It’s ”more tactile in your hands” with Skyrim. We can now dual-wield weapons, assigning whatever we like to each hand/arm. Special kill moments are in.
”We wanted to make it more tactile in your hands,” said Todd Howard, referring to the game’s weapons. “I think if you look at our previous stuff I sometimes equate it to fighting with chopsticks – you sit there and swing them in front of yourself.”
Bethesda’s ace up their sleeve is the new dual-wielding that Skyrim has which allows any combination of weapons - melee, ranged or magic - to be equipped by the player. Hotkeys also let us switch to different loadouts on the fly.
”There’s a brutality to it both in the flavor of the world, and one of you is going to die,” noted Howard. Skyrim will also introduce special kill animations.
“I think you get very used the idea that enemies are all there for you to mow through, but it doesn’t seem like someone’s life is going to end. We’re trying to get that across.”
Shields will play a much greater role as blocking at the right time is paramount to survival but they also let you bash an opponent around weakening them to your attacks.
“Before when we had magic, it never felt to us like you were actually doing it,” Howard admits. “It was a separate button, it flew out of your fist, and you could have a shield in your hand or a two handed-weapon – you could do it with anything.”
This is no Oblivion as much has changed for Skyrim. Stealth has seen an evolution as well with players given time to actually duck and cover when an NPC becomes alerted to your presence.
“Now when you sneak up behind guys, the dagger does something like 10x damage,” Howard says. “I don’t know if we’re going to keep that, but you feel like you should be killing the guy if you’ve gotten that close and you have a dagger.”
For more in-depth bean spillage on Skyrim’s new fancy combat mechanics check out the GameInformer article where Todd Howard gives up the goods.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC November 11th.