Influential concept artist Adam Adamowicz, whose work included Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for Bethesda Softworks, passed away on the 8th February. He is credited with giving games like Fallout 3 their unique look through non-digital artwork. Adamowicz died after a long battle with cancer.
Climb a tall mountain in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and you might be able to peek at neighboring lands Morrowind and Cyrodiil. Why? Because it would be odd if they were missing. Todd Howard teases that "maybe we'll use it one day," but primarily it was to give players something to see if they looked in that direction. None of it is in high detail - it's just background.
Bethesda Softworks has revealed that downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be handled differently than it was for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. According to the developer, the Skyrim DLC will be bigger, "more expansive" and more spaced apart than the smaller DLC packs for the Fallout games.
Bethesda Softworks has announced a new two-game bundle for PC and Xbox 360, the Fallout 3 & Oblivion Double Pack, which will be released on the 3rd April.
Bethesda's Todd Howard has stated that the developer's patched The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim more than any game they have released before, including The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3, and still considers Skyrim the company's "most solid release".
Bethesda has published the latest PC patch for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and so it's available right now for those who wish to opt-in to beta test it. Backing up saves is recommended. One of the fixes includes a tweak to the launcher supporting more than 50 subscribed mods, or if an author removed it. There are gameplay bug issues too. It's just a beta.
Nvidia has released the latest WHQL drivers for Geforce chipsets, boasting performance in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by "an amazing 44.5%" in some cases. Ambient occlusion now native. The manufacturer has posted a lengthy article exalting the latest 295.73 drivers and what improvements they bring to some of the latest titles. They've tweaked their PhysX platform too.
Story-driven games are Remedy Entertainment's passion and they get "motivation" to continue doing them when RPGs like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim do so well amongst gamers. It means there's "obviously an audience out there" for story as much as action. The studio don't need to "make our stories any less than they are," and can stay story-heavy.
The videogame market in the UK has not been a pretty sight, and the trend has continued in February 2012 where the market saw a 29% drop in sales in a year-to-year comparison with February 2011. 2.3M games were sold for £55m last month. Final Fantasy XIII-2 ruled the roost in the slow month, while Battlefield 3 finally overtook Modern Warfare 3 in chart position. Electronic Arts accounted for 3 of the top 10 sellers.
It seems the UK videogame market is not the only one experiences a depression in sales, as the NPD has announced that videogame sales in the US in February 2012, amounting to $1.06B, is down 20% in a year-to-year comparison with February 2011. Console sales are down 18% in year-to-year, while console game sales are down 23%. Videogame accessories are down 16%.
The legal dispute between Bethesda Softworks and Markus "Notch" Persson's used of the title Scrolls for his upcoming videogame hybrid of a board game and a collectible card game is finally over.
Tom's Guide reports that an industry source has leaked to the site that Bethesda will be revealing a new MMO based on the Elder Scrolls IP. The MMO would allegedly take place 1,000 years before the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in what fans of the series know as the Second Era.
ZeniMax, the parent company of game studio Bethesda has filed a trademark for 'DawnGuard', for use in "computer game software for use with computers and video game consoles; downloadable computer game software offered via the internet and wireless devices". This has sparked new speculation that this could be the first of Skyrim's DLC expansions, hinted at last month by Bethesda's Todd Howard. He also said though that any DLC would have to improve the game, not just add content as god only knows there's plenty of it already.
Bethesda has announced that an incremental patch, version 1.5.26, is now available on Steam for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The patch fixes a minor crash bug, as well as some graphic issues. Bethesda also announced that the major 1.5 patch for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Skyrim has been submitted to Microsoft and Sony for certification.
Bethesda has announced today that Skyrim will be receiving Kinect support.
Some uncovered files in the recent 1.5.26 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim patch seem to hint at what the next downloadable content pack Bethesda has planned for the open world RPG, and it points towards a Snow Elf Prince. Those gamers who are well-versed in the lore of The Elder Scrolls know the snow elves were a race of elves that inhabited Skyrim but were driven out by the Nords.
Out today is the English Kinect update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which lets gamers who've got a Kinect camera shout loudly. Prepare to hear lots of FUS-RO-DAH in your neighbourhood. Bethesda have released an official list of English voice commands for Skyrim with this update, of which there are over 200. You needn't speak native Dragon, just 'Unrelenting Force' will do.
Bethesda has released an image teasing Skyrim DLC known as 'Dawnguard'.
One of the biggest advantages of owning The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the PC platform are the multitudes of mods, maps and levels that can be freely downloaded by users. How many downloads have there been? According to Bethesda's twitter feed, over 13.6M.
Bethesda has finally announced the long-rumored MMO version of their popular roleplaying series, The Elder Scrolls Online. The MMO is being developed by the newly formed ZeniMax Online Studios team, and it will take place a thousand years before the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.