The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim screenshot shows dark elf thief

Recently Bethesda held a competition on Facebook challenging fans to help exercise Skyrim's character creator . After a couple of polls to decide the new character's race and class, a dark elf thief was eventually selected and posted on the Skyrim Facebook page . You can see him in all his, angry, squinty glory below, above a comparison shot of an Oblivion dark elf.

There's a few reasons that this screenshot is particularly exciting, beyond the fetching top knot. Firstly, this dark elf looks so much better than Oblivion's red eyed, purple cheeked creatures. Secondly, check out the rolling miasma clouds in the sky. This otherworldly aurora effect was a common feature in Morrowind. The E3 Skyrim demo s were spectacular, but looked a lot like an advanced version of Oblivion. This shot suggests that Skyrim could have some of the strangeness that made Morrowind so memorable.

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.