• The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road is now available for free on PS Plus
• The game is also coming to PC Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere in June
• New content will be released in early 2027, taking players back to the Skyrim setting

Zenimax Online Studios has announced huge plans for The Elder Scrolls Online, including a PC Game Pass release.

During the 2026 Seasons Direct today, alongside new playable content coming to the game next month with Season Zero: Dawn and Dusk, the developer revealed that players will return to Tamriel's frozen north of Skyrim to explore an "iconic region" not previously seen in The Elder Scrolls Online.

This update will also introduce the game's first-ever Excursion Zone, as well as dynamic blizzards that "affect the gameplay of the zone itself."

What's more, The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road, which includes the base game and all major Chapter zones (including Morrowind, Summerset, Elsweyr, Greymoor, Blackwood, High Isle, Necrom, and Gold Road) is available for free right now if you're subscribed to PlayStation Plus.

The offer is included in the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for March and ends on April 6. It is playable on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, so be sure to grab it while you still can.

On top of this, The Elder Scrolls Online is coming to PC Game Pass on June 2. It will also be added to Xbox Play Anywhere, so owners will be able to dive in on a range of Xbox platforms at no additional cost.

Earlier this year, Zenimax announced the game's very first event zone, the Night Market, which arrives on April 29. A limited-time player-versus-environment (PvE) zone described as "new, experimental content".

Two new story content updates are also on the way, and are each focused on the Thieves Guild and Sheogarath.

• The latest Skyrim Switch 2 Edition patch addresses the port's performance issues
• A 60fps performance mode has been added
• Some intrusive visual bugs have been addressed, too

Bethesda Game Studios has released another big patch for The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. And it's one that squarely addresses my biggest issue with the port.

Update 1.2 has been detailed in a post by the official Bethesda Game Studios account on X / Twitter. It has the usual smattering of fixes you'd expect, including addressing crashes, visual bugs, control issues, and the like.

However, the biggest change comes with the addition of an honest-to-goodness performance mode option. The port's Display settings now have a toggle that lets players swap between visual or performance priority.

The former is the Switch 2 version as you know it; a locked 30fps with crisper visual quality. The new 'prioritize performance' setting trades away some of that fidelity for a higher 60fps cap.

Some other visual oddities I made note of in my review of the Switch 2 port also appear to have been addressed. At launch, bodies of water would uncomfortably shift vertically when viewed from a distance. Additionally, distant trees and foliage would take on a strange blue tint. The update notes address these issues directly, too.

Overall, it's a robust patch that seems to address a lot of both the major and minor issues with Skyrim's Switch 2 port, thus making it much easier to recommend now.

The first patch was also swift to address its input latency issues shortly after launch, so you don't have to worry about that anymore, either.

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the only Bethesda game coming to Nintendo Switch 2 that will have a Game Card in the physical edition
• Skyrim: Anniversary Edition and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition will only offer codes in their boxes
• Oblivion Remastered will also receive a "physical code-in-box edition planned for a later date"

Bethesda has confirmed that only one of its games coming to Nintendo Switch 2 will offer a Game Card in its physical editions.

During the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase yesterday, it was announced that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition are all coming to the Switch 2 this year.

Now, Bethesda has confirmed that only Indiana Jones will have a proper Game Card cartridge in its physical edition. Oblivion Remastered and Fallout 4 will only have digital download codes in their boxes.

The studio shared the finer details in a launch roadmap blog post. The official X / Twitter account also shared its own post, writing, "And yes, the game is on Game Card", instead of one of the controversial Game-Key Cards.

Starting with Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition, which comes with the base game and all six expansion packs, the digital edition launches on February 24, followed by the "physical code-in-box edition" on April 28.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will launch on May 12, and pre-orders are now available "for the physical game card at retail and digitally via the Nintendo eShop". The game's downloadable content (DLC), The Order of Giants, will also be available to download separately on that date.

Oblivion Remastered, which is slated to launch sometime this year, will also be released digitally, "with a physical code-in-box edition planned for a later date".

It also confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition, which was released digitally last December, will get a physical code-in-box release on April 28.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim isn’t exactly a game that needs an introduction. Its broad appeal and astonishing staying power have seen it come to practically every single console since its late 2011 release, and it remains as impressively accessible and playable now as it was all those years ago.

Enter the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Skyrim Anniversary Edition, which packs the full game and all of its official expansions and Creation Club content into one portable package. This includes a whole heap of quests, housing, armaments, and entire systems like fishing and a survival mode on top of the already massive base game.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and in many ways it is. I was especially impressed by the port’s incredibly crisp image quality - offering clarity and broad draw distance not dissimilar to versions of Skyrim on other contemporary platforms like PS5 and Xbox Series X. It’s also a winner in handheld mode, with visuals and performance that are broadly comparable to docked play on TV.

You might be aware that this port has had some teething issues, though some of which have thankfully been addressed since launch. Its initial horrendous input latency has been cleaned up, allowing for a more responsive play experience overall.

Some issues do remain, however. Distant objects like trees and rocks can take on a weird blue hue, and reflections on bodies of water can jitter as you move the camera. I’m also not a fan of the complete lack of visual or accessibility settings. This has always been an issue outside of the PC version, but Skyrim is a game that desperately needs a field-of-view slider accessible in its settings menu and not hidden within console commands on PC.

Otherwise, Skyrim’s Switch 2 port is a perfectly playable version of the monstrously popular role-playing game. I think the 30fps lock for exterior environments is disappointing - especially when we see other Switch 2 ports like Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition offer VRR-supported 40fps modes for smoother play in handheld mode. That said, it is a stable 30fps, and you’ll rarely, if ever, run into bouts of chunky performance drops.

New dog, old tricks

Skyrim’s gotten its fair share of criticisms over the years - many of which are fair. The main story isn’t much to write home about, combat is pretty rock-em-sock-em-robots at the best of times, and role-playing elements have been sanded down to offer a more action-focused experience compared to Morrowind and Oblivion.

And yet for all its perceived issues, Skyrim remains one of the most impressively replayable games ever. Yes, even without mods (which aren’t supported on Switch 2 as they are on PS5 and Xbox, though I’m not going to criticize Bethesda for that one).

I still find much to enjoy in Skyrim to this day. Creating new characters to try a wide variety of builds is delightful - whether that be a warhammer-wielding Orc or a dainty Breton that specializes in conjuring everything from swords and skeletons, to zombies and atronachs. I’ve always liked the enchantment system, too; grabbing some nonchalant piece of jewelry and turning it into a fount of endless magicka regeneration is always such a satisfying feeling.

In this Switch 2 port, though, I’m checking out Skyrim’s curated Creation Club content for the first time. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Some additions are brilliant, like entirely new player houses that are wonderfully decorated. Others, like a smattering of just-okay sidequests, I can really take or leave.

I really would’ve liked an option for an ‘alternate start’ though. Skyrim’s lengthy, unskippable intro is still a slog when setting up new characters (you can load up an autosave that skips to character creation, but you still need to play through the tutorial in Helgen). Perhaps that would be veering too close to modding territory, and above and beyond what this simple port is trying to achieve, but it certainly would help the pacing on repeat playthroughs.

What I’m even less of a fan of is Bethesda’s insistence on not offering anything in the way of quality-of-life updates. Skyrim, by default, has a very narrow field of view, and there is no option to change this on any of its console ports, including on Switch 2. While not so bad on the console’s handheld display, it makes for pretty uncomfortable play sessions on larger TV screens.

A fiery port?

This latest port of Skyrim does have some Switch 2-centric features to speak of. Both gyro aiming and mouse controls are fully supported, which are nice additions on paper. However, I didn’t find the latter to be a particularly good fit for this port and its 30fps lock. This lower framerate makes aiming and tilting the camera with mouse controls feel quite sluggish, even after a patch that improved the input latency issues. I quickly found myself going back to the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller after testing out the feature for a little while.

On the topic of performance, I feel there’s room for improvement. While I’m happy that overall performance is largely stable, the 30fps lock for the overworld is underwhelming for a nearly 15-year-old game. At the very least, a performance mode option that raises the framerate would have been nice to see here.

Elsewhere, there are a handful of visual oddities to make note of. Distant objects - particularly foliage - often take on a strange blue hue. While quite subtle at first, it’s one of those things you’ll notice every time after seeing it happen just once. Meanwhile, bodies of water have a weird visual bug that causes reflections to jitter when moving the camera. It’s not as egregious as the blue trees, but worth mentioning all the same.

Performance while exploring interiors like dungeons, houses, and inns can vary wildly. Many indoor locations actually uncap the game’s framerate, meaning performance can appear to go as high as 60fps. It’s a bit jarring to have this gap in performance between indoor and outdoor areas, honestly, but a smoother framerate in the more mazelike interiors is certainly welcome.

Should I play Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Switch 2?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Skyrim’s options on Switch 2 aren’t much different from what you’ll get on other platforms. You can choose to enable or disable various Switch 2-specific options like gyro aiming, mouse controls, and gesture-based attacks, but that’s really about it. Don’t expect things like a field of view slider or colorblind options here.

How I reviewed Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Switch 2

I played Skyrim on Nintendo Switch 2 for around 30 hours, completing the main story (again) and a handful of guild questlines. I also played through a good portion of the game’s expansion content and Creation Club additions.

I went back and forth between handheld and docked play, finding that both offer great image quality and largely stable performance. When playing on TV, I used the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller, as well as the Joy-Con 2, for trying out the port’s new mouse controls. My display of choice is the ever-reliable LG CX OLED TV.

First reviewed December 2025-January 2026.

• Bethesda's Matt Carofano discusses the Switch 2 port of Skyrim
• Talking to Nintendo Life, he stats the porting process was "really easy"
• The Switch 2 port of Skyrim is available now for $59.99 / £52.99

Yes, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is the gift that keeps on giving. Or rather, the game that keeps on releasing; this time on Nintendo Switch 2.

Shadowdropped onto the system by Bethesda, who traditionally love a shadowdrop (see The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered from earlier this year), Skyrim is a game with a reputation for inevitably coming to absolutely everything. Then again, it doesn't seem like the Switch 2 version required all that much work.

In an interview with Nintendo Life, Matt Carofano - creative director for the Switch 2 port and lead artist of Skyrim's original release - discussed the process of bringing the beloved RPG to Nintendo's handheld platform.

"It's really easy," said Carofano of the re-release process and working with Nintendo. "We're huge fans of Nintendo, love working with them and getting our games to their consoles. And because there's a new console, it's 'Hey, let's bring back one of our most beloved games to the Switch 2 and see how we can improve it and make it the best experience for that console'."

He continued: "We had previously done the version for the Switch, so this was going back to that and making improvements on it. So it was really an easy development process and actually pretty quick in terms of our timelines."

In terms of the port's qualities, Carofano said: "A lot of it was really just focusing on taking advantage of the new hardware. We can use DLSS now and get better resolution, better performance, and the game loads faster. Switch 2 has the Joy-Con 2 controllers that let you use mouse controls, so we added that.

"A lot of it is really just, 'How do we take advantage of the Switch 2? What can it do? And [how can we] give players the best version of Skyrim for that console?'"

Of course, the re-release memes we're lost on Carofano; even he sees the humor in constantly bringing this 14-year-old game back into modern conversation.

"It's a bit of a joke at this point how often we release Skyrim," he said, "but it's a great game. We want everyone to be able to play it in the best way possible."

For me personally, $59.99 / £52.99 is a bit steep for a modern release of Skyrim. When it's readily available on other platforms - with mod support - for much less, it's hard to justify picking it up again even with the benefits of portable play. That said, if its future discounts on Switch 2 are as good as they are on other systems, well, let's just say I'm not wholly immune to the charms of Tamriel's winterly north.

• Bethesda has shadowdropped the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition
• This version, which includes the base game its three expansions, also offers enhanced resolution, optimised performance, and better load times
• Switch Anniversary Edition owners can upgrade their game for free and play it on Switch 2, while Skyrim base game owners will need to pay an extra $23.97 / £17.99

Just as Bethesda Game Studios shadowdropped Oblivion Remastered, the studio has today announced that The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition is now available on Nintendo Switch 2.

14 years after the game was first released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, and many remasters and modern ports later, Bethesda's much-loved fantasy role-playing game (RPG) has now made its way to the Switch 2 with additional improvements.

This version takes full advantage of the Switch 2 hardware and offers enhanced resolution, optimised performance, and boosted load times, as well as Joy-Con 2 mouse support, motion controls, and Amiibo support.

What's more, the Switch 2 version will also include exclusive Nintendo content from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, allowing players to get their hands on the Master Sword, Hylian Shield, and Champion’s Tunic.

Owners of the Anniversary Edition will also have access to hundreds of Creations Club items, such as quests, weapons, armor, spells, dungeons, and more.

The Anniversary Edition, which was released in 2021, features the base game and three expansions to get lost in, including Dawnguard, Dragonborn, and Hearthfire, and will cost $70.59 / £52.99.

For players who already own Skyrim: Anniversary Edition on the original Switch, they can upgrade their copy and download the game for free on Switch 2.

Alternatively, for those who own the base edition of Skyrim on Switch, the Anniversary Upgrade will cost $23.97 / £17.99 to play on Switch and Switch 2.

Ever played Skyrim? I remember my first time playing the game on PlayStation 3, trudging up the mountain known as the Throat of the World to meet the Greybeards, a caste of ancient priests who dwell at the top. The long journey up the mountain reminded me of Lord of the Rings; epic fantasy, regardless of medium, always involves an inordinate amount of walking. As I pushed the joystick forward and commanded my character to walk, the Northern Lights danced in the sky of the digital landscape, and I wished I could do this walk for real.

Ten years later, someone has answered my prayers and found a way to get their 10,000 steps in while playing Skyrim, all without using one of the best under-desk treadmills to do the trick.

I first saw this via a video published 10 days ago by YouTuber ShakeMistake, who is able to use the pedometer on his Android phone as he walks in place to propel his character forward in the game. All modern phones have pedometer functions that use the phone’s internal gyroscope, just like the best fitness trackers. ShakeMistake's footage shows him walking in place in his gaming studio, and the character onscreen moves forward as he does so.

A handheld trackball mouse is used to pivot, turn and take actions, but you could use another controller to do this. It’s very Ready Player One, in which the characters playing the virtual reality game use an omni-directional treadmill to move around the virtual environment.

He has done this in in two ways: a cheaper, easier, less immersive solution, and one that’s more complex to set up, but more sophisticated and rewarding to play. The first is a purpose-built app called StepL, which you download on your phone and on your PC. The apps match with a QR code made available during setup, and using the desktop app, it’ll map your W key to your phone’s pedometer.

The second uses another gamepad mapper called reWASD in combination with StepL. You can check out ShakeMistake’s full methodology in the video below.

Analysis: levelling up your cozy cardio

When on long nature walks, hikes or trail runs, I’m one of those huge nerds who’ll occasionally listen to fantasy soundtracks to really make me feel as though I’m travelling across Middle-Earth, Tamriel or The Continent. I’m certainly not the only one: videos with titles like “Ambient Walking Tour in the Hogwarts Castle” have garnered millions of views online.

If we advocate for people to use under-desk treadmills and walkpads to get your steps in during work, and watching Netflix, why not do it for gaming? I’m a firm believer in removing barriers to fitness, and not letting perfect become the enemy of good. You might not be going to the gym or signing up for an endurance race, but if you do 1,000 more steps than you did yesterday, that’s a win in my book.

If you’re a big gamer, consider looking at ways to map your phone’s pedometer to your 'walk' button to create an accessible entry point to fitness in general, and walking in particular. There’s no better place to start your fitness journey than walking across a fantasy land on your way to slay a dragon…

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• The Elder Scrolls 6 - everything we know so far

Todd Howard has said that Bethesda Game Studios is currently focused on finding ways to increase its output. 

After releasing Starfield in September, Bethesda is now at work developing The Elder Scrolls 6. The role-playing game was announced back in 2018 and even though the development team has reportedly been "playing early builds", there's still no release date, reinforcing the idea that we won't be seeing the studio's next major title for a good few years at least.

During a recent interview with Kinda Funny Games, when asked about the timeline of Howard's work at Bethesda and what he still wants to achieve, the developer explained that he loves making games and that if he wasn't creating them, he'd be playing them. 

Howard also touched on the development to release period for Bethesda games, and currently looking for ways to shorten long wait times.

"You know, they do take a long time, and so I think one of the things we’re focused on here is obviously making sure they’re of the highest quality," Howard said, "but also finding ways to increase our output, because we don’t want to wait that long either, right. It’s never our plan, but we want to make sure we get it right."

"My hope is to do it as long as possible. I have no plans to retire or anything like that."

Howard has previously hinted that Bethesda is making plans for another Fallout game, which in theory would arrive after the release of The Elder Scrolls 6. The developer stated last year that he would've announced the next Elder Scrolls "more casually" when asked if he regrets announcing the game so early.

Elsewhere in the same discussion, Howard has revealed that Starfield's first post-launch expansion Shattered Space will launch later this year.

You might also like...

• Fallout 5 - everything we know so far
• The Elder Scrolls 6 - everything we know so far
• Best RPGs 2024 - top role-playing games for PC and consoles

Skyrim Special Edition's latest update has rehashed one of the game's most controversial features from its past in the form of Creations.

Bethesda Game Studios announced the new platform via Twitter, stating that Creations "provides an updated way for players to discover, download and play community-made and official content." The adjacent blog post detailing Creations goes into more detail and offers some examples of featured Creations for players to try.

The post elaborates that modders can apply to be part of the Verified Creator Program, which will allow them to "set prices for their Creations." While players can still elect to upload Creations free of charge - and the Creation Club feature and its currency will continue to exist - Creations is offering a more up-to-date way for creators to earn revenue in Skyrim Special Edition.

What's important to note is that Creations seem rather more complex than those featured in 2017's controversial Creation Club. Back then, the additions Bethesda was charging for were extremely simple affairs; often very straightforward quests with none of the versatility or intrigue brought by modders for over a decade. Creations, by comparison, seem to be offering more substantial additions including graphical updates, voiced followers, and the like.

