There are two or three mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that I’ve had my eye on for a while, but somehow the insanely ambitious total conversion Enderal – The Shards of Order skipped me by.
Until the team behind the sequel to Oblivion’s Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge released a trailer showing off visual design, gameplay and world-building worthy of any Elder Scrolls game. It’s pretty great.
Enderal is being developed by mod team SureAI, and work first started on it back in 2011. A lot of ambitious mods end up falling by the wayside, but this one is still on course for release sometime next year. It’s set in an all-new world designed by the modders, and will feature “a complex, dark storyline and thousands of secrets to discover.” The skill system will be re-worked, and there will be two companions to recruit, both of which will react to your decisions and actions in ways that will affect the overall story.
In all honesty I’d just be happy to wander about in those new environments. The setting seems far more varied than Skyrim’s bleakly beautiful frozen mountain ranges, with a tropical flavour to some areas that looks very appealing. Hey, that’d actually be pretty cool for the next Elder Scrolls game, Bethesda.
You can find out more about the project on its Moddb page, or visit the official website.
