Skyrim Creation Kit to be released tomorrow with “special surprise”
A tweet from Bethesda’s VP of PR, Pete Hines, on Friday announced that the long-awaited Skyrim Creation Kit will be out tomorrow. TOMORROW. The tools will let modders create their own campaigns using the same tools that Bethesda use to create their environments. Take a look at last week’s Creation Kit trailer for an idea of what’s included.
Skyrim patch 1.4 optimises performance, fixes Wabbajacks
Wabbajack-loving Skyrim players will know that there’s nothing worse than a Wabbajack you can’t equip, which is why it’s vital that Skyrim players log into Steam immediately to download the full release of patch 1.4. It fixes a “rare issue” in “The Mind of Madness” that would leave players burdened with a Wabbajack that they’d be unable to wield. A fate worse than death.
Now we’ve won search ranking for the Word “Wabbajack,” we can move on to the full list of patch notes, which will be familiar to those who road tested the beta version. The patch will apply automatically through Steam, and adds some behind the scenes support for the incoming Skyrim Workshop. According to yesterday’s Skyrim Creation Kit trailer, that’ll be arriving soon.
Skyrim Creation Kit trailer shows mod tools in action
Here’s a video Bethesda just sent over showing off the Creation Kit for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The video mentions extensive wiki documentation written by Bethesda staff and shows how Skyrim mods will integrate with the Steam Workshop. It’s exciting to contemplate the astonishing things that modders will make with the kit in the coming months. They’ve already been hard at work making massive changes to the game, as you can see in our round-up of the top 25 Skyrim mods.
But what’s this at 1:12, on the left of the centre row? Mudcrab armour? A familiar sight for readers who reached the back page of PC Gamer UK issue 232, drawn by the lovely Marsh Davies. The mod tools are due to arrive soon, which isn’t soon enough.
Skyrim patch 1.4 beta available now
Patch 1.4 for Skyrim is set to arrive soon, but if you’re really eager to take advantage of the latest round of fixes then you can sign up for the beta through Steam. A post on the Bethblog says that you can opt in on the accounts tab of your Steam settings page. You’ll want to back up your saved games first, though, just to be safe.
The preliminary patch notes for patch 1.4 include many, many quest and crash fixes. Bethesda recommend that you sign up for the beta if one of the fixes applies to your game. You’ll find the list below. The first entry suggests that Skyrim will be getting Steam Workshop support shortly, the infrastructure that will let modders share projects created with the incoming Skyrim Creation Kit. The mod tools are still set to land sometime later this month.
Bethesda to release Skyrim modding tools and patch 1.4 fixes as early as next week
The updates and improvements to Bethesda’s already amazing Skyrim just keep coming. The latest additions: The Creation Kit and Steam Workshop (to be bundled in patch 1.4), and they’re almost ready to be unleashed, amidst a plethora of other game-related fixes. More details within!
Skyrim mod lets you summon undead dragons and dual wield greatswords
If there are three words you’d want above any other in your Skyrim spell book, “Conjure Undead Dragon” would be the those words, closely followed by “Conjure Spectral Bear.” The Tytanis mod adds both of these abilities, along with a fat tome of additional updates, including new magical greatswords that can be dual wielded with a beefed up Warmaster perk.
The 25 best Skyrim Mods
Skyrim mods are amazing. In the two months since release, thousands of mods have been released, some of them quite spectacular. It’s not like Skyrim was an ugly game to begin with, but with new high resolution textures and post processing it becomes truly stunning. Not to mention new items, expanded crafting and a full UI overhaul.
With so many mods available, choosing them can be a little daunting, which is why we’ve rounded up the 25 best here for you to enjoy. Check inside for the full list.
Bethesda-Interplay settlement official, Bethesda gains full Fallout MMO rights
The bombs have dropped, the dust has settled, and Fallout Online, sadly, is no more. After an ugly legal scuffle that lasted nearly two years, Bethesda and Interplay have cased trading blows and started trading cash. More specifically, $2 million – for which Bethesda receives all Fallout MMO-related rights, according to VG247. Interplay, meanwhile, can continue to peddle its own post-apocalyptic wares in the form of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics – but only until December 2013.
For the time being, Bethesda’s merely happy to be “able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others’ legal claims,” but could a Bethesda-born attempt at some irradiated online action be headed our way? At this point, it’s a toss up. But given Skyrim’s all-consuming success with an allegedly draconian single-player-only approach, I’m not counting on it.