That being said, the update hasn't exactly gone down well on social media. In the replies to the official Twitter post, many are shaking their heads at the return to the concept of paid mods. Others are rightly worried about the possibility of popular (arguably essential) free mods being locked behind a paywall.

Hopefully, Creations won't prove to be overly intrusive for Skyrim Special Edition. Websites hosting free mods, like Nexus Mods, will continue to exist, as will support for mod hosting and downloads on console. Here's hoping, then, that Creations simply offers one avenue of accessing fan-made content rather than becoming the new norm.

If you enjoy Skyrim, you may be interested in the list we have over at our best RPGs page. Alternatively, our best Steam games guide details fantastic recommendations for PC titles both big and small.

Experience Points is a fortnightly chat with people in and around the games industry to talk about the most important games in their lives, whether that’s working on them, being inspired by them, or just playing them.

Everyone's journey into gaming and games is different; maybe you fell in love with the translucent Game Boy color, or you enjoyed spending Saturdays on the family PC playing Team Fortress 2. However, a great deal of people found their way into games thanks to Gary Gygax’s tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

“Growing up, I was the Dungeon Master for five other boys for years. I was a big deal geek. It was awesome because it taught me a lot about games, and it sort of set me on this path”, founder of Something Wicked Games, Jeff Gardiner, says. “If I ever give an award speech, I'm going to have to thank Gary Gygax, because if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't be doing this.”

Gardiner found that opportunities to cultivate exciting stories from a young age, like those offered in D&D, drew him into the boundless world of games. After going to college to study creative writing, Gardiner spent his time bartending and eventually working on the shoe company Vans’ first website, before deciding to change paths and get a Master's degree in computer science and website building. However, to do so, he realized he had to own a computer - something he didn’t yet have. So, without wasting any time, Gardiner bought a computer from a local shop called Fry’s Electronics. However, this wasn’t all he bought: “Of course, the first thing I did was buy a game, Baldur’s Gate 2,” Gardiner admits.  

Baldur’s Gate 2

After purchasing Baldur’s Gate 2 and his brand new computer, Gardiner decided to take a break from his studies and live what many gamers would consider a dream. “For a week, I would wake up in the morning, order two Domino's pizzas and just play Baldur’s Gate 2 all day,” Gardiner says. “I did this for nine days straight.” Sounds pretty good to me. 

Over the course of nine days, the deep narrative and personal connections made in BioWare’s RPG, in particular, fascinated Gardiner. A different level of detail and agency comes with playing Baldur's Gate 2; the decisions you make can be detailed and have various intriguing repercussions on the story progression and the NPCs you’ll encounter. Those of you who have played the newest entry, Baldur's Gate 3, will know this well.

Even after 20 years, Gardiner still thinks about the stories in Baldur's Gate 2 and the manpower and creativity behind it. “Creativity is such an amazing skill that human beings have; imagination and creativity can transport people like nothing else.”

There’s also so much more to enjoy with 11 playable classes, dozens of subclasses, player voice lines to customize your character with, and the standard Shadows of Amn adventure plus an expansion, Throne of Bhaal. You can have endless fun and adventures with Baldur's Gate 2. These adventures don’t stop when you turn off your computer either; many of them will live on in your memory and imagination well after you move on to the next game. “It's funny to this day, I wonder why I love pizza so much, and it finally dawned on me that it’s because every Friday night when I’d play D&D, I would have freaking pizza.”  

Populous 

At first inspection, Populous and Baldur’s Gate 2 have nothing in common; one’s a D&D-inspired RPG, and the other is a complex God game - an artificial life game in which the player influences things on a large scale. Interestingly enough, instead of directly controlling the AI civilization in the game, you influence their decisions by doing godly acts such as spawning volcanoes or introducing plagues. 

One memorable experience Gardiner had while playing Populous was desperately trying to look after his civilization without causing complete destruction. “To build land, you had to expand volcanoes - 'Oh, they're starving, they don't have enough crops, and I need more earth',” Gardiner explains. “The only way to make the earth is to spawn volcanoes, so you try to find a place on the map where you're not killing them.” It turns out that not smothering your people in volcanic ash and lava is more challenging than you’d expect. 

However, Populous isn’t just a volcano simulator; there are some intriguing RPG elements as well. “I like what Peter Molyneux did with the RPG genre at the time, and he put a lot of very unbelievably cool mechanics in that game, him and his team, I should say.” Instead of the story being a straightforward role-playing game, it’s more mature and complex than that. “You're experiencing a story that you can sort of influence, but you're not in. The goal of Populous isn't really to win; it's to sort of see what happens.” 

Red Dead Redemption 

If you’re as big of a fan of gripping storytelling as Gardiner is, then you’ll probably agree that when it comes to an engaging narrative, Red Dead Redemption has one of the best. 

You play as John Marston, a former outlaw whose wife and children are taken by the government and used as leverage to ensure Marston is used as a hired gun. With no other option, Marston is forced to bring three members of his former gang to justice. 

“In Red Dead, there are not a lot of choices; they all lead you to the same outcome, which allows the game creators to make a really well-crafted story because you only have to account for all these little decisions. It’s well worth it though when you get to the penultimate scene”, Gardiner says.  

That penultimate scene sees John Marston in a barn on his farmstead surrounded by U.S. Army Marshalls, having just helped your family escape. John stays behind to face each and every one of the Marshalls. As the scene draws on, you unload your barrel into the oncoming enemies, only to realize it’s all futile. “You start dry clicking, and your character starts getting hit with bullets, and you die. I was shocked,” Gardiner explains. “I get chills just thinking about it. I know it sounds strange because it's a video game, but I’m actually getting chills right now. I couldn't believe that after playing a character for 50 hours, you die and then come back as his son to go on the warpath.” This brilliant storytelling that Rockstar Games executed is something that Gardiner still thinks about to this day.

“Rockstar Games is fantastic. My biggest fear when I worked at Bethesda Game Studios was that Rockstar was going to decide to do a fantasy version of their game. We'd be trumped,” Gardiner admits. “I don't want to offend anybody, but man, put a sword in their hands and a horse, and that’s it. They can just do these details in games that are astounding.” 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 

Luckily, in the early-to-mid 2010s, Rockstar never made a trip into the fantasy world. Instead, Bethesda had a relatively free run at the genre. Spending more than 10 years working at Bethesda, Gardiner worked on some brilliant games, including The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76. However, only one of those has made his list of best games, and that, perhaps unexpectedly, is The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. 

“There's something so magical about Skyrim,” Gardiner points out. “I love Fallout. I worked on it for almost 10 years, but there's something about Skyrim. We were still small enough to really put in some amazing custom content, which was amazing.” 

Looking back, Gardiner has tons of fond stories about his time working on Skyrim. There’s the ant story, in which a colleague not only decided to add thousands of ants into the RPG so players could experience realistic forests but subsequently added realistic shadows to each of them. This caused a mass of game-breaking outcomes, with no one being able to figure out why Skyrim wasn’t running correctly. Luckily, the team eventually found these destructive ants and put them to bed. “When you're talking about 12-year-old tech, you [have] to be very careful with shadow casting 1000s of ants that you couldn't even see,” Gardiner says.

There’s also the time when developers decided they wanted to add butterflies into Skyrim. These would flutter around and follow players who had flowers in their inventory. While it may seem like a lot of work, it was worth it in Gardiner’s eyes. “That's why I chose Skyrim. It's not about the end result of it being this amazing 60 million-unit-selling game,” Gardiner admits. “It's more about the memories I have of the cool things that folks were allowed to do in that game. Sometimes we had horrible game-breaking outcomes, but oftentimes, you either learn from them or end up with some really cool outcomes.” 

The story continues 

This creative freedom that Gardiner experienced while working on Skyrim is something that he has prioritized at Something Wicked Games, his new studio, and in the creation of the upcoming RPG Wyrdsong, set in Portugal and revolving around the mythos of the Knights Templar. “I wanted to create a safe space for creatives; that was my number one goal,” Gardiner says. “You do that by establishing trust, by allowing people to fail and not feel like they did something wrong, by people feeling comfortable throwing a terrible idea in the room, without any bad repercussions.” 

One idea that was allowed to blossom thanks to the supportive environment over at Something Wicked Games was the one that involved heating swords. While this may sound strange, the team working at Wyrdsong realized that players would fight numerous fiery enemies with an iron sword. So instead of simply adding blood splatter, the team wanted something more realistic and added sparks and flames, as well as a feature that allowed the sword to get hotter, which then meant players could build up fire attacks to use on other opponents. 

It’s these small moments that Gardiner is most looking forward to seeing fully realized in the Wyrdsong. “I just want the devs to have as much fun as possible,” Gardiner concludes. “I want to go to my nursing home knowing that I helped other people's careers. I want to leave the people who come into my life a little better off; that's my goal.” 

While we still have a while to wait until we get any more solid information about Wyrdsong, it’s safe to say that when it comes to storytelling and creative freedom, it's safe in the hands of Jeff Gardiner and Something Wicked Games. 

Check out our list of best story games for even more fantastic titles, and if you've already played them, why not take a look at our best indie games list for some unknown gems? 

Redemption - Reawakened is an ambitious mod project destined to recreate the first Vampire: The Masquerade game 23 years after its release. Although updates on the project have felt relatively few and far between, its most recent update shows an entirely new look for Skyrim. 

Set in Medieval Prague, the newest video update for the project walks you through the city, including a look at the exterior and interior of St. Vitus Cathedral, and a walk around the grounds to see twisted, muddy streets that you’d expect from a medieval city. We cross paths with a few NPCs and experience some of the voice-acting the mod will offer. The full video exploring Prague during the day, alongside a walk through the Silver Mines, can be seen below:

In addition to this, we also get a first look at the mines, which players with a keen eye will recognize the familiar layout of. After all, this is a mod for Skyrim rather than a remake of the original game, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still be fun to trek around. 

Menus and loading screens have been completely overhauled too, alongside weapons and armor to help add to the immersion of the title. However, despite completely altering the game's appearance, there’s still a certain Skyrim edge that can’t be shaken - and this isn’t necessarily bad. Classic Skyrim hack-and-slash combat takes place over the traditional Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption combat, which helps make the experience more streamlined and engaging. 

Although we don’t have a release date for this mod yet, and the project is very much still a work in progress, the best way to keep up to date with any exciting updates is to keep an eye on Galejro's YouTube and Twitter pages. 

If you want to sink into a new adventure before this mod releases, you might want to turn your attention to the best RPGs. However, the best single-player games might also be of interest, alongside the best story games for a more narrative-driven adventure. 

Whenever the next big Bethesda Game Studios title comes around, we have double the reason to board the Hype locomotive all the way to Impossibly High Expectation Central. Because not only do we get a vast RPG that’s rich in environments, lore, NPC stories and incidental details, we also get a modding platform to bend and twist the aforementioned RPG into whatever demented vision we can imagine. (If you’ve forgotten what I mean, allow me to jog your memory.)

Todd Howard has confirmed that Starfield will have full mod support well ahead of launch, which means all of the above holds true for BGS’ upcoming game - it’ll probably be absolutely brilliant, and then it’ll probably spawn an absolutely brilliant modding scene that’ll give us years of strange, beautiful, and inevitably, weirdly sexualised experiences. 

But there’s also reason for caution. Because for all the incredible additions it spawned, goodness gracious, Skyrim has been an absolute nightmare for content creators and mod users alike. It was never supposed to live this long. It was never supposed to run on our smart toasters. And as a result of that unnatural lifespan brought about through constant re-releases, Skyrim has inadvertently made vast, vast swathes of UGC incompatible and redundant several times over. 

Here, then, are the lessons both we and Bethesda must absolutely learn from Skyrim in order to ensure a better platform for Starfield. 

1. No ‘special’ editions that create mod incompatibilities 

I think most of us know what I’m referring to here. Bethesda released a Special Edition of Skyrim in 2016, five years after its original launch. The intention was to upgrade the visual fidelity of the game for users on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Ooh look! Volumetric lighting! Slightly better snow! That looks cool. 

But there was a significant maggot in the sweetroll - Skyrim: Special Edition looked better than five-year-old original Skyrim, certainly. But modded original Skyrim made Skyrim: SE look like Ape Escape.

It got worse. Skyrim modding is a precarious house of cards. It’s propped up with SKSE, a script extender that allows for a multitude of features beyond the scope of the vanilla release. Most mods that modify NPC behaviour, spells or combat use SKSE in some form. So if SKSE stops being able to talk to the Skyrim .exe, it’s bad news. 

So when Skyrim: SE arrived in late 2016 and resolutely didn’t work with SKSE, it meant that a very significant swathe of the modding content that users had been building up for half a decade was now incompatible with the latest version of the game. Not an issue for console players who hadn’t been faffing about with these kind of mods in the first place and were instead bound by workshop/store content, but for PC players at the time it felt like a disaster. 

The community adapted, though. Modders found a way to convert their original mods to SE, and although it took a lot of work at first, by 2017 it was pretty straightforward to do. And by that time most modders had made the jump over to SE in order to make use of its new visual effects. 

And then Bethesda did the exact same thing all over again. 

Except this time, when Skyrim: Anniversary Edition released in 2021, 10 years after the original launched, it worked like an update to Skyrim SE on Steam instead of a separate SKU. In other words, unless you had auto updates turned off, this new version of the game installed itself over your fastidiously modded Skyrim SE install and rendered all your mods useless again. 

Again the fist-shaking. Again the mass update project. Those poor people who develop SKSE.

The lesson’s very simple: PC players and console players are not to be treated as one homogenous consumer blob. We have very different needs, particularly when it comes to how our games are updated and how new editions are delivered. 

Starfield is likely to be a stratospherically popular game. Popular enough to warrant Special Editions and remasters down the line, just like it’s dragon-thwacking ancestor. Bethesda can and will drop new content for it. But it needs to deliver it with the needs of PC players at the front of its mind. Don’t do this to us again Bethesda, please. I’ve only just got the enormous anime jiggling boob physics working again. 

2. Don’t release DLC that a mod already does better 

Nothing against Skyrim’s Hearthfire mod, but just like the above point, it only really met a need among console players. Over on PC, we’d been lording it about in preposterous 50-room mansions with armour display cabinets and jacuzzis since not long after launch. Heck, we’d been downloading player home mods as far back as 2006, for Oblivion. The last thing we needed in a paid expansion pack was the ability to build one single player home.

In Starfield, it’ll likely be spaceships and the customisable elements within them where modders place their focus. Right now at this proximity to launch that feels like a really important part of the game. You’re flying around a thousand different planets, a brain-melting amount of real estate, and your ship is likely to provide one of the only constants in the game, one of a few precious elements that make this all feel like one connected adventure. Your adventure.

So it’s going to be a natural point of emphasis for modders. Now if a paid expansion releases post-launch that adds in some ships, or ship customisation elements that pale in comparison to the volume and quality the modding community has already generated up to that point, it’ll be a bad look and another clear lesson from Skyrim ignored.  

3. Use the modding scene as a gauge for what players actually want in expansions and DLC 

An extension of the above point, and an opportunity for Bethesda to better attune to its community: look at what modders are actually making, and the content that’s proving most popular among players. Then use that data to guide the direction of post-launch content. 

And no, that’s not a direct contradiction of point 2, I promise. 

Here’s an example: in vanilla Skyrim, certain modding directions were nigh impossible. Deeper NPC interactions, smarter AI, better animations, more detailed physics. The community did devise solutions to most, if not all, these areas eventually, but they had to Heath Robinson their solutions, performing the code equivalent of slapping a bunch of electrical tape over the problem. Had Bethesda come forward and expanded the game’s creation tools in those areas themselves, we might have seen a very different Skyrim modding scene. 

Starfield shows signs that it’s taken direct influence from Skyrim’s modders. Player companions have a much deeper system to them, it appears, than was the case in vanilla Skyrim. So when Starfield releases, Howard and co can really take the temperature of the community and expand the game’s modding functionality - rather than simply the content - in the directions that creators really need. 

4. No paid mods, please 

Remember paid mods in Skyrim? It was based around implementing a pay-what-you-want model to creator content on Steam Workshop, whereby the money was split between creators, Valve, and Bethesda. It didn’t work. 

There are all kinds of reasons it didn’t work. Modding is incredibly collaborative and iterative. To get one single mod to work there’s a string of contingencies that you also need installed. Modders build on each others’ work. That’s just how it works. Often it happens simply by asking for permission or giving credit. But when money starts getting involved, that system doesn’t work as well, as Skyrim’s paid mods showed. Copyright disputes were raised, mods were pulled from the store, and players who’d paid for content were left without it. 

Modders deserve compensation for their work, but there are existing crowdfunding channels that allow for that. Paywalling the content just doesn’t work, and in the case of Skyrim’s paid mods in 2015, it created a huge fan backlash and plenty of infighting between modders. 

Starfield is on our radar of upcoming games worth keeping an eye on, but if you're looking for more titles to enjoy prior to its release, it's worth checking out our list of best RPGs, or our list of best free games if you're looking for something cheaper to pass the time. 

Players are seeing a severe increase in M-rated Skyrim mods that are using AI-generated voices based on real voice actors. 

Recently, the Skyrim modding community has been plagued by AI voice generators using voice actors without their consent. Now many of the actors have come out decrying the practice of cloning performances without consent, especially for pornographic purposes. 

AI-generated voice acting has become more prevalent thanks to the new AI tool ElevenLabs. It slowly gathered momentum through 2022 among Skyrim modders, with Nexus Mods officially stating that "AI-generated mod content is not against our rules", which added further controversy to the AI debate. 

The lengthy Twitter post argues that "voice actors are being abused by the modding communities", user Robbie92_ said. "I am a deeply concerned member of the mod community for The Elder Scrolls series of games". 

Robbie lists the names of voice actors who have lent their talents to The Elder Scrolls series of games and have subsequently been impersonated by AI voice cloning to create pornographic content. 

Luckily, players can do a few things right now to try and alleviate this problem. These problematic game mods are being hosted on the Nexus mods website, so Robbie points users towards contacting the host website to voice complaints and "demand the removal of works containing your voices used for deep fake pornographic content". 

