E3 Impressions | The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Todd Howard and his team have been hard at work since Fallout 3 with Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Their return to their famed Elder Scrolls series features a new engine, a refined and retooled inventory system, and dragons. Quite frankly, Bethesda had me at dragons.

In a private demonstration of the Xbox360 build of the game, Todd Howard first showed off the game’s new graphics engine. No longer using Gamebryo as their renderer, Skyrim uses the studio’s new engine, dubbed as the Creation Engine. The game’s new tech allows Skyrim to draw in world details at a more efficient rate – a technique that I noticed in my hands on with Rage. This technique minimizes the geometry and texture pop-in that had plagued the previous title. In demonstrating the tech, Todd Howard approached a dead tree laying askew adjacent to the hillside road. The details on the log did maintained its high level of detail from afar as well as up close without the dithering pop-in of low resolution textures to high resolution. This may seem as a small and inconsequential addition, but details like these matter to a game whose user’s average playtime is just shy over a hundred hours.

With the inclusion of the new tech, Skyrim also has a new inventory and menu system. Every item is cached into the system’s RAM, allowing the player to seamlessly access their items without having to go to a submenu away from the core experience of playing the game. I practice, if a player wants to change their weapon in their right hand, the player holds the right bumper to pause the action and bring up a small and opaque submenu near the hand. While scrolling up or down through the inventory, every item is already rendered and examinable in the submenu. When the player has decided on an item, all the player needs to do to return to the game world is release the bumper – and presto, the player is wielding their new item without having to load up a separate menu. Just as in the case of the game’s rendering techniques, the user interface changes will go a long way into streamlining an experience – one that is less cumbersome and more immersive.

The actual gameplay remains mostly unchanged from Oblivion. Killing enemies will still require the player to walk up to an enemy and bludgeon them with a weapon of choice. What Bethesda did to vary the combat, however, may prove to be an addition that adds depth to the combat. A player has the choice to specific items or abilities to specific hands. You ever want to wield two small battle axes? Or what about a wizard staff and a small sword? The new equipment system is dynamic enough to allow the player to make those tactical decisions. Todd Howard demonstrated how with each hand equipped with a fire spell or a healing spell, using them in conjunction can create a stronger spell with a larger area of effect.

After exiting a dungeon, the terrain became more mountainous. The clouds became thick and heavy winds swept snow across the player’s horizon. The aesthetic of the frigid cold was rather striking. Off into the distance and resting on a broken temple arch rested a dragon. After Todd Howard took a few more steps forward, the dragon swooped up from it’s perch and began to circle the player. After circling it’s target, it dived bombed and attacked. I have to admit, the entire room was silent and mouth agape. For a small moment of time, Skyrim had placed me into my boyhood imagination. The demo faded to black and resumed on plains just outside the walls of nearby city. In the player’s field of view were group of giants were herding several mammoths. “These mammoths are nonviolent normally,” said Todd. “They only attack you if you attack them. So let’s go attack it.” After being struck by an axe, the targeted mammoth began to violently call out and strike the player with it’s trunk and tusks. Soon after, a giant approached the player to protect their livestock. Just as a giant was about to bring down it’s club, a dragon swooped down and snatched the giant with it’s talons, flew up a hundred feet or so, and dropped the giant to it’s death. The dragon then began to circle the player.

Out in the middle of the Skyrim grasslands, Todd Howard had a showdown with a dragon. “I need to bring him down,” he said. After a few more strafing runs, Todd brought up the menu and equipped a dragon shout. Dragon shouts are special abilities that can be earned and upgraded by hunting and killing dragons. This particular dragon shout created a storm above him and the dragon. Lighting cracked from the sky and struck the dragon, bringing it crashing down. Todd ran up to it and fought it with a shield and axe in hand. When the last blow was going to be delivered, the camera zoomed out to a cinematic third person perspective and showed the fatal blow. The demo had ended. Everyone sitting in attendance stood up and began to be shuffled off to their next demonstration. I took out my phone and quickly texted Gamefreaks’ Chanh Tang, “Dude, I’m going to play the shit out of Skyrim.”