With Skyrim: Special Edition arriving Thursday, we realized we had a few questions about how it's all going to work in terms of mods, saved games, and most importantly: modded saved games.
Here's what we know so far, and unfortunately it's not all good news. We'll update this post with any additional information we discover.
You probably know this one, but just in case: if you own Skyrim and its expansions, you'll get Skyrim Special Edition for free, and you don't need to worry about Skyrim SE overwriting or replacing your original copy of Skyrim.
They are two completely separate games. If you have saved games and installed mods for Skyrim, you will still be able to play them with your original copy of Skyrim after the Special Edition appears.
If you've got saved games from the original Skyrim, you can use them with Skyrim SE. According to an email from Bethesda, it's just a matter of copying and pasting the files:
"Existing save games from the original PC game will work in the PC version of Skyrim Special Edition. Simply copy your old saves from My Games/Skyrim to My Games/Skyrim Special Edition."
So, you'll be able to pick up in the Special Edition right where you left off in the original. This is only for unmodded saved games, though, and here comes the bad news.
We haven't had a chance to test this yet (while we have review code for Skyrim SE, we can't play it until the actual launch time), but our understanding is that existing modded saves that is, saved games in which you used mods for the original Skyrim won't work at all with Skyrim SE.
Bethesda tells us this in their email:
"Only use original saves that have never been used with mods. Do not use your original saved game if this error appears when you load it in Skyrim Special Edition: This save relies on content that is no longer present."
I've been speaking with Dave Talamas, Community Manager of Nexus Mods today, and he's also pretty doubtful modded saves will work:
"Unfortunately, we haven't had enough internal testing to give you a definitive answer on modded save file compatibility. According to our community of mod authors however, the general consensus regarding compatibility of modded saves is a resounding 'no.' Though there is a remote chance that very particular save files which only depend on mods which have a SSE equivalent installed may work, this will not be relevant to the vast majority of mod users because their modded files will have one or more dependencies with a currently incompatible mod.
"Our advice for mod users is to expect to start fresh when it comes to playing SSE."
Skyrim Script Extender is a tool many mods rely on, as it expands both scripting capabilities and functionality for mods. Thing is, SKSE was created for the 32 bit Skyrim, and Skyrim Special Edition is 64 bit, meaning the current version of SKSE won't work with the Special Edition.
SkyUI, one of the best and most popular mods for Skyrim, and a mod that many other mods require for configuration, depends on SKSE to work. So, until there's a version of SKSE for the 64 bit version, there won't be a workable version of SkyUI for Skyrim SE.
I asked Dave if he knew the current status of these two incredibly important mods, and he confirmed that SKSE is being actively worked on to support Skyrim SE, though he doesn't know how long it might take.
"The same can be said for SkyUI as it's dependent on SKSE in its current state," Dave said. "A big loss of not having SkyUI as you may know is the loss of in-game mod configuration. So, mod authors are likely to adapt with more rudimentary schemes to allow for in-game mod configuration (such as activating a book), until both are completed."
Update: Dave clarified things a bit further in regards to SkyUI, saying: "...while the SKSE team have confirmed their interest in continuing their work with SSE, the SkyUI developers on the other-hand have not confirmed, but they have expressed interest in collaborating with others who may carry the torch, so-to-speak."
Since Skyrim and Skyrim SE are two different games, modders who post their Skyrim Mods on Nexus Mods need to essentially create duplicates of their work. Many are busy doing this and Nexus Mods is making this process as easy as possible for them and some modders who had access to the Skyrim SE beta test already have their mods up on the new Special Edition Nexus page.
The Nexus Mods page for Skyrim SE is right here, so you can see what's currently available. Thankfully, prolific modder Arthmoor has a number of his mods ready to go, including an Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch, which like its predecessor, will fix a number of bugs that were present in the original Skyrim and have been carried over to the Special Edition.
Updated: If, like me, you use Nexus Mod Manager, the Nexus Mods tool for managing your mods, it now supports Skyrim Special Edition.
You can download the new version of Nexus Mod Manager here.
We'll update this post with any additional information we come across.
From the skilled hands of master claysmith Lee Hardcastle comes Skyrim Memories, a tribute to some of the most exciting moments of Nord adventure, rendered entirely in claymation. Shanking spiders, clobbering dragons, yelling at guys (as you do when you're the Dovahkiin), and making friends with locals: It's all in a day's work for the world's shoutiest, squishiest fantasy hero.
Hardcastle's work, created in conjunction with Bethesda, marks the forthcoming launch of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, which will be out on October 27 or 28, depending on which part of the world you call home. It promises numerous enhancements over the original game, including spectacularly upgraded graphics, and if you already own Skyrim and its three DLC releases Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn you'll get it free.