The site does, in fact, have a DMCA form for players to use if they find a project using content inappropriately or illegally. However, it is unclear how effective using this approach is. 

Voice actor Zane Schacht weighed in on the controversy tweeting that AI voices are "fucking gross" just in principle. "The act of taking an actor's voice without their consent and making it say anything, ESPECIALLY NSFW content, is fucking heinous."

News like this is hard to digest, especially when there are so many terrific Skyrim mods available. While there may not be an easy fix, thanks to the almost infinite number of mods, hopefully, with help from the community, we can all make a change to this horrid practice.

For more coverage, check out our pages for Prime Day gaming deals 2023 and Prime Day gaming chair deals.

For many years now, RPG fans have been keeping patient vigil over a particularly special project in development. The road’s been long, and the setbacks have been many. But over the last few years, the dedicated fanbase has been treated to a few official announcements. And now, it appears, there’s at least an end in sight to it all. 

Whether that end arrives before The Elder Scrolls 6 is released is anyone’s guess. 

Skyblivion is not to be confused with Skywind (an amateur modding project aiming to port Morrowind into the Skyrim engine), Morroblivion (Morrowind into Oblivion), nor Unrake (a project porting Unreal Tournament’s guns into Quake 3 Arena that I just made up). It’s the gorgeous, loveably janky world of Cyrodiil, complete with the questlines, armor items, and NPCs that have all etched themselves into your interior life forever, ported over to Skyrim.

Yes, the Skyrim that came out 12 years ago. The proposition’s changed a bit since the project first got underway, in the wake of Bethesda’s juggernaut release. It’s no longer about playing an old classic in the latest bleeding-edge engine. It’s become something more akin to playing one old classic in the engine of another. But that’s absolutely fine. 

 Agony and SKSE 

The thrill of seeing an old, forgotten land, like Oblivion’s Cyrodiil, archived and renovated so artfully is still present, even after all these years. Take a look for yourself at the modders’ recent livestream and tell me you don’t have the urge to go running off into the horizon, to uncover some Skooma smuggling plot, or fall into a watercolor painting. 

That livestream demo cannily begins opposite the first Ayelid Ruin you catch sight of in Oblivion. The one just beyond the water from the famous tunnel you walk out of and into the freedom of Cyrodiil’s open-world map. There are few sights that better capture what made Oblivion so special. 

And while you might quite convincingly make the argument that if Oblivion was so good you should just go back and play that for the fully authentic and nostalgic experience, the benefits of Skyblivion are obvious. 

I played the original Oblivion recently, and it’s certainly untouchable for nostalgia, but there are also a few things our rose-tinted 2006 vision has glossed over. Things that we thought were there from the start, but which, in reality, we added in afterwards in mods, or weren’t actually implemented until Skyrim. It’s a surprisingly long list that covers features like player homes (mods), underwater combat (Skyrim), and a manageable inventory screen (mods for Skyrim). The team behind Skyblivion, TESRenewal Modding Group, wants to subtly add in all that stuff that we now consider central to the fundamental Elder Scrolls experience without losing the essence of Bethesda’s original. Based on everything it’s shown so far, the group seems to be pitching that balance expertly.  

The Fall Forest, for example, was a relatively small area along the orange road in the original map of Cyrodiil. Players remember it well because the autumnal leaves created a distinctive biome in what was otherwise a pretty ubiquitously green world. The modders acknowledge the Fall Forest’s popularity, so it’s rebuilding the area completely from scratch.

But the team is not just replicating it, stone for stone, leaf for leaf. It has decided to expand it and employ some artistic license, adhering to the spirit of the original rather than the letter of it. It’s the same for the Gold Coast, which was in fact, like everywhere else in Oblivion, green. Skyblivion’s version is once again completely redesigned and now lives up to its name thanks to a subtle shift in the shades of flora in that region. Nobody’s precious memories are going to be upturned and spat on by creative changes like this – it feels more like a heightened version of what we recall.

And that philosophy has often led to the best regarded of the games industry’s glut of remakes and remasters. Like-for-like texture upscale jobs have their place, but Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s complete reimagining of what was once more or less an isometric turn-based RPG on PS1 has captured the imaginations of a whole new generation of gamers. It still feels completely connected to the original, even though literally everything you’re seeing and doing is completely different.

Sky's the limit

For the virtual renovator, the real knack is in knowing where the essence of a game lies. Is it the soundtrack, or the character models? Is the control scheme sacrosanct, and would the experience be better if there was a change of camera perspective or a jump button added? I can’t articulate the essence of Oblivion any better than Skyblivion manages in every frame of pre-release footage; the team behind it just seems to telepathically know what each of us in the game’s enormous fanbase holds dear. It knows what to lean into, what to cut back, and what to completely overhaul. 

In some cases, that’s informed by Bethesda Game Studios’ original ideas. Skyblivion’s version of Leyawiin, on the south coast, differs from the original and instead uses original concept art and sketches from the dev team to flesh out a new vision of the city. It’s what the creators imagined the city might be like, before harsh realities like time and budget had their say. 

Skyblivion’s a modern rarity for its approach. This isn’t an Early Access release that’s been left to languish in functional but unfinished form, though its audience is sufficient for TESRenewal Modding Group to have done so. It’s not gated behind a Kickstarter with an ever-expanding goal. Its small team of amateur developers have been balancing the task of rebuilding a massive open world with their day jobs and many other responsibilities, and these modders are taking their time until it’s completed.

Which, by the way, will be no later than 2025.

That’s according to the latest major update, which explained that the ETA may move forwards depending on how quickly progress is made, but not back. So now there’s a race on, and one that Skyblivion will probably win – which will arrive first, this bedroom coding magnum opus or the next full-blooded Elder Scrolls game?

Bethesda hasn’t given any solid info on The Elder Scrolls 6 beyond an announcement trailer in 2018 which told us precisely nothing. There’ll be land and sea. It’s the sixth Elder Scrolls game. That’s it. Bethesda’s game director, Todd Howard, has gone into a little bit more detail on the studio’s internal timelines, only as far as to clarify that Starfield will be the studio’s focus until it ships. And Starfield, as we know, has been delayed into 2023. In 2018 it left pre-production, where it had been since Fallout 4 shipped in 2015, and entered full development, soon coming together into a playable state that same year. Given those timelines, The Elder Scrolls 6 is extremely unlikely to release a mere two years after Starfield. 

Which is just as well for Skyblivion. It’d be a shame for such an incredibly dedicated team to see its work overshadowed by a new mainline game. And besides, they’ll want at least a little break before they start on Skyscrolls 6.  

• The Elder Scrolls Oblivion fan remake release window revealed by shirtless demon

Great news for Elder Scrolls fans: Skyblivion, an ambitious fan-made recreation of Oblivion within Skyrim’s engine, has finally been given a release window after years of development updates. Skyblivion is an attempt to rebuild the entirety of Skyrim’s predecessor in a modern engine. 

Skyblivion’s latest trailer reveals that the project, that’s been in development since 2017, is now due for release in 2025. Though still some way away, it’s reassuring that the mod has a confirmed release window. At this rate, Skyblivion may well be out before Elder Scrolls 6. 

The sunny horizons of the RPG’s setting, Cyrodiil, make for a welcome change from Skyrim’s harsh, wintery vistas. The trailer also treats us to all sorts of goodies, such as footage of the neo-classical imperial capital, the dominating palace tower that sits in its center, and glimpses of the sinister assassin’s guild, the Dark Brotherhood. In the video's closing moments, we even get a look at the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon, Oblivion’s final boss. As terrifying as he might be, this demonic colossus should really consider putting on a shirt.   

 Beyond the gate 

As you might expect, recreating the entirety of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion within Skyrim is no mean feat. As the mod’s official website puts it: “making games takes time, [and] this goes double for a volunteer project the size of a AAA game that took a team of fulltime devs years to make.” 

Skyblivion’s development diaries confirm the astronomical work these dedicated fans-turned-developers have put into the project. All of Oblivion’s original 3D assets had to be remade, along with every single environment in what is a huge map. Though released in 2006, Oblivion is a game of tremendous scope, bursting with content. 

Skyblivion is part of a group of volunteer projects entitled: The Elder Scrolls Renewal. A group that aims to recreate all of the major, recent Elder Scrolls games with Bethesda’s modern tools. As well as Skyblivion, TES Renewal hosts the Morroblivion and Skywind projects, mods that bring Morrowind into the Oblivion engine and Morrowind into the Skyrim engine, respectively. Clearly, The Elder Scrolls Renewal projects participants have a lot on their plates.  

Oblivion holds a special place in my heart. The game dropped around my 13th birthday, I’d just started at a new school and life was pretty scary. Enter: Bethesda’s brand new open-world RPG. The tutorial’s opening dungeon crawl hooked me deep. I played the game relentlessly, spending hundreds of hours in Cyrodiil. I joined the Fighter’s Guild, explored long-lost ruins, and, eventually, saved the world. 

Oblivion was far from perfect. The voice acting was notoriously hit and miss, and the overlapping systems that made up the RPG’s open world often led to goofy shenanigans. Still, I feel there’s a certain charm to Cyrodiil that’s worth immortalizing. 

Oblivion was a magical game that set the bar for modern open-world experiences and welcomed a whole new generation of players to RPGs. The prospect of seeing Oblivion’s world realized with modern graphics has me counting down the days on my Elder Scrolls-themed almanac until 2025. 

• If you can't wait until 2025, you can play some of the older Elder Scrolls game for free.

You don’t need to spend lashings of cash on a brand-new game when excellent community mods exist. 

Released in 2011, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim still holds up today as one of the best RPGs ever. It has all the core trappings of a fantasy epic: colossal dragons, slick swashbuckling, and a lot of yelling. But even though Skyrim is over a decade old now, there’s still new life to be breathed into it yet.

Warden Of The Coast is a huge DLC-sized creation from modder TheBawb, adding up to 15 hours of new missions, voice lines, companions, and five possible endings to one of Bethesda’s best-loved games.

Oh, and it’s free.

Shout at the devil

TheBawb has kitted out its Warden Of The Coast mod with everything you need to take the Dovah-Kiin on a brand-new adventure. At just 2.5GB, you’re getting a lot of content in a comparatively small space - especially considering how detailed this mod seems to get.

In the Warden of the Coast’s mod listing, TheBawb says it’s “heavily inspired by the game mechanics of Mass Effect and Dragon Age”, your mission is to halt the return of a malevolent Daedric lord with the help of your nine in-game companions. Each companion has their own unique questline to help build their loyalty to you, which should come in handy given the “three-companion exploration system”.

You’ll be able to check on your progress with each companion thanks to TheBawb’s companion regard system. It will be updated through dialogue, kills, and quest choices to give you an accurate bearing of where you stand with your partners. 

They seem to be fully-interactable members of your party, as you can revive them during combat and even level them up once your relationship is high enough.

As well as 9,000 brand new dialogue lines shared between 27 voice actors, you’ll be a lover as well as a fighter thanks to some new romance storylines - and you’ll even get to marry the beau of your choice in an upcoming patch. What’s more, the five possible outcomes will hinge on the choices that you make in the game, leaving plenty of room for replayability.

Storyline aside, Warden Of The Coast offers two brand new world spaces and 19 new interiors, giving it a fresh look that will shake up the world of Skyrim as you know it.

The only things you need to play Warden Of The Coast are your PC and a copy of Skyrim. It doesn’t use any unique assets from the special editions of the game, so you shouldn’t have any issues running it with the vanilla release.

As one of the most modded games ever, the Skyrim community has loads to look forward to if the talented modders keep the goods coming for incoming Bethesda games such as Starfield.

• Not into modding? Pick up one of the best PC games instead.

Beloved RPG Skyrim can now officially be considered old, as it hits PC gaming’s most popular storefront for classic games.

GOG (or Good Old Games) announced Skyrim would be coming to the platform celebrating the storefront’s 14th anniversary. Still one of the best RPGs around, Skyrim’s original release and its updated Anniversary Edition are available to buy all over again – both with hefty discounts.

“After many years and lots of requests from our users, Skyrim, the fifth installment of The Elder Scrolls franchise, is live on GOG,” the platform said in a press release.

Old folks scrolls

As is usual with games sold on GOG, its versions of Skyrim will be DRM-free. You can install the game on as many systems as you want, don’t need to be online to play, and don’t even need to be logged into your GOG account to boot it up once it’s installed. You won’t be required to log into the game’s Creation Club, either – an add-on platform that lets you buy Bethesda-curated mods.

Owing to Skyrim’s huge popularity among modders, GOG’s version of the RPG will be “compatible out of the box with most modifications” on Nexus Mods and support Skyrim Script Extender – a popular tool used by many mods for the game. GOG says it’s also preparing “something special to provide an even smoother modding experience”, for which we can “expect more details soon”.

Many modern triple-A and indie releases are listed on GOG, but the storefront specializes in older titles. Earlier this year, it said in a blog post that it wanted to refocus on retro games that hold a special place in players’ hearts. Skyrim’s addition to the platform shows its age, as it joins its predecessors in The Elder Scrolls series.

You can now find The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition on GOG. If you’re desperate to dip back into the world of Tamriel, you’re probably best taking Skyrim for another spin, since it’ll be years before The Elder Scrolls 6 launches. 

• Two of the best PS5 exclusives all but confirmed for PC thanks to leaks

They are ubiquitous. From Demon’s Souls to Crash Bandicoot, to pretty much every game in the Resident Evil franchise, we are surrounded by video game ‘remakes’. I use inverted commas because the term rarely means the same thing twice.

The Last of Us Part 1 is more of a remaster. And the new Final Fantasy VII Remake games manage to be both sequels and reboots. Google gives us a useful definition: to “make (something) again or differently”. In the end, it’s the differences, however great or small, that are the raison d’etre of the remake; after all, to make a game again exactly the same, frame by frame, pixel by pixel, would be a strange venture indeed.

There are plenty of cynics out there who will claim that the primary purpose of remakes is to make money. However, I reached out to creators in the remake business who definitely aren’t in it to demand $70 for a game you’ve already played. They're the ones who began as fans, rather than copyright holders.

“Even though I played it after Skyrim, the storytelling of Morrowind absolutely captivated me,” says Kylie, one of the writers for Skywind, a remake of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind in the Skyrim engine. “There was this dichotomy – the story of the outlander and the story of Nerevar. They’re happening simultaneously, woven into each other.” It’s clear from the start of our chat that the team behind Skywind love the source material. 

“We think of Skywind as Morrowind in a current design context,” says Matt, another writer. “For example, we are doing voice acting for everything. Morrowind was written in an era when you didn’t have to worry about that. The NPCs give exposition dumps that don’t make sense; they’re not how a person would speak to you. So we’ve broken up the dialogue to make that feel more natural.” Context, then, is one of the important ‘differences’ a remake can tackle – bringing a game in line with the expectations of a new era.

Memory drain

One of the issues that worries me about remakes is the possibility of older titles being permanently replaced. Neil Druckmann has said of The Last of Us Part 1 that it’s the vision Naughty Dog had back in 2013 – but one the developer is only able to bring to fruition with today’s technology. If this is the case, I suspect it will keep happening. Perhaps, in 2030, The Last of Us will be remade (or remastered) again, replacing this year’s version, and eventually, we’ll have no memory of that flawed but beautiful PS3 game of 2013. 

The Skywind team, by contrast, doesn’t necessarily intend its project to replace the original Elder Scrolls 3. “Morrowind is an incredible game, and if we weren’t massive fans of it then we wouldn’t be spending our free time remaking it,” says community manager Egrets. “Once Skywind is out, there will then be two games that tell the story of Morrowind. Skywind is a retelling of Morrowind, but it doesn’t replace it.”

Like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Skywind is simply a new reading of a classic story by someone who loves the source material. “It’s my hope that Skywind will lead more people to go back and play the original game,” says Kylie. “That it’s an old game makes it challenging, but look at Elden Ring, the Souls games – more and more people are looking for a challenge.”

One of the biggest fan remakes on the market is Black Mesa, an unofficial rebuild of the original Half-Life using Source, the engine designed for Half-Life 2. It’s been a success story, with the folk at Valve among its fans. “Black Mesa is a love letter,” says Ben Truman, a designer at Crowbar Collective who has worked on the game for 17 years. “I’m fairly certain that everyone who worked on it considers Half-Life one of the greatest games of all time.” 

Ben found out about the project while enrolled in the Video Game Art & Design program at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh – a course he was studying primarily due to his love of Half-Life. “I quickly learned there were a handful of students with similar origin stories,” he says. “We all became collaborators on the project at some point, along with a very talented and passionate international team of developers.”

Like Skywind’s developers, Truman is keen that Black Mesa become a gateway game to the Half-Life series as a whole. “I would encourage any video game fan to try the original,” he says. “Black Mesa was never intended to replace it. We wanted to reimagine Half-Life with all of the new, groundbreaking features that the Source engine had to offer at the time. I love to hear that Black Mesa has been someone’s on-ramp into the world of Half-Life.”

Tomorrow wind

Perhaps this is the model we could follow for non-cynical remakes in the future: love letters, written with the intention of drawing more eyes back to a work of art. Morrowind and Half-Life are old games that might not appeal to everyone, but these new homages, that play like modern games, will hopefully ignite a flame in younger gamers – a desire to go back to find out where we’ve come from. 

One of my favorite fan-made remakes is DRL – Doom, the Roguelike. It's nothing like what the mainstream would perceive as a Doom remake; the graphics aren't triple-A, or even current gen. But this is precisely why it's so creative. Built by an indie team on a budget, it’s no improvement or replacement, but a tribute. A new perspective on a game that cannot be replaced.

The team at Skywind are looking for volunteers. So if you’re a developer or writer, or even a voice actor who loves The Elder Scrolls, give them a shout! 

• The most impressive PC mods ever made

Yet another version of Skyrim is here, as one fan has remade a portion of the acclaimed RPG in Unreal Engine 5.

Skyrim’s Riverwood has been rebuilt in Epic Games’s recently released top-of-the-line engine, which is the prefect fodder while we wait for The Elder Scrolls 6. The Redditor  responsible shared their creation in a 5-minute video (spotted by GamesRadar). 

