The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim trailer examines the sounds of Skyrim, advocates warm mead

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Todd Howard explains a few of his ideas behind Skyrim's grandiose soundtrack. He opens with "I hear the elder scrolls theme as sung by a barbarian choir." Months later, an army of gents gather in a studio in LA to sing heartily about dragons in dragon tongue. See it all in the new trailer above.

Todd Howard also gives us the brief that he gave to the theme's writer, which goes like this: "can you write a song that works in dragon language that rhymes in the elder scrolls theme, that when translated into English, also makes sense, and rhymes?" Instead of screaming "NO I CAN'T, TODD, WHAT THE I DON'T EVEN" the writer went home, drank warm mead and came back with it on Monday morning. So there you go, songwriters and dragon-speakers, warm mead is the key. Skyrim is out next Friday.

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.