Skyrim Special Edition arrives next week in time for the original game's fifth year anniversary. After announcing its system requirements last week, Bethesda has now revealed exactly when it'll unlock depending on where you are in the world. What's more, the developer has also outlined the prerequisites existing owners will need to ascertain in order to nab the HD remaster for free.
Boasting a range of new features designed to make the fifth Elder Scrolls series entry "feel fresh again", the Special Edition will introduce things like remastered art and effects, volumetric lighting (better known as 'god rays'), and new snow and water shaders, among other aesthetical tweaks. It's universal release is set for October 28 at 12am UTC, which translates to:
As per this Steam Community update, if you already own Skyrim and all three of its separate DLCs that's Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn or the Skyrim Legendary Edition, you'll receive the Special Edition free-of-charge. A disclaimer notes that "if you do not complete your Skyrim [and] all DLC bundle until October 28th, your free upgrade to Skyrim Special Edition may take up to 36 hours to apply to your account."
Skyrim's modding scene is one of the PC's most incredible and diverse. It's a canvas on which artists can paint with their imagination, making everything from total conversion mods to ones that simply add capes. But every once in awhile, a mod comes around possessing such immense artistic vision even its own creator can't comprehend it.
No, seriously, this person has no idea what their mod even does, and they're asking people to figure it out for them.
"Literally, this was by far the worst idea I've ever had," writes its creator, Chocolate Milk. "And trust me, that's really saying something." See, instead of creating a mod that adds some useful functionality to Skyrim, Chocolate Milk made a potion. Not just any potion, however, a potion that has the ability to do something. What, you might ask? Not even Chocolate Milk can answer that."I started creating a potion," they write. "I just started clicking randomly, scrolling, selecting random things, and hoping it would turn out well. And holy crap, that was a disaster. I don't even know what I did. I don't know what it is, but I think it probably has at least 102% alcohol content. See, this potion does some weird crap. At least, I think it does. I don't even really know what it does, honestly. I just clicked randomly and hoped for the best."
Suitably named 'Really F*cking Weird Potion,' those that want to find out can subscribe to the mod on Steam and head over to The Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun. There, Chocolate Milk has placed a new merchant named Peddler that sells the item. Just in case you needed any more reasons to be apprehensive, Chocolate Milk named his creation "Suicide?"
That hasn't stopped players from turning Chocolate Milk's mod into one of the most popular Skyrim mods of recent weeks. Already the comments are filling up with playful notes and speculation, but so far details aren't all that concrete."Sir, as much as I admire your inspiration," writes one player, "I have to say, that this concoction of yours dubiously has any good qualities at all! Although I will admit, the taste is exotic. But in any case, I have to, unfortunately, end my life here, as this potion has consumed my thoughts, and filled my mind with the worst of ideas."
"It turned into a werewolf and put ice shit and explosions everywhere," writes another. This one in particular troubles me as I can't tell if it turned the player or the potion itself into a werewolf. That might be beside the point if there's "ice shit" everywhere whatever that means.
Perhaps it's the mystery of what the potion does, or maybe it's the risk that drinking it could have some serious consequences. Chocolate Milk has no clue, and they've asked anyone who ends up drinking it to let them know. "I have no idea what this thing does," they write. "And if you subscribe to it, I beg you, tell me what the hell this does. I'm curious about what my Frankenstein potion is."
We here at PC Gamer take this kind of thing very seriously, so I decided it was time to discover the truth about Chocolate Milk's mod.
I'm honestly not sure what I expected, but at least we can lay this mystery to rest. The far greater riddle is why this mod is currently trending as one of the most popular on Skyrim's Steam Workshop page. Whatever the truth is, I think this comment by 'MyLittleEmpath' sums my thoughts up perfectly: "This is why I love the modding community." If you're feeling brave, head over to the Steam Workshop page and try the mod yourself. Leave us a comment if you do, so we know what kind of mayhem you caused with it.
Skywind and Skyblivion are fan-made projects that aim to rebuild the Elder Scrolls RPGs Morrowind and Oblivion within the confines of the more modern (and, let's face it, much prettier) Skyrim. Both have been in the works for quite some time: We got our first taste of Skyblivion in mid-2014, while Skywind dates all the way back to 2012. Rebuilding these sprawling worlds is obviously a slow, painstaking process, but the work continues, and the people behind each of them have recently released new trailers showing off their progress.