The clip walks through the classic Skyrim settlement, showing off a few of its buildings and streets in dazzling graphical fidelity. It then cuts to what looks like the Western Watchtower in Whiterun, although this ruined outpost is a lot more detailed than the one you might be used to seeing.

The graphical upgrade is remarkably impressive. All the textures are rendered at a higher resolution, the lighting is crisper, and the shadows punchier. It certainly doesn’t look like a game that was released on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Watch the clip below to see for yourself.

imagining_skyrim_remake_with_unreal_engine_5 from r/skyrim

A glimpse into the future 

The video doesn’t only serve as an impressive tech demo; it’s an exciting glimpse into what games could one day look like. As developers become practiced with Unreal Engine 5, its technical potential will only be pushed to the limit.

However, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing any Elder Scrolls game that looks like this anytime soon. Bethesda tends to use its in-house Creation Engine to construct its games. And while Starfield will use a new version of the software, we don’t expect it will match the graphical potential of Unreal Engine 5. 

As fan-made projects like this one show, Epic's recently released engine is top of the pack. In fact, it can produce such lifelike renders that a recent demo created with the software tricked viewers into believing it was real footage taken with a mobile phone.

But while Bethesda might not be leaping on Unreal Engine 5, plenty of other developers are. CD Projekt Red previously announced it’ll be ditching its own REDengine in favor of Epic’s software for The Witcher 4. The news came as a surprise to many, given just how successfully the REDengine had been employed to create the vibrant world of The Witcher 3, but goes to show how much faith the studio's putting in the tech. 

Similarly, BioWare is using the engine to develop Mass Effect 4 – placing another feather in Epic’s game-building cap.

Don’t expect those games to look quite as brilliant as this fan-made Skyrim project, though. As sprawling RPGs, they’ll have to sacrifice graphical fidelity in favor of fast asset loading, high framerates, and other player-facing considerations. But the redditor’s demo certainly goes some way to suggest what our favorite video games might one day look like.

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The best laptop games are there for you whenever you're on break for work and you just need to kill some time before you get back to the grind. Because they're so easy to run, even cheap laptops will be able to play these games just fine. 

Don't think you're getting some third-rate games here, either. Games like Disco Elysium are not only easy on your laptop, but engaging and hilarious to boot. The laptop games on this list are among the best PC games on the market right now, and really goes to show the flexibility that PC gaming offers. 

Even if you're using one of the best gaming laptops, the games on this list have a lot to offer, even if they're not quite up to snuff to the mighty graphics in more powerful notebooks. This list is by no means extensive either: but we narrowed down the 10 games that everyone should consider installing on their laptops for some nice gaming on the side. 

1. Disco Elysium

• CPU: Intel Core i7 or AMD 1800 equivalent
• RAM: 8 GB RAM
• GPU: NVIDIA Geforce 1060 or equivalent

Ever had grand dreams of becoming the greatest detective in history? We know we did, and we have just the game for you. Disco Elysium is digital heaven for those who’ve always had a knack for problem-solving skills and fancy themselves the coolest (or most crooked) PI in their daydreams. 

In this open-world RPG, among the best laptop games that you can play right now, you have unprecedented freedom to do whatever you want as a detective – whether that’s solving murder mysteries and helping people or taking bribes, manipulating others and becoming a millionaire. And, that’s with a plethora of wild skills and cool detective tools at your disposal. 

The city you’re running around in, of course, has that certain mystery je ne sais quoi atmosphere to it, like Gotham-meets-Neo-noir. And, it only adds to this extremely charismatic title. If you’ve got hours to kill, or really even if you don’t, this game needs to be on your laptop right now.

2. Among Us

• CPU: Intel Pentium 4
• RAM: 1 GB
• GPU: Intel HD

Among Us seems a bit more casual than other titles on this list, with each game lasting 10 to 15 minutes but that doesn’t mean you won’t lose hours playing it. The concept is relatively simple. 4 to 10 players are placed in a map, either a spaceship or space station, and are tasked with some menial errands. Up to 3 of the players are secretly imposters who pretend to do the same things but actually go around sabotaging things and killing other players. Emergency meetings can be called where players argue over who the imposter is and then vote to kick someone out. Considering how short each game is, just about everyone will have a chance to play as an imposter after a few games.

What makes Among Us such an enduring game is how it can bring friends together the way a good board game can, combining socializing and strategy in a way that most online games don’t.

3. Cuphead

• CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E8400, 3.0GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 3.0GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB
• GPU: Geforce 9600 GT or AMD HD 3870 512MB

You might be turned off by the tremendous amount of challenge it poses, but we promise you that Cuphead is worth a shot. If you don’t already find its vibrant, whimsical art style delightful, then you might be convinced by some backstory of how it was made.

Cuphead is from indie developer Studio MDHR (short for Studio Moldenhauer), named for the two brothers who started the project, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer. In fact, the whole company is made up of family members and friends who sought out to finish their dream project.

Marija Moldenhauer, Chad’s wife, was responsible for the inking and clean up in this hand-drawn ode to 2D platforming classics like Mega Man and 1930s Fleischer cartoons like Betty Boop. And, if the 19 bosses aren’t enough for you, Cuphead is getting a major DLC next year featuring new bosses, areas and a new playable character.

4. Humankind

• CPU: Intel Core i5 4th Gen
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 770 or AMD R9 290

If you’re a fan of history-based strategy games like Civilization or Age of Empires but are looking for something a little different, then Humankind is for you. This game takes that format and gives it a little twist, allowing you to customize your gameplay as you go. You can upgrade to different cultures as you progress and shape your empire with all sorts of decisions regarding religion, war, alliances, and more that can have long lasting impacts. In fact, every play through will be different. 

You can wage nuclear war or destroy the world with pollution in Humankind, but your goal is to be the most famous empire by the end of the game to win. While it does seem to share a lot of similarities with the aforementioned giants of turn-based historical strategy games, that added level of customization, different mechanics for city-building and waging war, not to mention the ability to essentially rewrite history makes Humankind a worthy and unique addition to the genre.

5. Stardew Valley

• CPU: 2 GHz
• RAM: 2 GB
• GPU: 256 MB video memory, shader model 3.0+

If you’re obsessed with farming sims (and, considering how well the likes of Farming Simulator and Harvest Moon sell, there’s a few of you out there), then few games will get you jumping for agricultural joy more than the enchanting busywork of Stardew Valley.

Taking cues from the Harvest Moon games, Stardew Valley's top-down point of view and cutesy characters feel blended together seamlessly, making it one of the best laptop games available.

It doesn’t seem all that exhilarating, tending to fields, growing produce and raising livestock – but that’s the beauty of it. There’s a special kind of peace to the mundanity of Stardew Valley’s minutia as you expand your farm, catch some fish down at the river and even head into the village to strike up friendships (and maybe something a little more) with a cast of NPCs. Farming has never been so much fun or addicting.

6. Age of Empires IV

• CPU: Intel Core i5-6300U or AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11

Fans of RTS games rejoice! Age of Empires IV is here and it takes everything that made previous entries so much fun and updates it. Not only does the game receive a fresh coat of paint but the AI and mechanics have been updated as well.

You can select one of eight civilizations to play your way through four distinct campaigns covering 500 years of history, ending at the Renaissance. You don’t have to stick to the single-player campaign however. You can also play with friends in PvP or multiplayer co-op as well. And, more importantly, you don’t need a hefty GPU to play, making this a great game to play on your laptop. You just need integrated graphics as good or better than Intel HD 520, which has been around since 2015.

7. Night in the Woods

• CPU: Intel i5 Quad-Core
• RAM: 4 GB
• GPU: Intel HD 4000

In more than a few ways, we’re inclined to describe Night in the Woods as Life is Strange meets Bojack Horseman. The interactive dialogue bits are reminiscent of the former while the overarching themes of dealing with mental health issues ring true in the latter.

Night in The Woods itself was developed in Unity by Infinite Fall, the virtual studio comprised of coder and composer Alec Holowka and Twitter jokester slash illustrator and animator Scott Benson. Together, these two have designed not just a game, but a stunning world full of relatable characters that should hopefully resonate with you.

You take on the role of Mae, a cat who dropped out of college and recently returned to her hometown of Possum Springs. It’s a completely narrative-driven game, as modern point-and-click adventure games tend to be, with very few gameplay hooks that will hold your attention. So, if you’re into Telltale Games or Life is Strange, Night in the Woods might be the best laptop game for you.

Best of all, it will run fairly smoothly on integrated graphics, given that it has an attractive, but not highly demanding, art style. Surely, this is a title we’ll be talking about for years and years to come, even if it was snubbed at The Game Awards.

8. Command and Conquer: Remastered Collection

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 @ 2.4ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400 @ 2.4ghz
• RAM: 4GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 420 or ATI Radeon HD 5570

The 90’s are still alive in the form of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. This doesn’t just have a remastered version of the original game from 1995. It also has Red Alert as well as the games’ three expansion packs for over 100 missions and over 250 multiplayer maps. That’s quite a lot of content in this release.

Among the best laptop games to dig into this 2020, this remastering includes upscaling the cinematics, remastering the music (including 20 re-recorded tracks), and most importantly, setting the game in 4K resolution. The controls have been updated for a modern experience including the ability to use hotkeys. And, the game comes with mod support for those who want to add their own spin to the game.

The core of the game is still mostly the same as it was in the 90’s so if you’re looking for a great looking, great sounding blast from the past, then this is the perfect escape for you.

9. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

• CPU: Intel Core i3-2100T @ 2.50 GHz / AMD Phenom II X3 B73
• RAM: 4 GB
• GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT

While it’s a 2018 title and has a reasonably massive following, your laptop’s integrated graphics can still run Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. It has mostly the same forgiving system requirements as its predecessor, so if you are a fan of that game, you should be able to engross yourself in this best laptop game as well.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire drops players on the Deadfire archipelago and tasks them with hunting down a rogue god. And, just like its predecessor, it features rich storytelling and deep RPG gameplay that harkens to the days of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

While all the backgrounds are in 2D and viewed from a top-down point-of-view, they’re still lovely to behold. Plus, the numerous spell effects will keep you bewitched as you work your way through the intense and tactical combat.

And, because it's coming from Obsidian, a studio known for making the best RPGs of all time, you can be confident that you’re getting an adventure, and one of the best laptop games, that’s worth every penny.

10. Papers Please

• CPU: 1.5 GHz Core2Duo
• RAM: 2 GB
• GPU: OpenGL 1.4 or better

If somebody told you a game about working in a border control office would be one of the most addictive games ever, would you scoff and walk off shaking your head?

Well, you might give a little indie gem by the name of Papers, Please a chance. Set in a fictional take on the Eastern Bloc, you’re an immigration clerk tasked with processing refugees from a hostile neighbouring nation.

The core concept is simple: check each person’s documents against a clear set of rules, process those who meet the requirements and detain those with false papers. 

The game is created to test your attention to detail, as well as the strength of your moral compass. Sometimes you’ll have to decide if specific sympathetic characters should be granted asylum, even if it goes against the rules. 

The twist is good performance effectively feeds you family, while mistakes put their lives in danger. It’s dark, but engrossingly so.

• If you want to play a game on your laptop and you don't want to pay, check out the best free games.

The Elder Scrolls 6's release date is still a mystery in 2025, given that we've not received a substantial update on the highly-anticipated fantasy RPG in over seven years. Given the pedigree of its predecessor, however, it's easy to see why The Elder Scrolls 6 is at the absolute top of many gamer's wishlists, even after all these years of relative silence.

What we can tell you for certain is that The Elder Scrolls 6 is indeed in development, and that it will be the next release for Bethesda Game Studios, now that Starfield is well and truly in the rearview mirror. Even so, it's clear that the game is quite a ways out, especially following comments from Xbox head Phil Spencer last year. A shame, given it's easily one of the most highly anticipated upcoming games out there.

Here's what we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 so far, including a look at platforms we can expect it to launch on. Hopefully, we will hear more about the game by the end of 2025. When details do emerge, this page will be updated.

The Elder Scrolls 6: cut to the chase

• What is it? The long-awaited successor to Skyrim
• When does it come out? TBC
• What can I play it on? TBC - but evidence points to it being only on PC and Xbox Series X|S

The Elder Scrolls 6 platforms prediction

Platforms for The Elder Scrolls 6 haven't been confirmed yet but, given Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media in 2021, releases on PC, and Xbox Series X|S are almost a certainty. A PS5 release was previously ruled out, according to documents revealed as part of the FTC vs Microsoft court case. Similarly, releases on Xbox One seems extremely unlikely, as Starfield shows Bethesda's moving on from last-gen hardware.

One thing to consider here is that since we last heard about The Elder Scrolls 6's Xbox exclusivity, Microsoft has started taking a very different approach to its releases. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, for example, launched on PS5 a few months after its launch on Xbox. Similarly, we've now seen Sea of Thieves arrive on PS5, so it's possible that The Elder Scrolls 6 will follow a similar pattern. We'll have to wait and see.

Will The Elder Scrolls 6 release on Xbox Game Pass?

The Elder Scrolls 6 will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one. This means that subscribers will be able to pick up the game at no extra cost the same day it releases for everyone else.

The Elder Scrolls 6 trailer

The only footage we have of The Elder Scrolls 6 is a very short clip of the game's logo. Other than that, you might be waiting a while to see more. Here's the announcement trailer:

Elder Scrolls 6 setting prediction

We’re willing to bet that like all the other games in the series, The Elder Scrolls 6 will take place on the continent of Tamriel. Previous games have taken us to High Rock, Hammerfell, Morrowind, Cyrodil, and Skyrim. Valenwood, Elsweyr, and Black Marsh are the biggest places left to explore. However, even though these areas are prime spots for exploration, that's not to say that Bethesda won't return to areas from previous games.

There were rumors that The Elder Scrolls 6 could be set in Valenwood, the home of the Bosmer. It’s an area of Tamriel that Bethesda hasn’t explored much and that's based on a reported internal Bethesda memo from all the way back in 2014. In this memo, Bethesda employees were reportedly warned against using the terms Fallout: Nuka World, Elder Scrolls VI or Project Greenheart.

It's hard to tell from the short E3 clip we have of the game. However, since it was shown, general opinion has moved towards the idea that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be set in either Hammerfell or High Rock.

Adding credence to the Hammerfell rumor is a post from the official Elder Scrolls Twitter account at the end of 2020. That says "transcribe the past and map the future" and shows an image with an unmapped Hammerfell region. There is, however, a chance that this teaser doesn't relate to Elder Scrolls 6 at all.

Obviously, those of us who know the world of Tamriel thanks to Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and yes, even Elder Scrolls Online, the entire world is a veritable expanse of different lands and settings where the game could be set. We do know one thing for certain; wherever it does end up being set, we can expect to be fulfilling a great many side quests.

The Elder Scrolls 6 news

Fallout 5 is fully greenlit
According to an episode of the Xbox Two Podcast, Fallout 5 has reportedly been fully greenlit (via Gamespot). Interestingly, it's reported that the lead studio may not be Bethesda Game Studios, which is busy working on The Elder Scrolls 6.

Oblivion Remastered is now available on Xbox, PC and PS5
Well, it wasn't exactly the best kept secret, but The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has now dropped for players to dig into. It was a secret release that happened April 22, 2025, and you can play the game on Game Pass. Read our Oblivion Remastered review for our full thoughts.

New release window rumors
According to a court document revealed from the FTC v. Microsoft case, The Elder Scrolls 6 is expected to be released sometime during or after 2026, and is seemingly planned to be released solely on PC and Xbox (via The Verge).

The Elder Scrolls 6 is still in early development
In an interview with Spanish publication Vandal (as translated by Gamespot), Pete Hines revealed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still likely a long way off.

"It's in development, but it's in early development."

Fallout 5 is coming after The Elder Scrolls 6
In an interview with IGN, Todd Howard confirmed that Fallout 5 will be Bethesda's next project after The Elder Scrolls 6.

"Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while" Howard told the publication. "We have some other projects that we look at from time to time as well."

Bethesda wants to take its time to get it right
The Elder Scrolls 6 is probably still a few years away yet but that’s not because Bethesda is deliberately dragging its heels. In an interview with IGN, when discussing the gap between Skyrim and its follow up, Howard said “Would you plan to have the kind of gap we're having between Skyrim and the follow-up? I can't say that's a good thing. Do I wish I could wave a wand and the game we wanted to make [...] just came out? Absolutely.”

According to Howard, however, the time felt right for Bethesda to try something new with Starfield and The Elder Scrolls Online meant that the Elder Scrolls franchise was in a relatively good place.

“That being said,” he added, “everything takes longer than we would like as well, but we want to make sure that we get it right. Hopefully Elder Scrolls 6, you don’t want to say hey, that it’s worth that kind of wait, but that it does stand up to the series as it has been in a really big, impactful way for when it comes out.”

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Bethesda's space RPG Starfield is still a full year away, but a new teaser trailer has offered a key insight into the way the game might be structured.

Game Director Todd Howard, Studio Director Angela Browder and Art Director Matt Carofano all sat down for seven-minute YouTube video to talk about the upcoming game, which is set to release in November 2022 on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC – provided there are no delays to the schedule.

While most of the video is pretty innocuous, with the devs talking in broad strokes about the importance of virtual storytelling, and the "pride" that players can feel at what they achieve in-game, there's also a brief tease from Howard that's worth paying attention to.

Near the end of the video, Howard is describing the awe of "step-out moments" in the Fallout games, where a character emerges into a world that's been irrevocably changed by nuclear war. Few who've played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 can forget the feeling of leaving their vault for the first time, moving from subterranean bunker to open wasteland, and facing a vast frontier that's yet to be explored.

It's that feeling that Bethesda seeks to recreate in Starfield – but in a blink-and-miss-it moment, Howard says that "Starfield has two step-out moments," adding that he's being intentionally "cryptic."

Two big reveals

While it's not too hard to imagine that initial step-out moment in a Bethesda game – in the case of Starfield, leaving cryostasis or ending a centuries-long journey through space seems likely – that second moment is fascinating, suggesting that the world will open up in a whole new way at some point in the game.

