. 

One of the towns that has received the most attention is Balmora. Rebirth’s interpretation has not one but two entirely overhauled districts – one near the town’s south gate and the other on its northern hillside. These include multiple new merchant vendors such as a Scroll specialist and a seller of magical clothes. Alongside trancemaster’s own work, Morrowind Rebirth incorporates third-party mods, such as Balmora Underworld, which adds a vast subterranean market. Beneath that lurks a labyrinthine Dwemer ruin for players to plunder.

What’s particularly impressive about these additions is how seamlessly they fi t into Morrowind’s landscape. These new buildings aren’t simply plonked down wherever there’s space, trancemaster has painstakingly moulded the game’s terrain to accommodate for them. Beyond the game’s urban centres, trancemaster has added various new adventures and perils. These include bandit camps to raid, and multiple new dungeons, including a new Daedric realm to explore, and unique sights such as, err, mass graves. 

It’s worth noting that Morrowind Rebirth doesn’t add many quests. At least, not ones that will be recorded in your journal. Instead, Rebirth’s adventures are less offi cial, taking the form of notes pinned to walls that hint at the location of an item or a stash of gold, or bounty hunters that will track you down if the price for your head reaches a certain threshold. Rebirth also doesn’t make signifi cant changes to the game’s visual prowess, although it does make landscapes more varied, while adding visual variety to recurring NPCs like Imperial guards and skeletons.

Returning home

Alongside its many additions, Morrowind Rebirth also makes a massive number of balance changes. Hundreds of mechanical values have been tweaked, from the damage of different weapons to the weight of items and the price of travelling via Silt Strider. It’s impossible to go into these in any great detail, but the general effect makes levelling slightly slower and the diffi culty more challenging. Personally, I always felt Morrowind was slow and challenging enough, but this does spread your progress out more evenly across the mod’s increase in scope. Plus, if you get stuck, that’s what the diffi culty slider is there for. 

What I like most about Morrowind Rebirth is how natural all the additions appear. It makes Vvardenfell feel as if it has grown and evolved during your absence, like returning to your hometown after years away, only without the disappointment at discovering your favourite coffee shop has been replaced by yet another Starbucks. It doesn’t feel like the game has been modded. It’s more like time has simply moved on. If you want to know just how much has changed while playing, however, keep an eye out for hanging lanterns. These are trancemaster’s calling card, and you will be seeing them absolutely everywhere you go.

Despite the mountain of incredible 2017 games I still need to play, I am once again back on my Skyrim nonsense. I reinstalled it over the weekend and I’m still in the process of adding all 10,000 mods that I simply cannot live without, including many featured in our best Skyrim mods list. I might need to add another, however, at least when the gargantuan Lordbound mod launches later this year. 

The Lordbound team is aiming to make an expansion-sized mod with around 30 hours of new adventures, including fancy dungeons, three non-linear faction storylines and an entirely new region of Skyrim, Druadach Valley, located near High Rock, which is also where Daggerfall took place. 

When it launches this year, the mod will throw players into a conflict between Orcs and the Imperial Legion as they fight over who gets to stick their flag in the area. The latest trailer showcases some of the mod’s environments, including some striking magical ruins and weird Dwemer caverns. 

I used to avoid the massive mods that added whole new areas to the game because it can be a bit of a hassle trying to figure out what mods they’re going to conflict with, but after playing Beyond Skyrim’s surprisingly polished Bruma mod, which introduces the northern Cyrodiil town to the game, I’ve been won over. Thank goodness for kind souls making compatibility patches. 

Cheers, Kotaku.