First up is Skyblivion, with the "Familiar Faces" trailer, the title of which will make obvious sense very quickly. Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and Sheogorath all put in appearances, but for my money it's the Adoring Fan who's the real star of the show. And he's come a long way from his original Oblivion look, hasn't he?
And then we have Skywind, which focuses more on the game world than its inhabitants, and for my money that makes it the better of the two. I think the Elder Scrolls peaked with Morrowind so there's obviously some bias at work here, but to me Skywind looks better developed, too. That may also be a result of the much greater leap forward that Skywind represents: Both games are well-aged, but Oblivion was a significant technological advancement over Morrowind, so the differences resulting from the move to Skyrim are less pronounced.
Skywind and Skyblivion are both part of the overarching Elder Scrolls Renewal Project, and you can follow along with their progress at tesrenewal.com.
Thanks, Eurogamer.
The system requirements for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition have been revealed, and I hope none of you were expecting that they'd be more or less the same as they were for the original release. They are not.
Come on, are you surprised? The original Skyrim is five years old, after all, and no, that's not exactly an eternity in the realm of PC hardware, but it is an awfully long time. The minimum required spec for Skyrim OG was a 2.0 GHz dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, and a DX9.0c-compliant video card with 512MB of RAM. I'm pretty sure my phone packs a heavier punch than that.
So here's what you're going to need if you want to roam the prettier-than-ever lands of Skyrim SE:
Minimum:
Recommended:
Bethesda has previously announced that Skyrim SE will be free for people who already own "all the Skyrim stuff" that's already been released. More specifically, as it explained on Steam, that means anyone who owns the original game and the Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn DLCs, or the Skyrim Legendary Edition, which is all of the above in a single bundle.
That's really the way to go if you're looking to leap into the land of the Nords for the first time: Skyrim SE will sell for $60, while the Legendary bundle is $40. You've got until the Skyrim SE release date of October 28 to pick it up if you want the free upgrade.
Did you wear the Colovian Fur Helm? If you played Morrowind you probably did. The Colovian Fur Helm is a piece of armor you can easily get at the start of the game it literally falls out of the sky for you, being worn by a wizard whose spell doesn't work as intended and you'll probably keep it for a while. At the start of Morrowind decent helmets are hard to come by, especially if you're cheap. The downside is that the Colovian Fur Helm looks like a big hairy nipple. No matter how badass the rest of your armor is, topping it off with a hat that makes you look like one of the Coneheads will ruin your ensemble.
I thought about that hat recently when I was watching Hearthstone designer Ben Brode answer criticisms about the recently added Purify spell, which players have called a bad card. Actually they've called it worse things than that, but let's stick with bad. Some players actually like winning with bad cards, Brode explained, before going on to discuss its potential for use in a non-competitive fun deck . Long past the point where it was a liability, I wore that silly Colovian Fur Helm because I'd started thinking it was funny defeating ghosts and monsters while wearing a conical nipplehat. It was bad, but that's what made it perfect for me.
Plenty of games have items in them that prove unpopular with players. Maybe they're equipment in an RPG, cards in a digital card game, guns in a first-person shooter, or power-ups in an arcade game. They could be ugly. Their stats could be terrible. Most players may shun them, but they still serve a purpose.
James Lopez, producer on the Borderlands series, provides me with the excellent names of several guns from Borderlands 2 that players considered bad: Flakker, Bane, Fibber, and Crit. They all had their moments to shine, however, as there was an ebb and flow to the popularity of guns in the games some were popular right off the bat but some were 'undiscovered' for a while until the community found things that made them special , he says.
The Flakker for instance is a shotgun that shoots multiple explosive projectiles. They detonate at medium range, making it almost worthless against distant or nearby enemies. Plus, it fires very slowly. While the Flakker seems underwhelming for a weapon of 'legendary' rarity, it does have its uses. The sniper character Zer0 can combine it effectively with his Rising Sh0t ability, which lets him earn bonus damage for a short duration after every successful attack. The amount of bonus damage increases every time you hurt an enemy, so a single good shot with the Flakker can max out that bonus, after which you switch to a better gun to make use of it.
The Bane on the other hand is a submachine gun that drops your movement to a crawl and constantly shouts at you. When you shoot it screeches like Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber making the most annoying sound in the world, and it announces every reload by bellowing Reloading! Even taking it out it will make it announce Swapping weapons! Dropping the in-game volume to zero won't prevent it from ruining your eardrums, either. And yet there are people on YouTube using The Bane to defeat Borderlands 2's endgame raid boss Terramorphous the Invincible.