Whereas Fallout 3 let you explode the city of Megaton, cutting off quest lines in the process, Starfield could go one better with a massive divergence event that changes the entire galactic map – or unlocks a whole new one. In a truly sci-fi game like this, who's to stop Bethesda from sticking a black hole in the game that eats up commonly-visited planets, stranding you in another dimension, or transporting you into the future for an unprecedented endgame?

Art Director Matt Carofano says that "A lot of our games are about exploration," adding that space travel is "sort of the ultimate exploration" – and it's thrilling to think about how Bethesda might push the boudries of what's expected.

Carofano is keen to say that Starfield will have a "realistic science-based backing" to it, and calls it a "more grounded game and grounded setting" than the likes of Skyrim. But the developer will have to have some good tricks up its sleeve after the botched launch of Fallout 76 – indeed, many of comments on the YouTube video speak to ongoing resentment over the multiplayer title. 

One sarcastically asks: "Please make it online only like fallout 76 with no mods. Because that's what people really want" – while another says "I think Fallout 76 cost Todd the credibility to get me excited." There are also asides referencing Cyberpunk 2077, a game with such a successful hype cycle that the reality of its poor last-gen console performance hit incredibly hard – and many may now be warier of big-budget games that promise the world.

Given that Starfield won't launch on last-gen consoles, though, we imagine the same issues won't arise.

Yet another commenter says "I doubt i will ever play another Bethesda game, but i want to see what they can do with this setting" – which is at the heart of Starfield's launch. Players are looking to this game to restore Bethesda's reputation, as we're sure the developers are too.

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Ever since Starfield, Bethesda's 2022 sci-fi adventure, was confirmed to be an Xbox and PC exclusive at E3 2021, questions have arisen as to whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will also be absent from the PS5.

In an interview with GQ, Xbox boss Phil Spencer shed some light on the subject of The Elder Scrolls 6's exclusivity, and it doesn't sound too positive for fans of Sony's current-gen machine.

"It’s not about punishing any other platform, like I fundamentally believe all of the platforms can continue to grow," Spencer said. "But in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls 6. That would be true when I think about any of our franchises.”

In the same interview, Bethesda game director Todd Howard didn't add any hints as to whether or not The Elder Scrolls 6 will actually be a console exclusive for Xbox, nor if it will even release soon enough to launch on the current-gen Xbox Series X/S.

However, given that November 2021 is the tenth anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Howard seemed to be feeling the pressure of being able to top a game that's legendary in the eyes of its vast playerbase.

"I think that would drive me crazy to try to say, 'Okay, this is the thing you have to top,'" Howard said of Skyrim's seemingly infinite shelf life. "But then you realize, like, The Elder Scrolls 6 has got to be a 'decade game'. How do you make a game where you go into it, like, 'people have to play it for a decade?'"

Analysis: Will The Elder Scrolls 6 actually be Xbox exclusive?

While it's still not been outright confirmed, it does seem like The Elder Scrolls 6 being an Xbox console exclusive is a foregone conclusion. Judging by Spencer's comments, though, that exclusivity would be less about taking something away from PS5 players (even though that's kind of what exclusivity would achieve) and more about creating a bespoke Elder Scrolls experience on Xbox.

Xbox's ace in the hole is undoubtedly the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which will no doubt play an integral part in making The Elder Scrolls 6 widely available on both Xbox and PC from day one. In this case, there's no need to buy the game. It'll be ready to download for subscribers from the jump at no extra cost.

That's an incredible deal, considering the Elder Scrolls series is one of the most highly regarded in gaming. And much like Starfield, a brand new main series Elder Scrolls game certainly has the potential to shift consoles if consumers know they can access the game for as little as a monthly subscription fee.

Of course, that's all speculation that should be taken with a pinch of salt. We still don't know if The Elder Scrolls 6 truly is an Xbox console exclusive. However, we'd be more surprised if it wasn't at this point.

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The Skyrim Anniversary Edition, when it launches next month, could cause problems for mod creators and render your existing Skyrim mods useless.

Mods alter the basic code or structure of a game to make substantial changes, and these can be adding better textures, changes to how the game actually plays, or even completely wacky changes. For example, there’s a mod for Skyrim which makes Thomas the Tank Engine a hostile NPC. Many of these mods have become an essential element in improving Skyrim for PC gamers. Now, these mods could be unplayable due to the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim.

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Skyrim Anniversary Edition is the 64-bit version of the existing Skyrim Special Edition including the Creation Club (a place to buy mods recommended by Bethesda) and 26 other yet-to-be-released creations. Crucially, the Anniversary Edition won’t be a separate entry to download on Steam, instead, it’ll be an update to your existing Skyrim Special Edition installation, and it could cause existing Skyrim mods not to work.

Mods developers have explained that because Bethesda has updated existing versions of Skyrim, changing some of the code. This has meant mods operating with the existing version of Skyrim will not be compatible with the new Anniversary Edition. As the developer explains, everyone who has written code to develop mod software for the existing version of Skyrim will have to do a considerable amount of work to support the Anniversary Edition. This means for Skyrim players who use mods, your favorites may be unplayable for an extended period of time.

But, if your mods end up not working after the Anniversary Edition update next month, a team member who works on the mod auto-installer program Wabbajack, has said they plan to develop downgrading software allowing users to revert to older builds of games to get their Skyrim mods to work. Of course, this means that you’ll miss out on any advancements that the Anniversary Edition brings.

Analysis: Mod support has already been a problem

Skyrim Special Edition has already been a cause of problems for modders. Every time the Bethesda Creation Club gets new updates, it somehow breaks the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE), which is a plug-in needed for many of the best Skyrim mods to work. To circumvent this problem, many Skyrim Special Edition owners set Steam to “only update this game when I launch it.”

A recent update to Fallout 3, also developed by Bethesda, is doing away with the game’s Games for Windows Live requirement, which is software that enabled PC users to connect to Microsoft’s online gaming service, which has since been abandoned.Fallout 3 also used Visual Studio 2019, and it appears that mods that have been developed for Games for Windows Live and Visual Studios 2019 are having compatibility issues, making some of them unplayable.

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Via PC Gamer

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will soon hit its 10-year anniversary, and to celebrate Bethesda plans on releasing an extra special edition of the game that includes… fishing. Yep. Fishing.

The 10th Anniversary Edition will drop on November 11, 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, though you’ll be able to get free next-gen updates on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S if you own the Special Edition of the game.

Included in the fourth re-release of the game – yes, unbelievably Skyrim is on its fourth re-release – will be a new fishing mini-game and 500+ Creation Club elements that offer “pre-existing and new quests, dungeons, bosses, weapons, spells and more".

The obvious advantage to buying the game for the FIFTH time is that it will take advantage of the Xbox Series X and PS5’s upgraded hardware, but Bethesda has yet to say which exact features the game will take advantage of. Frame rate? Faster loading times? Spatial audio? Who knows – all we know is that there’s going to be fishing. 

Opinion: There’s not much new here… but I’m too big of a fan to pass on it 

So how did we come up with the number of remasters? Well, you’ve got the Legendary Edition of the game that came out two years after launch that combined all the expansions plus the main game into one box, then came the Special Edition that ported the game to Xbox One and PS4 in 2016. We got a VR version of the game in 2017/2018 and finally we come to the Anniversary Edition that’s dropping on November 11. 

Each of the remasters brought something new to the table and two of them – the VR version and Special Edition – helped adapt the game for current hardware at the time. 

The latest version of the game will do the same thing but it feels a bit like a cash-in of a cash-in – a port of a port that we’ve already played through. That said, because it’s a free upgrade for Special Edition owners it doesn’t feel all that egregious, even though it’d be great had Bethesda added something a little more than a fishing mini-game. 

Regardless, Skyrim remains one of the better-known, widely regarded entries in the open-world RPG genre, and is a personal favorite of mine. So, yeah, I’ll probably buy it. But I swear I won’t buy it a sixth time.

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All these years after launch and with The Elder Scrolls 6 somewhere on the horizon, Bethesda’s open-world RPG epic Skyrim still has secrets to be solved. One of the most long-standing and contentious mysteries in the game has finally been put to rest – and it centers on a humble fox.

As any Skyrim player will know, the icy tundras of the game world are littered with the sprightly pups, who will run away at the first sight of the Dragonborn hero. 

But, over the years, a theory developed that the foxes weren’t running away aimlessly. Instead, some players believed that the foxes were actually guiding them to treasure troves.

As it turns out, that’s actually sort of true – but it's more down to a programming quirk rather than any intentional design decision.

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Solving the mystery

Developer Joel Burgess, formerly of Skyrim developers Bethesda but now lead at Grindstone-makers Capybara Games, revealed just how the foxes work.

“Skyrim uses something called 'navmesh' for AI navigation,”   Burgess revealed in a lengthy Twitter thread.

“For non-dev folks, this is an invisible 3D sheet of polygons that is laid over the world, telling AI where it can and cannot go. In most situations, you're seeing AI decide what do to (run at player, hide in cover, etc), use navmesh to make a path, and navigate along that path.

“Foxes are no different.  But their AI is very simplified: they basically can *only* run away. So foxes flee.  Why would they flee towards treasure?

“This is where it gets interesting.  

“If you're close to an AI, it's in "High Process", or the most fancy, CPU-intensive pathfinding.  It uses the full navmesh and will do things like line of sight and distance checks.

“To contrast, there's also "Low Process" - used for stuff like NPCs walking a trade route across the world. These are only updated every several minutes, and position is tracked very loosely. The bandit stabbing your face, however, is running nav stuff many times per second.

“There is a sort of "Medium Process" for characters nearby, but who didn't need the complex pathing of combat.  Because of the way the fox's AI worked (always be fleeing!) it's basically ONLY using this process.

“This is where understanding of how Skyrim uses navmesh comes in.

“Swaths of the outdoor world have simple navmesh. You don't need to add lots of detail in a space with basic topography, little clutter, or a low chance of combat. So wilderness = small number of big triangles.

“When you stumble across something like a camp, however, navmesh gets way more detailed.  Added visual detail means added navmesh detail, and if we're placing NPCs of any kind, we also tend to add even more detail.  

“So Points of Interest = big number of small triangles. You see where this is going?

“The Fox isn't trying to get 100 meters away - it's trying to get 100 *triangles* away.

“You know where it's easy to find 100 triangles?  The camps/ruins/etc that we littered the world with, and filled with treasure to reward your exploration. So foxes aren't leading you to treasure - but the way they behave is leading them to areas that tend to HAVE treasure, because POIs w/loot have other attributes (lots of small navmesh triangles) that the foxes ARE pursuing. To players, however, it's the same thing.”

Analysis: Happy little accidents

Reading through Burgess’s explanation, I’m reminded of the painter Bob Ross – not just his painting’s similarities to Skyrim’s wondrous forestry, but Ross’s love of “happy little accidents”, the misplaced brush-strokes that would become his favorite landscape elements over the course of a piece.

Skyrim’s foxes are similar – the result of countless decisions, lines of code and player behaviours interacting, and the chaos between the structure. It’s not unusual for game developers to purposefully hide easter eggs and secrets in game worlds, but it’s these unexpected moments where massive games like Skyrim really start to feel alive. It’s why we’re still talking about Skyrim ten years after its release, and why players are still discovering Breath of the Wild techniques and secrets with the release of Tears of the Kingdom approaching.

“It's a nerdy little story, but I love it,” wraps up Burgess.

“Emergent Gameplay is often used to describe designed randomness, but this is a case of actual gameplay that NOBODY designed emerging from the bubbling cauldron of overlapping systems.

“And I think that's beautiful.”

• 5 things The Elder Scrolls 6 can improve on from Skyrim

It’s fair to say that The Elder Scrolls 6 is one of the most anticipated games on the horizon – if not ever. Since its reveal at E3 2018, with a teaser trailer showing little more than a logo and some rolling hills, speculation has been rampant about just what Bethesda has up its sleeve for the next entry in the beloved Elder Scrolls series. After all, ten years on from its release, The Elder Scrolls 6’s predecessor, Skyrim, remains one of the most-loved, and continually played role playing games of all time.

But it looks like it will be some time before we find out what awaits us in The Elder Scrolls 6, given the recent revelation that the latest entry in the open world RPG series is only in “the design phase” - meaning we likely won’t get our hands on it for a few years yet.

Regardless, that hasn’t stopped us from speculating about The Elder Scrolls 6 and how it could differ from its predecessors - in particular, Skyrim, the lauded last entry in the series. Despite its decade-old age, there are still a few lessons that can be learned from Bethesda’s critically acclaimed fantasy adventure that we hope will be improved upon for The Elder Scrolls 6. 

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Retain the sense of adventure

From the moment you emerge from the cave into the hills of Skyrim, the sense of freedom is staggering. While the game gently directs you towards the local logging village of Riverwood, you’re more than free to do a ‘Bilbo Baggins’ and go your own way. Opening the map in Skyrim reveals a vast, mysterious plain, shrouded in fog. It’s almost impossible to resist picking a random direction and seeing what you find. What Skyrim player doesn’t have a story of a detour they took and the battle, quest or hilarious death they faced as a result? While it’s unlikely that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be a significantly more linear game, we hope that the developers don’t sacrifice the mystery of exploration in order to make sure more players experience all of the content. 

Though not quite as impenetrable as the Souls series in terms of lore, there’s a mountain of characters, quest lines and stories that most players have probably missed across the Elder Scrolls series. But for those willing to read every book and scour every house, there’s a rich amount of backstory and history to be found. Let’s hope The Elder Scrolls 6 holds on to that sense of adventure, exploration and discovery for those who love to seek it out. 

Brighten the place up a bit

While the look of Skyrim may be iconic, from the snowy peaks to the green fields of Whiterun, after ten years it looks a bit… drab. Unlike The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which even now shines with its colorful flowers and vibrant towns, Skyrim’s nordic-inspired art style can feel a little one-note. This isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of the game's dungeons are dark caves. While we don’t know anything concrete about the location for The Elder Scrolls 6, outside of a potential teaser in the Starfield trailer, we hope that it takes us to a brighter and more colorful corner of Tamriel. 

Since The Elder Scrolls 6 will be harnessing the power of the next gen consoles, this is the perfect opportunity for Bethesda to show off what they can do with a significant upgrade in hardware. 2019’s Ghost of Tsushima is an open world game with a world that absolutely sparkles in every screenshot because it juxtaposes the bright colours of the Japanese countryside with the brutality of war and burned down villages. We’d love The Elder Scrolls 6 to take the same direction and leave the grey hills of Skyrim behind. 

Jack of all guilds, master of none

One thing Skyrim really lacked was a sense of repercussions for how you role-played your characters. By the time you finish the game you can easily be the boss of the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild and the Archmage of Winterhold. You’re already the Dragonborn that was tasked to save the world, and allowing you to basically do everything kills any sense of experiencing your unique story.

Plenty of RPGs have an issue with making the player character an all powerful God that is the main character of every story, but for The Elder Scrolls VI, we hope more attention is paid to facilitating unique stories. Sure, giving decisions more weight means that some players will miss some content, but we think it’ll make for a more memorable experience.

Monster maker

The character creator in Skyrim leaves a lot to be desired. While not the most limited creator ever, it pales in comparison to even Oblivion. While most players played Skyrim in first person, we think that if we were able to create a warrior, mage or archer more in our own image, or whatever horrific image we’d like, more players would prefer experiencing the world in third person. 

The last Bethesda Game Studios title, Fallout 4, shifted the perspective of conversations, meaning that both the player character and the NPC were shown in third person, ditching the intense eye contact of the past. We think this also encouraged players to take the way their character looked more seriously, or, more keen to make the kind of monster that’ll give you nightmares. But where Fallout 4 funnelled players towards a relatively defined role and purpose in its world, we’d hope The Elder Scrolls 6 would let a wider array of customisation options inform an equally wide array of digital lives to be led in its game world. 

Who are you again, anyway?

The NPC dialogue in Skyrim was one of the things that was memed quickest when the game originally released in 2011. You couldn’t move for horribly-compressed images adorned with jokes about taking arrows to the knee. While the internet grasped hold of this due to the frequency with which it was said, the bigger problem was that that guard who was so keen to tell you of his adventures was just one of hundreds of NPCs that didn’t remotely care or react to what you did. 

You could kill a dragon and save an entire farm, only for the farmer to barely acknowledge your existence. It made the towns feel sterile, like amusement park attractions, filled with animatronics that spit out their line and nothing else. While we know The Elder Scrolls 6 can’t possibly make every single NPC have something relevant to say after every choice you make, it’d be nice to feel like we’re having some impact on the world we’re exploring, other than merely reducing the average life expectancy of dragons. 

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Wanting to fill the time until God of War: Ragnarok releases? Then you’ve landed on the right page. The critical and commercial success of 2018’s God of War reboot on the PS4 meant that a sequel was surely in the cards for old man Kratos. This surprisingly heartfelt tale transformed the Greek demigod from a vengeful killer into a doting dad, and it seems like his story is far from over.

But the PS5 sequel, God of War: Ragnarok isn’t releasing until 2022, which is still a ways off. And if you can’t wait to check back in with Kratos’s Norse mythology escapades, then we’ve got a few game suggestions that will keep you occupied until that elusive release date rolls around next year.

The following five games have been chosen based on their similarities to the God of War series, such as setting and/or gameplay. While they won’t necessarily be entirely similar, we’re sure there will be at least one game in here that will be to your liking, and could even become a new favorite among your gaming library.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (2011 - PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, PC) 

Okay, to be fair, if you’re reading this you’re probably at least somewhat familiar with Skyrim. But if you know it in name only, there’s a wonderfully fantastical and dangerous world waiting for you to conquer with boatloads of quests, factions and character customization to dabble in.

It’s a little scary to think that Skyrim has been out for nearly a decade at this point, but Bethesda’s open world fantasy adventure remains brilliantly playable to this day. The wintry environs of Skyrim can be as beautiful as they are harsh, and the dynamic world design means you could encounter unpredictable events at any turn.