Fallout MMO court battle allegedly reaches settlement, details coming this month
All’s fair in love and war. Fortunately, however, no one had to break out the apocalyptic nuke salvos this time around, as Bethesda and original Fallout owner Interplay have finally reached a settlement in their tooth-and-nail struggle over Fallout Online.
After Bethesda whipped out the legal equivalent of a Rock-It Launcher and fired off everything from a (failed) development-halting injunction to a claim that Interplay could use Fallout’s name and nothing else, Duck and Cover claims that the two have declared a cease fire. The site cites a “source” that took part in the hearings and claims that we’ll learn of Fallout Online’s fate later this month. Fingers crossed for good news, but given Interplay’s recent agonized-wail-inducing financial woes, I wouldn’t count on it.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – PC Gamer’s game of the year
We didn’t see this coming. Stupid, I know. But when we got our hands on an early build of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I was certain it would be the game of 2011. Skyrim would be great, but it would just be Oblivion with a bit more snow. So now that it’s here, why does it feel like so much more than that?
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – PC Gamer UK’s RPG of the year
The Elder Scrolls games have been brilliant for long time: huge open worlds that let you go wherever you fancy, get wrapped up in hundreds of different stories, and make a life for yourself. But until Skyrim, they weren’t particularly good at one of the most exciting things about other RPGs: levelling up.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim patch adds support for extra RAM
One of the most popular mods on The Skyrim Nexus is the Large Address Aware patch, which lets Skyrim use more than 2GB RAM. Last night a quick patch was applied through Steam, adding official “support for 4-Gigabyte Tuning.”
“About time!” cry thousands of Skyrim fans. It’s been a long time coming, but 64 bit system users can finally make use of their extra juice, so to speak. Skyrim became the best selling game this Christmas in the UK this week, and it’s still the most played game on Steam. You can use the extra RAM to run some of the fancier post-processing overhauls in our round-up of the 20 best Skyrim mods, or to power the promising work-in-progress ENBSeries graphical mod. Bethesda are currently working on official mod tools for Skyrim, which should arrive early next year.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is UK Christmas number one
For the first time in years, the game topping the UK Christmas software charts hasn’t got anything to do with Call of Duty, The Sims or Fifa. Skyrim has take taken the top spot, relegating Just Dance 3 to second place. Modern Warfare 3, meanwhile, lingers in third place.
You can see the whole chart on the UKIE site. The figures won’t include steam sales, which Valve tend to keep secret, though they have confirmed that Skyrim is the “fastest selling title in Steam’s history.” Skyrim is still topping Steam’s top games chart.
Skyrim Online adds multiplayer: not quite ready for primetime
Skyrim Online has achieved what many thought impossible. It’s giving Skyrim players the chance to play online. Previous attempts to do the same with Oblivion and Fallout 3 ended in failure, but modder awpsoleet has managed to get a rudimentary alpha version of a Skyrim MMO up and running even before mod tools have been released.
The mod is currently extremely basic. Players can chat with eachother and see a representation of other players. The mod’s description claims other players are represented by a ‘spectral horse’, which sounds hilarious, but the version I tested instead had unclothed player models in a standard animation pose, gliding around. You can attack and cast spells on other players, but they don’t currently display any effects.
Despite all this simplicity however, the mod represents an impressive first step on the road to a true Skyrim MMO mod. We’ll definitely be adding it to our Skyrim Mods list, and keeping a close eye on it.
Skyrim officially becomes “fastest selling title in Steam’s history”
Ever since launch, Skyrim’s pretty much monopolized Steam’s most-played list (and, regrettably, the Internet’s entire supply of memes), so positively massive numbers were pretty much a foregone conclusion. That said, damn. First up, there’s this rather extraordinary bit:
“Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam’s history” said Jason Holtman, Valve’s director of business development (via IndustryGamers). “Bethesda’s commitment to and understanding of the PC as a gaming platform shows in the great review scores, spectacular launch, and continued high player numbers that Skyrim has received.”
Impressive? Certainly. But, uh, Holtman and I apparently didn’t fumble through the same wonky PC UI, whose convoluted layers made about as much sense as purchasing a plane ticket to visit your next door neighbors. Still though, a grand total of 10 million units shipped (not sold) and $650 million at retail on all platforms only serve to hammer home an obvious point: Skyrim’s kind of a big deal. Something tells me Tiny Tim the crippled Mudcrab is gonna have a magical Christmas after all. Well, until someone shouts him off a cliff, anyway.