Borderlands is an unusual case in that most of its guns aren't unique like the Flakker and Bane, but procedurally generated. They combine effects in randomized ways so you might end up with a sniper rifle that reloads almost instantly or a pistol that shoots burning bullets. It creates variety and depth, Lopez explains, as well as the possibility of the user getting a one of a kind gun that nobody else will have. You might pick up two Maliwan fire SMGs of the same level but they re not going to be the same. And it might turn out that one is more your play style than the other, and the one you don t like might be perfect for someone else in your party.
When you do find a unique gun in a Borderlands game, something with a name like Good Touch or Teapot, you know it's special. That inspires players to figure out why a seemingly bad gun exists instead of chucking it aside like the disposable randomized weapons Borderlands games are full of. As Lopez puts it, Giving them names creates a theme about the gun, a connection to how you got it, and can also inspire the community to learn more about it through forums, videos, wikis, etc.
At the other end of the spectrum from Borderlands and its millions of guns is Assault Android Cactus, a twin-stick shooter in which each of its playable android characters only has two weapons. Some are regular fare like a flamethrower or a beam laser, but the android named Aubergine wields something different: an indestructible drone called Helo that causes damage in a circle and controls like a fishing rod. Hold down fire and the drone moves further away from her; release and it's reeled back in.
Aubergine is the most divisive character in the game, says developer Tim Dawson, some people dig her, but a lot of players couldn't get their head around controlling her Helo drone while moving. She was meant to be an out-there character and push the envelope in terms of twin-stick shooter mechanics, but because she takes so much more work to get good at, plenty of people never did.
The drone has advantages, like being able to cause damage to enemies while you hide behind a wall, but it's tricky to get used to compared to more straightforward tools like the shotgun or the drill. Not many players bother getting to grips with Aubergine and her drone.
Even so, I'm glad she's in the game, Dawson says, she came about from realising our weapon designs were stagnating mid-development and sitting down to brainstorm something off the map. She's not only a good character for players who stick with her, but her existence in the game challenged us to make later weapons like the Railgun and Giga Drill more distinctive.
Assault Android Cactus also has power-ups that appear regularly throughout each level. Each power-up initially appears as a red Firepower boost (adding hovering guns to your arsenal), but if it's not picked up immediately will transform into a yellow Accelerate boost (adding movement speed as well as slurping pick-ups toward you), and finally a blue Shutdown (sending enemies to sleep). The fact that players can choose which of the three power-ups to collect by timing it right inspired a vigorous debate on the game's forum over which was best.
Accelerate came off worst of the three by a fair margin. Despite boosting speed, decreasing damage taken and pulling battery and weapon orbs in, some players began actively avoiding Accelerate, says Dawson, seeing it as a wasted opportunity to grab one of the other two power-ups, both of which had more overt offensive potential.
In the choose-your-own-adventure card game Hand of Fate, each of the player's items is represented by a card that becomes that piece of equipment and appears on your avatar when combat begins. They fall down on you like rain, if rain was made of helmets and axes. Though Hand of Fate is a very different game, just like Assault Android Cactus and its Accelerate power-up, players prefer equipment that has overt offensive potential .
According to its creative director Morgan Jaffit, Something we notice a lot is that people generally prefer items with direct effects, rather than those that act on another system. A good example there is Skullcap of Prophecy, which reduces your cooldowns if you kill an enemy with a weapon ability. There's a lot going on there for a player to think about how often do they kill enemies, how often do they get to use weapon abilities, how does reducing cooldowns help them, etc.
The Skullcap of Prophecy can be part of a powerful combo when used with weapon abilities capable of finishing enemies off, reducing the cooldown on the ability that triggered the Skullcap in the first place in a repeatable loop. Most players don't bother with it, however, preferring to use gear that increases damage directly or doesn't require a decent weapon to synergize with.
Gear that has negatives as well as positives generally gets picked less than items that are a straight benefit. Morgan Jaffit
Likewise, gear that has negatives as well as positives generally gets picked less than items that are a straight benefit, says Jaffit. Forbidden Armor give you bonus damage resistance, but stops you being able to heal. People tended to just wear slower, less effective armour instead of dealing with the downside.
And that's up to you. Choosing not to use items that handicap you whether they provide some balancing advantage or exist simply to let you challenge yourself or fit a specific theme you're roleplaying is a choice that's yours to make. But even if you do make that choice, the bad items you avoid still serve a purpose. As Jaffit says, you always need contrast. No single item is 'good' in the abstract, you need other items to compare them to.