While Skyrim does look pretty dated at this point in terms of graphical quality, the Special Edition released on PS4, Xbox One and PC added some lovely visual flair like higher resolution textures and improved lighting effects.

One of Skyrim’s best features comes from the players rather than the developers, and that would be the game’s robust collection of mods. If you can get over the learning curve, installing mods into Skyrim can transform the game in so many amazing ways, including adding quests, weapons and extra graphical details. Mod support is also somewhat miraculously supported on Xbox and PS4, though it’s unfortunately more limited on Sony’s machine.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (2020 - PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC) 

If you’re looking for something that’s fairly God of War adjacent, it’s hard to do much better than Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This brilliantly realized open world takes place across the medieval landscapes of ye olde Norway and England, exploring the Nordic influences present in Britain at the time.

Valhalla trades the drop-dead gorgeous vistas of its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, for something a lot more grounded. Medieval England is a gritty, often dingy place to explore. It has its moments of beauty, of course, but you’ll often be fighting in the rainiest, muddiest climes merry old England has to offer.

Much like Odyssey and Origins before it, Valhalla has a pretty decent story that will guide you through all the highlights of the open world. The abundance of weapon and armor swapping has been greatly toned down from Odyssey, too, allowing for a more streamlined gameplay experience.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015 - PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC) 

The Witcher 3 is getting on in years at this point, but that doesn’t make the game any less impressive. Truly, the scope of The Witcher 3 is nearly unparalleled to this day, showcasing a giant open world set across multiple and varied regions.

The Witcher 3 is very much about its characters, not least of all Geralt of Rivia, the series’ moody protagonist. Geralt’s grit-filled voice, no-nonsense mannerisms and dry sense of humor never get old, and seeing his relationships with other characters unfold is worth a playthrough alone.

That’s not to say the game is all form over function. Far from it, as The Witcher 3 boasts one of the most involving and detailed action combat systems in recent years. You have your standard sword attacks, of course, but those are supplemented by crossbows, potions, poisons and Signs - a set of basic magical abilities Geralt can employ to swiftly change the course of battle.

The Witcher 3 is a genuinely massive game, and much like Skyrim, will take you upwards of 100 hours if you want to see and do absolutely everything. That playtime expands exponentially with two substantial expansions - Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Not to mention Gwent, the bizarrely addictive collectible card game that got its own online multiplayer spin-off.

Ghost of Tsushima (2020 - PS4)

If you loved the God of War reboot, then you absolutely won’t want to miss out on another stunningly good Sony first-party title. Ghost of Tsushima pushes the PS4’s graphical power to its limits, delivering one of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous games on the system. But that’s not all Ghost of Tsushima has going for it.

Developed by Sucker Punch, Ghost of Tsushima puts players in the role of samurai Jin Sakai. As Jin, it’s your job to protect the island of Tsushima from an invading Mongol horde, and you can do this via careful stealth or fiercely visceral sword combat.

Jin can also make use of a handful of useful tools to help him gain the upper hand in combat. Smoke bombs can be used to make a hasty escape, while kunai can strike multiple enemies for a quick burst of area damage.

Ghost of Tsushima’s open world is a delight to explore, and a real visual treat much like God of War and fellow PS4 landmark Horizon Zero Dawn. And just like those games, it’s easy to spend hours just drinking in the sights, and making use of the game’s superb photo mode.

Hades (2020 - Nintendo Switch, PC)

With 2018’s God of War and the upcoming God of War: Ragnarok largely featuring Norse mythology, it’s easy to overlook Kratos’s Greek origins. That’s why we’re recommending Hades - an action roguelite heavily inspired by Greek mythology - and arguably one of the best games ever made.

In Hades you play as Prince Zagreus, and the basic premise is to get one over on your dad (the titular God of the Dead himself) by escaping the underworld to reach Mount Olympus, spurred on by the gods that reside there who also aren’t particularly fond of Hades. Said gods will grant you boons (essentially combat perks) as you progress through the levels of the underworld, and are indispensable to your survival.

Hades is a very challenging game, but one of its best features is the House of Hades, where you return upon death. While here, Zagreus can interact with the house’s denizens to increase his bond with them (yep, Hades doubles as a dating sim), as well as upgrade himself and the layout of future runs to help give you every advantage you’ll most certainly need.

Like any good roguelite, the first time you clear a full run will feel oh-so satisfying. However, in Hades, that’s far from the end of the game, as the narrative cleverly sets itself up to give Zagreus a reason to continuously escape from the underworld. If you like fast-paced and challenging combat with a sizable helping of Greek mythology, Hades is a near infinitely playable game and simply one of the best indies around.

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Modiphius Games, creators of licensed tabletop adventures such as Dishonored: The Roleplaying Game and The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms are once again teaming up with Bethesda to create a cooperative board game based on its landmark hit, Skyrim.

As reported by Polygon, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim The Board Game will be a cooperative adventure game for one to four players. We don’t currently know anything beyond that, however.

Publisher Modiphius Games says Skyrim: The Board Game’s crowdfunding page is set to go live in June, but it’s not being hosted on Kickstarter. Instead, Modiphius is launching its campaign on Gamefound, a Kickstarter alternative primarily used to fund tabletop games, and the draft page for the project is now live. 

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Can't wait to count out your coin

Gamefound was founded in 2020 and already has one huge crowdfunding success to its name, that being Awaken Realms’ ISS Vanguard, a cooperative sci-fi tabletop game that to date has raised almost $5 million. When you consider its initial goal of $50,000, it’s hard to see that as anything other than hugely successful.

We’re hoping that Skyrim: The Board Game can follow in ISS Vanguard’s footsteps. It definitely has all the makings to do so, as it’s a well-loved game from a pretty important video game series.

While no big details about how Skyrim: The Board Game will play have been revealed yet, we’re happy that just like the game, the tabletop version will support solo play. We do wonder how Skyrim will translate to a cooperative environment, however, but we imagine it won’t be too different from other cooperative games in the space, such as the Doom and Dark Souls board games.

• How to play Skyrim in local split-screen co-op with a friend

Of all the ways to while away lockdown with live-in friends, loved ones and housemates harbouring resentments over the unclaimed crusty spoons in the kitchen side-sink, there are few more appealing than escaping into one of the best RPGs of all time together. 

The Skyrim mod Skyrim Together lets you do that, enabling online play with up to 32 players (though the recommended maximum is eight). Recently, the mod was integrated into Nucleus Coop, an ingenious tool that turns typically online-only multiplayer games into local split-screen games, meaning you can explore those familiar frozen lands side by side.

There are some caveats to this. You won’t be able to do quests independently, with one player having to push forward quests and other key dialogue while the other essentially ‘tags along’, and it’s still prone to some bugs and desyncs. But you know what? It’s still a largely functioning couch co-op Skyrim, and it’s free. That in itself makes it worth exploring, so we’ve put together a guide on how you can play Skyrim split-screen with your chosen co-adventurer.

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1. Get started

First, download and install the latest version of Harbor Launcher (you may have to right-click the downloaded .exe file and choose ‘Run as administrator’ if you run into problems opening the installer).

Open Harbor Launcher, then under ‘Game Version’ choose Skyrim SE. If the big bar says ‘Game Not Found’ then click the search icon and navigate to your Skyrim .exe file (C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition by default).

Once you’ve done that, the big bar should say ‘Install’. Click it to start downloading Skyrim Together.

2. Get Nucleus Co-op

While you’re waiting for Skyrim Together to download, download the latest version of Nucleus Co-op, then extract it to a root folder on your PC (for example C:\ or another hard drive). 

A recent update to Nucleus Co-op means that it’s being flagged by Chrome and Edge’s malware scanners as a virus. This is a false positive, and you can safely download Nucleus Co-op. You could use Firefox to download it instead, which doesn’t flag the file, or temporarily disable Chrome’s anti-malware protection by clicking the three-dotted menu icon at the top right of Chrome, then Settings > Privacy and security > No protection.

Windows Defender may also flag the file as a virus. If that happens, click the popup box saying a threat has been detected, click the threat, then click Allow on device > Start actions. After you’ve done this, try downloading the file again, and remember to reenable the protections on Chrome and Windows Defender afterwards.

3. Add Skyrim

Open Nucleus Co-op, click ‘Download Game Scripts’, then type Skyrim into the ‘Game’ box and click Search. Click Skyrim: Special Edition then Download.

Click 'Yes' when asked if you’d like to add Skyrim Together to Nucleus Co-op, then navigate to your SkyrimSE.exe again.

Close the Download Game Scripts window so you’re back on the main Nucleus Coop screen then click Skyrim at the top-left corner. Click the small icon at the top left corner of the box below Gamepads to select how you want your screen split.

Make sure your controllers are switched on, then drag their icons to fill up the sections of the box, like below:

Click the arrow at the top right corner of Nucleus Coop, then choose how many instances of Skyrim (i.e. how many players) you want. When you’re ready, click Play.

Two instances of Skyrim should now open on your computer. If you get an error message saying you are missing libcrypto-1_1-x64.dll, download it from dll-files.com and put it in the ‘server’ folder in the game’s installation directory ( C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\server by default).

4. Load up Skyrim

With both instances of Skyrim Special Edition running, both players need to either start their own new Skyrim games or open existing separate Skyrim save files (if you start a new game, you’ll need to create your character and get past the tutorial area to join another player’s game).

To join the same local server, both players need to press the right Ctrl key on the keyboard when their instance is selected, then click Connect, enter 127.0.0.1 into the address box and click Connect again. 

Once you’re both connected to the same server, press right Ctrl again to hide the chat box in each window.

Once that’s done, both players will spawn in the same place they were standing in in their separate games, but you’ll now both be in the same world. You’ll need to manually find your fellow player in the game, as there are no map indicators showing each other’s location. Luckily with split-screen, you can just look at each other’s screens to track each other down.

Of course, you’ll need a pretty powerful PC for this to run smoothly, and you may need to do some tweaking with graphics settings and resolutions to get a nice steady frame rate. 

If the game is running smoothly for one player but not for the other, press Alt+Tab until you’ve selected the Nucleus Co-op launcher. This should smooth out the frame rate for both players, after which you can just move the Nucleus Co-op window out of the way into the corner.

As you play, you’ll probably see that this mod still needs work in some areas, but it’s already an incredible experience. Now that you have Nucleus Co-op too, it’s worth using the tool to see what other games it converts into split-screen (there are over 300 in total!). Happy gaming.

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It’s high time Tamriel got the TV treatment. According to a report from industry insider Daniel Ritchtman, Netflix is developing a TV show based on the The Elder Scrolls franchise.

Ritchtman claims the streaming giant is hoping to capitalize on the success of its existing fantasy series, The Witcher – which is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels and the acclaimed video game series – by bringing Bethesda’s beloved world of magic and dragons to life. 

If the rumours are true, it’s a move that makes sense in a lot of ways. The history of The Elder Scrolls series is a rich one – the franchise lays claim to some of the most successful RPG games of all time in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim – and Netflix producers will have no trouble developing a story based in such an established fantasy universe. 

Beyond the main entries in the franchise, the series has maintained popularity through the successful MMO spin-off game The Elder Scrolls Online – which continues to grow almost seven years after its initial release – and Blades, a free-to-play RPG for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices. 

The point being, The Elder Scrolls is a series with esteemed lineage and a vast fanbase, and few would argue against its suitability for the screen.

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News of its rumoured adaptation also comes amid a growing appetite for fantasy TV content. Despite going out with a whimper rather than a bang, HBO’s mega-hit Game of Thrones proved the narrative and commercial potential of fantasy storytelling, reviving interest in the genre in measures not seen since the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy two decades ago. 

It’s an appetite that other streaming services are hoping to capitalise on, too. HBO has already released details of its Game of Thrones spin-off series, House of the Dragon, and Amazon famously acquired the TV rights for a Lord of the Rings series – to the tune of $250 million – back in 2017. 

Although The Elder Scrolls doesn’t have the same literary pedigree as those acclaimed fantasy series before it, it nonetheless remains a franchise packed to the rafters in lore – from its elves, orcs and anthropomorphic animals to its themes of legendary heroism and magic. 

Audiences have already proven their willingness to embrace video game adaptations in the success of The Witcher, and Bethesda has likewise proven its willingness to embrace the small screen with another of its popular video game properties; a Fallout TV series is coming to Amazon Prime Video, and it's being made by the production company behind Westworld, no less.

But while its apocalyptic fictional universe is certainly one rich in detail and potential for good storytelling, even Fallout can’t touch The Elder Scrolls for size and depth of lore. If indeed the rumours are true and Tamriel is finally coming to TV, Netflix looks certain to be onto another winner.  

The Elder Scrolls 6

The appetite for a TV adaptation of The Elder Scrolls also comes amid the customary longing for a new video game entry in the series. Despite the release of various online-only spin-off games, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – released in 2011 – was the last main, story-driven addition to The Elder Scrolls universe. 

Rumours of The Elder Scrolls 6 have swirled in their numbers throughout the last decade, and fans were delighted when Bethesda's Todd Howard used the spotlight of E3 2018 to confirm that the studio is indeed working on a new instalment in the series.

But since then, details of the new game have been few and far between. We’ve rounded up everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 here. 

In related news, the new game – whenever it finally arrives – may not be coming to PS5 consoles, following Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax.

In an interview with Russian publication TASS, Playstation boss Jim Ryan said that it's still uncertain as to whether Bethesda’s upcoming titles will come to PlayStation – or whether they will be Microsoft exclusives. "That’s a decision that is out of our hands," Ryan said. "We’ll wait and see what happens. I look forward to learning about that."

More recently, Microsoft boss Phil Spencer was asked about the acquisition of ZeniMax and its impact on the exclusivity of a new The Elder Scrolls game: “Is it possible to recoup a $7.5 billion investment if you don’t sell Elder Scrolls 6 on the PlayStation?” Spencer was asked, who quickly replied with, "yes." 

In any case, while the future of Bethesda’s beloved franchise remains uncertain from a video game perspective, a Netflix adaptation of The Elder Scrolls looks set to satisfy the cravings of fans so long deprived of new stories from Tamriel. 

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Skyrim, Among Us, and The Yakuza Remastered Collection are all coming to Xbox Game Pass.

Revealed at last night's The Game Awards, Microsoft confirmed The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Special Edition will debut on the subscription service on December 15, while the fantastic Yakuza Remastered Collection - which features Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 – joins the roster on January 28, 2021. 

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is also on the way, but that won't arrive until March 25, 2021. Skyrim is headed for console and Android, while the Yakuza games will release on Android, console and PC.

Finally, cult smash Among Us was also confirmed for PC players, but for now, there's no solid release date, just a promise that it's coming "soon".

You've probably heard all about the hilarious antics of Among Us by now. As we reported a couple of months back, it released way back in June 2018 but has seen a huge surge in popularity recently. 

The game is available on PC as well as smartphones and tablets, although while it's free on mobile - chiefly because you view ads between games - on PC, it's a premium product you have to purchase.

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The Game Awards: Game of the Year winner

The Game Awards - which is less like the Oscars for video games and more like a marathon of world premier trailers – took time last night to honor the biggest game experiences of the year.

Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II took home the grand prize of Game of the Year, beating off competition from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Hades, Ghost of Tsushima, Doom Eternal, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. 

For the full details, head to our recap of last night's The Game Awards show, including all the winners and announcements from the show. 

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One of YouTube's most endearing content creators is making a cameo in the next Elder Scrolls game.

Shirley Curry – called 'Skyrim Grandma' by her fans – is an 82-year-old gaming enthusiast and dedicated Skyrim fan, with a popular YouTube channel that's racked up over half a million subscribers for her Elder Scrolls play-throughs.

Curry took to Twitter this week to announce she would appear "as a character in the next TES game", posting a video in an Elder Scrolls shirt next to a smiling Todd Howard – the Bethesda director who oversees development of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series.

How are they doing it?

Putting real people in games is different than using the standard character creation tool, however.

We learnt more about Bethesda's use of 'photogrammatry' tech at PAX East (when Gearbox also officially announced the upcoming Borderlands 3 game), during the Elder Scrolls 25th Anniversary Panel. The tech allows Bethesda to take measurements of real-life faces, objects or surroundings in order to recreate them within the Elder Scrolls VI game engine.

As the mo-cap tech used in video games progresses, it could be we see more and more real-life people and well-known faces appear in our games. In March this year we also caught wind of Lady Gaga apparently playing a character in CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077.

• The Elder Scrolls 6: release date, news and rumors

Via Kotaku

More than seven years after it first launched, and we still can't get enough of The Elder Scrolls v: Skyrim. And that's thanks in large part to the continued efforts of its dedicated modding community, which is now serving up another treat – working multiplayer support.

Though the Elder Scrolls games excel in large part thanks to their focus on solo play (the Elder Scrolls Online notwithstanding, of course), several years in and Skyrim's large open world still begs to be explored with pals. Many modders have tried to bring this dream to fruition, but it's the team working on Skyrim Together that has come closest to making it a reality.

It allows up to eight players to team up and take on the majority of what Skyrim has to offer, once again breathing new life into the game.

Dragon wagon

Skyrim Together is currently in a closed beta, accessible only to the team's Patreon contributors, though that's only set to be a short season before a wider release is enabled.

So what can and can't you do in Skyrim Together? It seems the majority of the game is accessible in multiplayer mode, with NPCs and quest systems supported – though no effort is being made to adapt missions to make them more co-op compatible. You'll be able to interact with objects and NPCs as you'd expect, although dragon encounters, a key elements of the main storyline, don't quite work.

As for interactions with other players, these work just how you'd hope they would – team health bars are displayed as part of the interface, and you can heal target charms with restoration spells and the like.

Could this be a sign of things to come for the Elder Scrolls series? Alhough its efforts proved problematic in Fallout 76, Bethesda certainly has ambitions to make its open world games more multiplayer-friendly. While a modding effort is a far stretch from official support, don't be surprised if we see this one, and many other Skyrim mods, act as inspiration for elements of the The Elder Scrolls 6.

• The Elder Scrolls 6: everything there is to know so far

Skyrim has come to the Amazon Alexa, in the form of Skyrim Very Special Edition - this is not a joke, even though Bethesda treated it like one in its press conference.

Bethesda has had a busy E3 2018, announcing Elder Scrolls VI, showing off what Fallout 76 is actually going to look like and also revealing some new Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein VR action and new IP Starfield.

But perhaps the most intriguing launch was initially a joke: an Alexa modified version of Elder Scrolls. But now it is actually something you can 'play’ on your Alexa.

Skyrim has been ported on to pretty much every console around now, and that is what Bethesda was riffing on when it was shown off in a video that showed Michael-Key playing it on a Samsung smart fridge and pager, as well as an Amazon Echo.

Soon after the video went live, however, so did the Skyrim Very Special Edition Amazon Skill. It's actually real, albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

"Bethesda Game Studios is proud to present Skyrim... for Alexa. Yes, that’s right, the version of Skyrim you never saw coming has finally arrived on the platform you never asked for," says the Amazon release.

"For the very first time ever, take your rightful place as the Dragonborn of legend (again) and explore Skyrim using the power of your own voice...your Thu’um!"

Given Amazon has a number of games on Alexa, it's good to see them play along and create a skill.

It already has RPGs Dungeon Adventure, and Shadow Run so why not a dragon-battling multi-threaded choose your own adventure, complete with Skyrim mythos? 

How to play Skyrim Very Special Edition on Alexa

To play Skyrim Very Special Edition on an Alexa device is really simple. First you have to download the Skill, which is available from this link. 

Once the Skill is linked to your device, you then say "Alexa, Open Skyrim" and the quest starts. In the quest, you have the option to explore the dungeons of Skyrim, master your weapons, spells and shouts, encounter people who constantly need your help and also Guard your knees against arrows.

Amazon definitely isn't taking this too seriously... and for good reason.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the skill is currently only available in the US version of the Amazon Alexa Skills store. 

You can play Dark Brotherhood Trivia for Elder Scrolls until it does become available, though. Or watch the clip below of someone trying it out on their Amazon Echo.

• E3 is the world's largest exhibition for the games industry, stuffed full of the latest and greatest games, consoles, and gaming hardware. TechRadar is reporting live from Los Angeles all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated E3 2018 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about the next year in gaming. 

• Best Alexa Skills: the best Amazon Echo commands around

When we first played The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim in 2011, we certainly wouldn’t have imagined that it would be a game we’d be able to play on any portable console, never mind a Nintendo console. 

It was so far from likely, it actually wasn’t something we even considered wanting. Yet six years later, we’ve just Fus Ro Dah’ed our way through an entire commute and enjoyed every minute.

Yes, Skyrim has come to the Nintendo Switch and though it feels strange to find ourselves humming the Dovahkiin theme at random intervals once again, we’re pretty happy about it. 

Blast from the past

That’s because we can say with some relief that this is a very competent port – though given it’s a six year old game it would have been rather embarrassing if it hadn’t been. 

While it works well across all of the Switch’s modes, it's in handheld mode that Skyrim really shines.

It’s not hard to figure out why; playing Skyrim on a handheld console makes what could be a very well-worn gaming experience feel fresh and new again. 

We’ve been able to take up the role of Dragonborn for years, but now we can be Dragonborn on the bus, Dragonborn in the pub and Dragonborn on the toilet as well as Dragonborn in the living room. 

Sure, you can play the game in docked mode but if you have Skyrim on any other home console there isn’t really much appeal to this. It’s the Switch’s handheld form that offers the kind of smooth, portable experience you’re not going to find anywhere else. If this is a game you’ve already sunk hundreds of hours into, it’s probably the best way to revisit it right now.

Given that it’s very much a six year old game, Skyrim isn’t really going to blow your mind to the same degree anymore in terms of what gameplay it can offer you. But seeing that expansive world in the palm of your hand is a new kind of a thrill in itself. 

Console compromise

That’s not to say it’s perfect. To make it possible to take an entire Tamriel region on the go, some compromises have had to be made. 

You won’t get HDR, incredibly high resolution textures or fantastic draw distance here. And the lack of brightness adjustment is a pain in the retinas when you’re in a dungeon. 

However, the frame rate is admirably consistent and when you’re playing in handheld mode these visual compromises aren't overly noticable.

It’s not just playing the game in a different location that makes handheld feel so refreshing, though. We actually found it changed the way we played. For one thing, rather than whiling blocks of hours away at a time on quests, we’re now dipping in and out of the game because the Switch’s portable form factor makes that feel more possible. 

A new way to play

Further to this, on our home consoles we preferred a third person view, but the smaller screen of the Switch actually made the game’s first person view preferable. This could be seen as a drawback, but it actually just ended up feeling like a more intimate gameplay experience.

This intimacy is something the game tries to enhance with Switch motion control integration but they’re a bit of a hit and miss. Literally and figuratively. While they’re great from a novelty perspective (and the first thing we did when we got our hands on a sword was detach the Joy-Cons to swing it for ourselves) they get old fast. 

It’s fun at first to be able to lift your left arm and see your shield come up in front of you, or swing your right for a heavy sword attack. But in busy combat situations you can feel like a butterfly catcher swinging a net rather than a dangerous warrior. Don't even get us started on the frustration of lock picking.

That said, these controls fare slightly better when it comes to aiming your bow and arrow or casting spells and they’re still an exciting new way to experience Skyrim. Just don’t try using them on the busy bus to work.

With Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and now Skyrim, the Switch is fast becoming another world you can carry in your pocket (okay, your bag. We understand your pockets don't have quite the same depth as your Skyrim character). 

With the approach it’s taking on the Switch with regards to first and third-party releases, Nintendo has created something of a win-win situation for itself. 

With the console's docked mode we get brand new first-party Nintendo titles on the big screen just like the Wii U offered. But while the Wii U was limited by the fact it could really only offer this, the Switch offers a handheld mode that allows us to revisit some classic console games in a refreshing, convenient way.

It’s like someone in Nintendo took the Wii U, the 2DS and an Xbox 360 into a lab and created the kind of creature Victor Frankenstein only dreamed of.

That said, soon the novelty of having portable access to these games will wear out and it’s key that Nintendo seizes on the fact that it's now proven the console to encourage third-parties to bring their new games to it. 

The oldness of Skyrim might have been given a polish by the newness of the Switch but that’s not something that will work forever.

• Looking to see what else the Switch has to offer? Check out our list of its best games

Harvey Norman is holding a clearance sale on a number of its games, plenty of which are worth grabbing at these exceptional prices.

You can net yourself Skyrim:Special Edition for PS4 or on Xbox One for only $30, which is really quite a steal for such a continually popular game, and this edition comes with all the Skyrim DLC as well as a complete graphics overhaul. 

Watch Dogs 2 on PS4 and Xbox One is only $20 if you're keen on some edgy hacking and cyber-sneaking, and Bethesda's sequel to its excellent steam-punk Dishonored title, Dishonored 2 (PS4) can be nabbed for the same awesome price.

Keen on a little more crime and a bit more in the way of fisticuffs? Then check out Mafia 3 on Xbox One or PS4 for $20. Maybe you're feeling a little superhuman, then Injustice 2 is your go – just $30 on Xbox One and on PS4.

• If you're looking for great prices on a console, check out our list of the best Australian Xbox One deals or the best Australian PS4 deals.

Bethesda’s Creation Club, a system of curated and paid-for mods announced earlier this summer, has now gone live for Fallout 4 on the PC, as well as the Xbox One and PS4.

The Creation Club – which will also be arriving for Skyrim Special Edition next month – caused quite some controversy when it was first revealed, as gamers rebelled against the idea of having to pay for mod content which has previously always been free to download.

For its part, Bethesda argues that free mods are still available as before, it’s just the content in this particular club which you have to pay for. In other words, it’s a case of you pays your money, or you don’t – a two-tier mod system is now in operation, with free mods in one lane, and Bethesda’s curated paid-for mods in the other.

Let us Prey

The club’s initial batch of Fallout 4 mod content includes Hellfire Power Armor, Power Horse Armor, a prototype gauss rifle, homemade shotgun, modular military backpack, and a load of paint jobs for various items. You can also buy Morgan’s space suit (as seen in Prey).

As a sweetener, Bethesda is throwing in 100 credits for free, the currency used to purchase these mods on Steam (or Xbox Live/PSN). Although that won’t get you much…

And the overall response to this initial batch of content has been pretty muted, to say the least.

Doubtless some chunkier mods are in the pipeline, as the Creation Club promised a whole gamut of custom content when it was first revealed, including new gameplay modes. Meanwhile, Bethesda promises that “more content [is] coming soon throughout the upcoming months”.

• Shell out for the best external hard drive and use all the mods you want

Over at E3, Bethesda has revealed a new initiative for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition which the company will use to push paid-for mods for both these hit games.

It’s called the Creation Club, and will offer a whole raft of custom-built content for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One – from simple skins or weapons, all the way up to new gameplay modes – when the system goes live later this summer.

Players will be able to purchase these mods from in-game marketplaces using special credits, and the latter will be bought with real money from the Steam gaming platform (or PSN/Xbox Live for console gamers). Said credits will be universal, meaning that you can spend them across both Fallout and Skyrim as you wish.

Naturally enough, there’s been a predictably angry reaction from fans who don’t want to pay for mod content which has previously been entirely free to download and use. 

The YouTube launch trailer for the Creation Club has thus far accrued 11,600 dislikes (versus  1,000 likes) and a stream of negative commentary laden with plenty of lamenting on topics such as the relentless march of micro-transactions in gaming.

Creative defense

In its FAQ for the club, however, Bethesda is defending itself by insisting that this isn’t a system of paid mods. 

The FAQ states: “Is Creation Club paid mods?”

The reply is: “No. Mods will remain a free and open system where anyone can create and share what they’d like. Also, we won’t allow any existing mods to be retrofitted into Creation Club, it must all be original content.”

It then adds: “Most of the Creation Club content is created internally, some with external partners who have worked on our games, and some by external Creators.”

Essentially, Bethesda is saying that all existing mods will remain free, and that free mods will continue to be made for both games. However, it will be producing its own mod content internally, along with some third-party mods from devs which will be heavily vetted, tested and polished.

But the flat-out denial that the Creation Club is a system of paid mods is rather confusing – since it clearly is, albeit with caveats – and again hasn’t gone down particularly well with the gaming population.

What this really amounts to, by all accounts, is the introduction of ‘premium’ mods and a two-tier system – paid-for mods either produced, or vetted by, Bethesda, and a second tier consisting of all other content which is free (not necessarily of a lower quality, we might add; just not curated by Bethesda).

Developers and modders can apply to get their wares into the Creation Club system here, and gamers can add their own thoughts to the growing avalanche of comments on YouTube.

Via: PC Gamer

• E3 is the world's largest exhibition for the games industry, stuffed full of the latest and greatest games, consoles, and gaming hardware. TechRadar is reporting live from Los Angeles all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated E3 2017 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about the next year in gaming.

At this year’s Bethesda E3 conference we got another glimpse at the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls: Skyrim for Nintendo Switch. 

Though many thought this may be a straight port of the 2011 game for Nintendo’s new hybrid console, it looks like Bethesda and Nintendo have worked together to do something slightly different with the game.

In a short trailer, we got a look at how Skyrim on Nintendo Switch will take advantage of some of the Switch's more individual features such as allowing players to the Jon-Con’s motion controls to control their weapons. 

Whether you prefer to use a sword and shield or a bow and arrow, you’ll be able to hold each Joy-Con separately and use triggers and movement to perform various actions. 

The trailer also showed that the game will also support Amiibo use. By tapping a Link Amiibo onto the reader on the console's joystick, the player was able to bring Link’s Master Sword, clothes and weapons into the game world to use for themselves. 

You can see the trailer for yourself below:

This is definitely a way to add a Nintendo edge to the world of Skyrim, though it’s not clear whether or not you’ll be able to use Amiibo other than Link and bring even more different Nintendo character items into the game. Mario fighting a dragon? Now that’s something we’d love to see. 

There’s still no solid release date just yet, but we know the game will be released in Fall this year. Perhaps a more solid release date is something we'll see announced by Nintendo itself later this week during its own E3 livestream. 

• E3 is the world's largest exhibition for the games industry, stuffed full of the latest and greatest games, consoles, and gaming hardware. TechRadar is reporting live from Los Angeles all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated E3 2017 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about the next year in gaming.

We hope you don’t have a busy calendar for the next few years: Bethesda, the studio behind the Elder Scrolls series, has three new games in the works. 

The revelation came from Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard, who told Glixel that aside from Fallout 4 VR and the upcoming Nintendo Switch port of Skyrim. 

According to Howard, one of the games will be a mobile title along the lines of Fallout Shelter while the other two are titles that will be “classically Bethesda”. Read: really rather big. In fact, they’re going to be on an even larger scale than Bethesda’s previous open world games. 

Clear your gaming calendar

Howard told Glixel that as it’s a bigger company now, Bethesda wants “to be putting out more stuff.” The two titles which are of the classic Bethesda scale are being overlapped and worked on simultaneously, though the work is staggered. 

“I can't talk a lot about them,” Howard said, “but I can say that they're bigger than anything we've ever done. They're a bit different, but definitely in the wheelhouse that people are used to from us.“

That means they’re likely to be games involving fantasy and post-apocalyptic science fiction with big maps, bigger ambitions and a strong emphasis on roleplaying. 

Since it’s been a while since Skyrim’s 2011 release, it’d be natural to assume that the next Elder Scrolls installment is one of these two big titles. However, since Howard said the games are something “a bit different” we’re hesitant to hope for a fresh take on Tamriel any time soon. 

In August of last year the studio said that though Elder Scrolls VI was coming, it wasn’t in development and wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.

Considering Howard told Gamespot that Skyrim and Fallout 4 still have “millions” of daily players, these clearly aren’t franchises that need the resuscitation provided by a sequel anyway.

That said, it isn’t impossible that Bethesda has now entered the very early development stages for the next Elder Scrolls title with plans to shake up the series by implementing its something "different" in the areas of storytelling and mechanics, rather than in the game universe being used. 

Regardless, it’s nice to think that there are a few new Bethesda titles in development, especially if the developer is willing to keep things fresh. 

• Remember Fallout Shelter? It's headed to Xbox One and Windows 10

Look, everyone’s excited about a Nintendo console, the Nintendo Switch, and for good reason. We love it because, for the first time since GameCube, casual Ninty fans and veterans alike have a piece of hardware they can latch onto. Plus, a new Legend of Zelda and Mario title don’t hurt, either.   

And all this, two years after the Year of Luigi. 

But now that the dust has settled on last week’s announcement, that initial electrifying excitement has begun to turn. No, I’m not here to denounce Nintendo’s new console as a sham – trust me, I’m still incredibly excited for what Nintendo is proposing – but there was definitely something very wrong hidden among all the hipster parties and faux eSports gatherings we saw during the short, three-minute trailer. 

You see, we need to talk about a little game called Skyrim.

The Skyrim’s the limit

Let’s not start by creating a dragon-themed flamewar and instead state this from the off: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the greatest games ever coded by man. It’s still a landmark in open-world design and remains one of the yardsticks that all action-RPGs are measured against. There’s simply no denying that. (Yes, Morrowind is amazing too, but dragons.)

But despite it being one of the all-time greats, there’s a real kicker that’s impossible to ignore: It’s a five-year-old game. 

Sure, it’s getting a graphical upgrade (essentially bringing it in line with the PC version), but that doesn’t change the fact it’s still a remaster from a previous generation that’s going to sit alongside revolutionary titles like Breath of the Wild. And that doesn’t sit well with me. My fear is that the Nintendo Switch, much like the Wii U, will be oversaturated by a glut of familiar games repackaged for financial gains. Remember what happened when obscure, or long-forgotten titles got the treatment in 2013? (Think Darksiders II and Lego Harry Potter.) They didn’t sell consoles or generate hype of any kind. 

I’m not saying re-master games ruined the launch of the Wii U, but I don’t think they helped.

 And look, releasing re-mastered games on a new system works on Sony and Microsoft’s machines because of the sheer number of titles released on either console. While people moan, re-releases do little to dilute the substantial software libraries these consoles develop over the course of their lifetimes. 

But Switch is different. Nintendo probably won’t garner the same support from third-party developers and will, in all likelihood, have a much smaller library. Moreover it’s trying to establish not only a new platform but a new way of gaming altogether and, to be honest, re-releasing old software probably isn’t going to send the right message.

#SorryNotSorry

I know it seems a cardinal sin to say a console won’t benefit from something as wonderful as Skyrim, but the last thing Switch needs is a launch game that’s nearly five and a half years old – and one that would have been out on other current-gen hardware (in its rezzed-up form) for a whole five months by the time Switch arrives. 

Yes, there’s an argument to be made that Switch will require the presence of recognisable multiplatform titles to survive and flourish in the modern market, but the likes of FIFA and CoD are iterative licences that turn on the freshness of their content. 

There’s nothing fresh about a remastered game. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. It brings nothing to the table. And while these titles will almost certainly appear on Switch at some point, they’re only going to make Nintendo’s job harder in those first few launch months.

When Nintendo Switch enters our lives and we’re all meeting on rooftops for ‘gaming parties’ or a flirty rendezvous in an airport, it should have – nay, it needs to have – every big Ninty gun blazing. We know we’re almost certainly getting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but that’s not enough. 

We need a brand new, 3D platformer Mario (remember the glorious days of Super Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine?) and a new Splatoon would almost certainly help sell the multiplayer aspect (as well as helping it cement itself as one of the firm’s core titles). 

And, while we’re talking wishlists here, would a new Smash Bros kill you, Nintendo? We can live without a new Mario Kart for a little while considering Mario Kart 8 isn’t that old is still one of the best karting games ever, but nothing shows off the couchplay sentiments quite like laying the smacketh down as Kirby or Fox McCloud.

Getting on brand

Thing is, while Sony and Microsoft have built global brands that have become synonymous with the modern image of gaming, the software and identity of those brands have been watered down beyond all recognition. It’s not a surprise really, both consoles have had to adapt to a buying public that’s more games more often, and it’s taken its toll on what makes a game truly PlayStation or succinctly Xbox. 