If every card in Hand of Fate or Hearthstone was perfectly balanced for use with every playstyle, there would be no thrill to finding ones that suit you. If the power-ups in Assault Android Cactus were the same you'd never race dramatically across the level to grab the one you like, and if every gun in Borderlands was useful at every range and in every situation you'd never switch between them and find the perfect moment to bombard some bad guys with a shotgun that shoots exploding swords.
Even beyond stats, items with no value can be imbued with purpose by passionate fans. In Dark Souls, one of the starting gifts, a pendant, does absolutely nothing. Why would anyone pick it over a key that unlocks doors throughout the game? Fans of Dark Souls labyrinthine lore speculated on how the pendant might fit into the mythos until director Hidetaki Miyazaki revealed that it was basically a prank. But by then it had served its purpose, making Dark Souls just a little bit more mysterious.
That Colovian Fur Helm served a purpose too. When I finally sold it in favor of wearing something made of enchanted green glass, I felt like a proper hero for the first time, not that joker straight off the boat with the pointy head.
I would have missed the Colovian Fur Helm, but fortunately the shopkeeper I sold it to was so impressed he put it on immediately and continued wearing it for the rest of the game. Everybody's bad item is valuable to someone.
There s a bit near the beginning of Uncharted 3 where protagonist Nathan Drake evades a police entourage by clambering up a drainpipe and onto a roof. The building overlooks the city s skyline and, while it s dark, the mass of light that radiates from the metropolis sprawled out in front of him lets him see for miles. It s a wonderful moment, but, while impressive, quickly feels bogus.
You see, in games like these you often can t actually reach the panoramic vistas, the gorgeous rolling hills, or the far-off knife-edge cliff faces, but are instead too quickly funnelled off down the next linear pathway towards the next foregone conclusion. You hardly have a chance to properly enjoy each moment of reflection before the story is moved on, and this makes me sad. (Incidentally, it looks like players will have the chance to sample the above and play many other PlayStation 3 exclusives on PC in the not so distant future if you d like to see what I mean in this instance.)
Conversely, having spent the past week ebony armour-deep in SureAI s Enderal a Skyrim total conversion mod whose scale almost matches that of its source material I was reminded of what draws me to games like these in the first place. Against games like Uncharted, it s not their open-ended quests, nor is it their divergent missions; their multitude of weapons and characters, or even their sprawling maps what I love about open-world games is simply knowing it s possible to explore their arenas from corner-to-corner, to pore over every inch of their sandboxes, or to delve into each one of their nooks and crannies.
Finding the highest accessible point in the map is the first thing I do when dropped into an open-world environment, before I pick a certain spot out in the distance and try my damndest to make it there alive or, more times than I care to admit, die trying and revel in whichever wildlife/scenery/baddies I encounter along the way.
From a practical perspective, besides facilitating these hands-on moments, trekking to and from these vantage points allows for a better understanding of the map itself. Truth be told, though, there's something I find wonderful about knowing that particular small patch of land, that dilapidated farmhouse, that seemingly abandoned island that I can spot from aloft my perch can be reached and explored, just because. There might be nothing real merit there on arrival and there's often not but I delight in the fact that in these games it can be done.
In Skyrim, I first discovered the Oghma Infinium book by stumbling upon Septimus Signus outpost after spying it from atop the College of Winterhold s roof; in New Vegas I meticulously planned an ambush on Caesar's Legion from the mountains located to east of their camp; in The Witcher 3 I climbed the Kear Trolde bridge in Skellige just so I could jump off into the water below because, well, why the hell not? There is, after all, no wrong way to play games.
I ve played and enjoyed the entire Uncharted series, and many games like it, but I ve found my fondest moments in games over the years have stemmed from the ones I ve created myself; the off-script set pieces and the moments of sheer randomness. Perhaps you could call it a problem with authority, but I like being able to roam where I want, when I want and spotting such places from the peak of a mountain, bridge or magic school is the best means for it.
Five years in the making, hobbyist studio SureAI has now released the English language version of Enderal: The Shards of Order, a total conversion mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Off the back of its multi-award winning Oblivion total conversion Nehrim: At Fate s Edge, Enderal is easily the small studio s most ambitious project to date one which not only offers players an entirely new playground to explore; but also a host of new characters to interact with, 30 hours-worth of campaign to plough through, and some completely overhauled systems to tinker with.
Naturally, the mod s release was marked with a launch trailer:
Last year, we caught up with a few members of the SureAI team to learn about the making of the mod which is a relatively long but interesting read. Expect more words about of Enderal: The Shards of Order at some point later this week, however learn what Jody Macgregor thought after spending 20 hours wandering its sprawling bounds last week.
Step-by-step details regarding how to install Enderal: The Shards of Order can be found on the mod s official site or via its ModDB page.