Nintendo has never really had that problem.

The Nintendo brand – that warm, inclusive, evocatively Japanese feeling – has never been watered down, even with the boom of Wii or the failings of Wii U. Nintendo machines always have an almost intangible magic about them, and it’s one that’s seen the company build the gaming industry into what it is today – even if it seems like that very same market has seemingly left it behind. 

But as Nintendo counts down the days to March and the release of Switch, it’ll need the bedrock of its known quantities (and one’s yet to be revealed) to keep said magic in the jar. 

In short, we love you Skyrim, but this is one party you’re not invited to. Sorry.

Bethesda has announced that the remastered version of Skyrim which is due out later this month has gone gold, while also revealing the PC system  requirements for the game.

Unsurprisingly,  Skyrim Special Edition is a good deal more demanding than the original,  which is five years old now (can you believe?), due to the amount of  tweaking done to the visuals to bring the game up-to-date.

The minimum system requirements specify at least an Intel Core i5-750  (2.66GHz quad-core) processor or AMD Phenom II X4-945, with 8GB of system RAM. For the graphics card you’ll need at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 with 1GB of video memory, or an AMD HD 7870 2GB.

The recommended spec cranks things up to an Intel Core i5-2400 or AMD  FX-8320, backed up by an Nvidia GTX 780 graphics card with 3GB on-board, or a Radeon R9 290 4GB. The amount of system memory stays the same as the minimum requirements, at 8GB.

The game is supported by the 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10, plus you’ll need 12GB of free space on your drive for the installation.

Visual finery

Skyrim Special Edition’s visual enhancements include extra content and remastered art, refreshed effects, volumetric lighting, dynamic depth of field and new snow and water shaders. They're joined by other bits and pieces of polish, some of which have been borrowed from Fallout 4’s improvements  to the graphics engine (Creation Engine).

The remastered Skyrim for PC is out on October 28 – alongside the PS4 and Xbox One versions – and the good news is that those Steam users who  bought the original game and all of the Skyrim DLC will get the Special Edition given to them for free.

Note that the console versions have a further big addition coming to them in that they will support mods – community crafted add-ons – just like the PC version.

• Is it about to land in our list of best PC games?

In a welcome turnaround, game publisher Bethesda has announced that the PlayStation 4 versions of Fallout 4 and Skyrim will soon receive mod support and will render in native 4K on the PlayStation Pro console.

It was just a month ago that gaming publisher Bethesda announced that two of its most popular games, Skyrim and Fallout 4, would not have mod support on the PlayStation 4 console.

The decision came as a result of a disagreement between Bethesda and Sony on how the mods should work and how much freedom creators could have, with Bethesda stating that if the situation changed it would provide the necessary updates.

Clearly, the situation has now changed since Bethesda has taken to its blog again to announce that PlayStation 4 owners will be able to use mods in Skyrim and Fallout 4 on their consoles after all.

The situation has been modified

In large open world games like Bethesda's, mods have long been used by PC gamers to make their own creative additions and changes to Bethesda's world that keep it fresh and interesting to play for longer.

This was once something that console gamers had to miss out on together, but when Xbox One owners received a mod support update for Fallout 4 in May this year, PlayStation owners were left out of the fun. No doubt this was galling for gamers who had long awaited console mod support and a worry for Sony, whose console was missing an attractive feature its competitor had managed to secure.

The first of the two games to receive the mod support update will be Skyrim, when a remastered version of the game is launched on October 28.

Not only will the remastered Skyrim support mods, it'll also be able to render in native 4K when played on the upcoming PlayStation 4 Pro console.

Mod support and 4K resolution will also be coming to Fallout 4, but Bethesda was less clear on when exactly this update would happen, stating only that it would begin "after work is complete on Skyrim."

To use mods on the games, players will have to use Bethesda's own Creation Kit. Downloading this will allow players to modify and create their own content for the game and, although they won't be able to upload external assets with PlayStation 4 mods, Bethesda says they will be able to use any assets that come with the game "as most mods do."

Bethesda says it is "excited" to be able to bring mod support to its PlayStation fans, adding "Modding has been an important part of our games for over 10 years."

• Take advantage of mods right now with one of the best gaming PCs

Are you ready to go again, dragonborn? Five years after The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim's launch on consoles and the PC, Bethesda announced a remastered version for this generation of machines in October on the E3 2016 stage. Not only will northern Tamriel look much prettier than you remember it, Skyrim Special Edition is set to get mod support on consoles for the first time.

It's hard to remember a remaster that's generated as much excitement in recent years, save for Final Fantasy VII, and it has me pondering what other PC games would benefit from an overhaul. The platform has an embarrassment of riches to choose from, but here are five classics that should be developers' first picks.

• Kane Fulton is TechRadar's computing editor, a keen PC gamer and forever searching for the hottest gaming peripherals and productivity apps
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• Check out our best PC games

Forget Skyrim, or even Oblivion; I want a remastered version of the third game in the Elder Scrolls Series: Morrowind.

Released back when games had more meat on their bones than a giant's mammoth (that's 2002, then), Morrowind is comparatively hardcore and much closer to traditional RPGs in style compared to its modern-day equivalents. Spells, for example, can be crafted like weapons can be in Skyrim, and magic damage is determined by chance.

Thankfully, a fan-driven remastering of Morrowind called Skywind is in the works. It has Bethesda's blessing, which is no surprise because it's looking sharp.

You only needed two things to enjoy System Shock 2 back in 1999: a 3D-enabled graphics card and a spare pair of pants. Why the latter? The first encounter with the game's terrifying supercomputer SHODAN, that's why.

Created using Dark Engine which powered early Thief games, System Shock 2's graphics were blocky yet immersive enough to fill you with dread as you battled zombified creatures aboard the Von Braun starship.

Its original publisher Night Dive Studios is working on a remaster of the first game, and it's shaping up to be something special judging by this pre-alpha gameplay video. System Shock 2 is arguably the better of the two, and we think it would benefit the most from a graphics overhaul. Fingers crossed it will happen if the first remaster is a hit.

The sequel to X-Wing was an unforgiving mistress that required training and dedication if you wanted to beat its secret Emperor missions. A bonafide PC classic that alone justified buying a joystick, Tie Fighter took the unusual stance of letting you play as the evil Empire back in 1994.

Attempting to remaster the original Tie Fighter would be like smudging lipstick all over a pig's snout, such is its age, but there's never been a better time for it to get the full remake treatment.

With VR picking up traction on its second time around, we would love to see a fully-blown, over-the-top remake that harks back to the original's charming cutscenes while delivering Eve: Valkyrie-Style immersion and insane 360-degree dogfights. Oculus Rift or HTC Vive? Frankly, I don't care either way.

Perhaps we'll get it from that Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing VR Mission game. Wookies crossed.

Yes, we know: Half-Life has been given the remaster treatment in the form of Black Mesa, and it's glorious. Even without the helping of its original developer Valve, the third-party mod feels like it's emerged from the depths of the American software company – such is its attention to detail.

However, for all of its maker's efforts, the mod is still based on the Source engine and as such lacks the cutting-edge visuals of the latest games such as Doom.

We would love to see Gordon Freeman's first outing recreated in a truly modern engine – like Unreal Engine 4, id Tech 6, Bethesda's Void engine or even Source 2. We want to see limbs ripped from Vortigaunts' bodies in bloodthirsty detail, to be able to bat away headcrabs like softballs using a crowbar and to pin zombie scientists to walls by firing arrows at them using the Black Mesa Crossbar. We know: we don't ask for much.

Effectively a litmus test for psychopathic tendencies, Carmageddon 2 gave you a choice between racing your opponents to the finishing line or taking a detour to mow down crowds of people instead. Well, we say people – the game was only released in certain countries after governments demanded that the developers swapped the game's humans for green zombies spilling oil, rather than blood.

Its colorful, cartoon-style graphics saw limbs fly and vehicles explode around every corner. We can only imagine that a 4K-worthy remaster would make the carnage look even more glorious.

Follow along with the rest of our E3 2016 coverage and commentary right here on TechRadar.

Last month, Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski made splashes with a post on his Clifford Unchained blog titled "Deal With It" in which he eviscerated the online community for its reaction to the departure of Adam Orth from Microsoft.

Orth, formerly Creative Director at Microsoft Studios, had tweeted a message regarding the new Xbox and "the drama around having an 'always on' console," hashtagged #dealwithit. The interwebs didn't take his comment too kindly.

The always-on debate has flared with fire and brimstone in the lead up to the console's May 21 reveal, though Orth's ordeal has been one of the more controversial happenings.

Bleszinski opined on Orth's situation and criticized the lynch mob reaction to it in his blog, but he also made this claim: "My gut is telling me that an always online future is probably coming. It's coming fast, and possibly to the majority of the devices you enjoy."

Microsoft has unofficially shut down always-on Xbox 720 concerns thanks to a recently leaked internal

email, though we won't really know what we're in for until a few weeks time. Even if Microsoft's eternally-connected Xbox doesn't come to life, as Bleszinski said, that future for many devices may be here sooner than we expect.

Cliff B is a hard man to track down, but we were able to connect for an extensive Q&A on all of this always-on Xbox business, if he'd want a game he developed to be played on such a console and what he plans to do next.

TechRadar: How do you define always on? Is it needing an internet connection at all times to play games and perform other functions like listen to music? Is it enabling background downloading when the console is off?

Cliff Bleszinski: Saying something is "always on" has become "take what you think this means and come up with your own answer and then decide how upset or offended you are by it."

Years ago my colleagues and I were discussing the idea of "open world" and what that means. It could mean so much depending on the game! Is it a GTA with a huge, sprawling city? Is it Skyrim with terrain and dungeons? Is it a hub-based world like Borderlands? Is it a contained city like Arkham?

So "always on" isn't even about the connection. It's about what the software requires of that connection. We have many devices that won't work without power. I have a white noise maker that I sleep with that plugs in. If the power goes, I can use standard batteries to make sure I sleep soundly. An "always online" system could require a fat pipe 24/7. Or it could require an occasional "check in" once in a while via a cell phone connection.

It's anyone's guess right now.

TR: You write in your April blog about how an always-on future is coming, but can you outline the signs you see that such a reality is almost upon us?

CB: My "always online" world that I'm hoping for for the majority of my devices is one that's closer to what Apple has, which is a secure system with reduced piracy that has a fabulous ecosystem that I'm happy to throw money at.

If it's online then I can play games with friends, download music and movies that I'm paying for, and send asynchronous moves along. If it's online, I can still sling a few birds at some pigs, just without the latest updates.

I currently suffer with Time Warner cable at my home and as a consumer I can assure you that it's inconsistent at best. If I'm mid-game and the connection drops and I can't resume where I was, it may very well be a shelf moment for me.

If there are systems being designed with this sort of functionality, I certainly hope that the people building them have the presence of mind to figure out workarounds for these problems. A random sample would be to allow for a grace period of N minutes if a connection dies to maintain status.

I'm not that hardcore of a power user. I'm very mid-range when it comes to my technology use. I let some other early adopter suffer through any first release of any new hot product and then come in once the issues are fixed with the second revision. However the only way I watch movies and say Game of Thrones now is to stream them on Xbox movies and HBO Go in HD. I've only had a handful of problems with streaming on these fantastic services, ever, even with my spotty Time Warner service. I'm used to it. And when it works no one really ever seems to mind it.

TR: What tech obstacles stand in the way of an always-on console being a success? Or is the groundwork there so that something like this may not necessarily be a success right off the bat, but will garner supporters as time goes on?

CB: Broadband penetration. I've casually Googled the numbers and it appears as if in the majority of developed nations (read: the ones that would be likely to enjoy video games) broadband penetration is at 60 percent of more of households that have a computer. That's good, but we can do better. I want full global Wi-Fi that is flawless and fast. Google fiber. All of it. Once it's there no one will really worry about it.

The reason Adam Orth used the infamous "vacuum" analogy is that it took people a while to part with their candles before they actually counted on reliable power for their light bulbs and fancy new devices. For the most part, we have power, and it's consistent and useful. Power going out is fairly rare in most areas. Broadband will eventually be like that. The fear comes from the fact that it's not quite there yet.

TR: Somewhat related, but perhaps the next Xbox won't have always on as a feature. However, if it's coming to another future Xbox or another console sooner rather than later, what does a successful always-on device look like in your mind?

CB: I want to see a system that lives and breathes into the community. We're at the point where the hardware isn't exactly the most exciting thing. It's nice, sure, but the online feature set, the ability for users to participate and contribute to the experience through videos of their sessions, crafted levels, hell, their own games – that's what needs to happen. Crowdsource the success of the console through the power of community. Oh and also build a nearly idiot-proof online gaming platform that encourages cooperation and votes the trolls and racist/sexist idiots into oblivion.

TR: You've seen the backlash surrounding the idea of an always-on console. What perceptions need to change? You write about the average consumer in your blog – are they going to need less convincing of the possibility this will work than hardcore, edge-case gamers?

CB: If you're the average gamer, say, the person who buys GTA, CoD and Madden throughout the year and calls it a day and you have a steady broadband and a console comes out that requires an always-online connection, you're not going to care or bat an eyelash. The more hardcore, edge case gamer is harder. They're the ones who are constantly accused of being thieves. (Shout out to those who actually are and make everyone else suffer because of it.) If you're a gamer who earns his or her money who buys games on Steam and is constantly told you have to have all of these restrictions because, hey, you're a criminal you'd probably take to a message board and write some nasty things as well.

If the connection is consistent, the ecosystem is one to encourage community, if the system is marketed well and there are backup scenarios for when the connection fails, we very well may see systems like this doing fairly well in the marketplace.

TR: There have been some well-documented outages [SimCity, Diablo 3] that make gamers uncomfortable about always-on-ness. Should people realize this is a new age, and presumably Microsoft would put as many stop gaps in place to keep damage minimal during an outage, or is it a valid concern and one that should make Microsoft think twice?

CB: Funny, I basically spoke of these stop gaps in a prior answer. I'll go back to the electricity metaphor. My wife and I bought a house last year and we're really excited about it. However, living in North Carolina and moving to the suburbs a bit outside of town I trust the power…only to a point. We get plenty of storms here, hurricanes go through, and once in a blue moon we'll get snow or an ice storm. The power can go out. And when that power goes out for a few days in the winter it goes from being a minor inconvenience to a giant pain. So I'm going to buy a backup generator. Heck, we had the UPS batteries at Epic for years before we got our new building and purchased a generator the size of a school bus. Basically, if there's an online system, they'll need whatever their stop gap version is to make it as painless as possible.

TR: What about people who don't have a reliable internet connection – how will they fare in an always-on future?

CB: At some point the march of technology has to go on. Eighty-five percent of the people I know do not have a land line. Sooner or later, it'll be a similar thing. Short term there may be some pain and outrage, unfortunately.

TR: Is our always-on future going to start with games or is it going to start with other home entertainment services, like TV?

CB: It started with Redtube.

TR: A big concern among gamers is DRM. Is it a valid issue from your perspective or is it an obsolete/irrelevant issue for the average user?

CB: That's a big hot button topic. The first thing to consider is that average gamer, the one I mentioned earlier. That person has no idea what DRM is and doesn't care. If it works, it works. The catch with this whole scenario is that the hardcore do need to be catered to in many ways because if you don't win them over first, you can't often go wider.

There's a saying we used to use -"leverage the core to ignite the masses" - when discussing Gears marketing, and it worked. In spite of the DRM issues with Diablo 3 it still went on to sell, what, 12 million units? If I could borrow Elizabeth and create a tear where Blizzard didn't have that DRM, and then create another where the DRM was working flawlessly, my gut tells me that in the case with no DRM they would have sold 3 million - 4 million. If the DRM was working flawlessly? 15-plus million.

People do torrent, and torrent often. I have friends that know I've worked in software for many years and admit to doing it. It's gotten easier than ever to do it. I still think the best way is to make your DRM as flawless as possible, as seamless, and to make a great experience that people want to say "shut up and take my money." Make one that's so fantastic that even if there's a cracked version the draw of the "legit" one is so strong and you want to vote with your dollars that you can't help but actually buy the damned thing.

TR: There's the concern that when Microsoft is ready to release the Xbox 1080 (or whatever the next, next Xbox will be called) it will unplug the next Xbox's servers to make room, thus forcing consumers to upgrade if they want the newest device. How do you see this issue?

CB: There's a lot of fear mongering online these days. There's also a lot of "I'm bored, so I need to look for something to get super angry about." (When you combine a slow news day and a sensationalist blog, watch out!) Any provider of any service owes it to their customers to, for a reasonable time, keep their current services on and reliable until the inevitable transition occurs. I wouldn't be surprised to see legislation at some point in the future appearing in order to keep service providers honest in this area.

Microsoft isn't as "stupid or evil" as people sometimes think. They're really turning around perception of the company in recent years and I doubt they'd be so silly as to immediately unplug the previous device once a new one comes along simply because the old one is probably still making money.

TR: Would you want a game you've developed or are developing need an internet connection to be played?

CB: I love multi-player games and whatever I do next will most likely have a multi-player component so it's safe to say it'll probably need an internet connection.

TB: You were upset over the public reaction to the Michael Orth situation. What about it bothered you so much?

CB: The bullied are now the bullies. That's what bothers me. It's just like that South Park in which they combat bullying by simply [being] bullies themselves. The most vocal people online are the ones that often weren't the most social and have the time to sit in Photoshop and contribute to a GAF thread in which they systematically make fun of a guy and damage his career after he was having a lively chat with a friend over Twitter. (And I love GAF.)

TR: Do you see the world moving into this at-arms-length observer position where people are free to comment on anything and everything without recourse? Or are we all equal online so we all can say what we really feel?

CB: I fantasize about two online experiences. In many ways, I have this. My Facebook is largely personal. Nearly everyone I have on my account is someone I've had a personal interaction with and would remember if I saw in public. Twitter, on the other hand, is "anything goes" and private and public.

I sometimes wish the rest of the online experience was that clean and consistent. If you want accountability, you go into the space where you think twice about what you say. If you want to go talk shit with the Savages, have at it, there's your play space.