Our own Davo posted on the forums with this little bit of news: it seems Bethesda has, at long last, revealed the next Elder Scrolls game. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim involves… well, I’m betting it involves old scrolls and the province of Skyrim, at least. And judging from the Max von Sydow-narrated trailer, it might involve dragons too. See below!
Yon is the agegated trailer:
So there you have it. In true modern developer form, they’re not showing any actual gameplay, just lots of orchestral music and a big statue.
The question on everyone’s my lips is this: what engine? That trailer had a distinctly Gamebryo-ish look to it, but given Emergent’s recent troubles and the fact that Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media Group now owns id Software, it seems pretty likely that Bethesda will face some real pressure to swap over to the new id Tech 5, which still hasn’t been seen outside of demos, and won’t be seen until Rage’s September 2011 release. But with Skyrim claiming to release on November 11, and Rage claiming to release just a couple months before, that means Tech 5 has to be pretty close to done… especially if Bethesda’s converting its existing Skyrim assets over from Gamebryo. The long and short of it is that Skyrim might still arrive on the Gamebryo engine – a codebase that’s extraordinarily powerful and versatile, but which hasn’t been used to its greatest effect in Bethesda’s games.
All in all what I really hope is that Skyrim takes more lessons from Morrowind than it does from Oblivion, that latter being a major disappointment in my mind. Certainly it would benefit from heavy tweaks to the artificial intelligence system, and character models will need a major DirectX 11 upgrade. Also, for the love of god, Bethesda, hire more actors to voice your characters this time. If you blew your whole sound budget on Max von Sydow and Inon Zur, I’ll never forgive you.
Not that Max von Sydow is bad. Dude’s a living legend. It’s just that living legends are expensive and in games with upwards of 10,000 speaking roles, having three actors voice them all is kind of a mistake.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
Steerpike, your latter complaint is probably one of my only near-aggravating level complaints I have with New Vegas (and was true as well in Fallout 3)– a handful of voice actors doing hundreds of roles. Which baffles me, because the hired known voice talent in the game is spectacular… Michael Dorn, Dave Foley, Michael Hogan… The list goes on like that; basically a geek fantasy lineup.
But they couldn’t get a few more damned extras…
Oblivion was an overrated piece of garbage. I stopped playing when I witnessed Level 50 vampires discussing head crabs in one of their three cave templates. Game was beautiful, just…boring. Sterile. The voice acting was only part of the problem.
And Oblivion itself was terrible. Each level looked the same, and good call on making hell lakes of fire and spikey things, Bethesda! Never seen that before!
Fallout 3 had made of the same problems with sterile environments. Didn’t finish that either, though I got close. It was definitely better than ES IV, but the inside of a factory resembled the inside of an office building which looked like the inside of a power station and so forth.
I’m a hater. Going back to Evil Genius now.
You are a hater, Dobry. And as a hater, you’re going to hate.
How is Evil Genius? I just bought it.
That “trailer” told me nothing and teased me little. I was excited to see Davo is still alive and kicking though.
As for Skyrim, I guess we’ll know soon enough. I expect a lot of skepticism from gamers. The burden of proof is gonna fester on Bethesda’s doorstep for the next long while, that is certain. Not that any of that is going to stop them from making millions on it. Maybe they can cut a deal with SAG or whoever and get some more voice actors on staff.
What is it with everyone buying Evil Genius?? You’ve all been warned! Right here!
I feel sad now. Worst $2.50 I’ve ever spent apparently.
It was great reading Dobry’s hatred aticle, then jumping in here to see him still angry. I like continuity, hehe.
I’m more excited about the confirmation than the teaser. I am looking forward to the next ES game, but as with all expectations, it is double-edged. I desperately want the new game, but I really hope it just doesn’t suck.
I didn’t mind Oblivion, it was ok. Had a bit of fun with it, but felt that it was a bit more limiting than Morrowind. And Morrowind? I thought it was the duck’s nuts. Creating your own spells and magical items? That was awesome to the power of awesome.
Hopefully they’ll implement the spell/magical item crafting from Morrowind into the new iteration.
In fact, I might do up a wish-list:
Magic creation from MW
Item creation from MW
More class relevance (especially for end-game characters)
More race relevance (especially for end-game characters)
More Guild relevance
More faction relevance
Purchasable/buildable homes
Hireable staff (home) or mercenaries (adventuring)
An optional quick transport method
Flying
Possibility to fall from the quest/play as a baddie (essentially another guild/faction)
Ability to visit the Morrowind Island (was it Tamriel?) and the places in Oblivion
Dear Bethesday,
I trust you’ll have a good story and a great game. Could I also please have the above?
Kind regards,
Jarrod
I also bought Evil Genius yesterday. I mean, you guys are to blame, you kept referencing it. And it was 2.5 Euro, I mean, I eat more than that for my breakfast…
Of course, I also bought F.E.A.R. that I also have on disc but it was ten euro for three games (I didn’t have expansions on disc and I never plan to play them but that somehow made the idea of buying a game I already have on disc a little more logical). I spent three hours downloading 16 GB of F.E.A.R. and its expansions then I played it for about 15 minutes (of course, had to turn off all my third party codecs as Monolith’s games always have a problem with them) and then uninstalled it all… Talk about pointless activities.
Anyway, Gamebryo engine… Yeah… It IS a question whether Bethesda actually makes the switch. They have done wonders with it in Fallout games but now that they have Carmack’s world building machine, they should really consider usin’ it. Their games end up being massive hits as it is, despite the bugs, the three voice actors and all so if TESV actually looks awesome on top that’d certainly help. Both Oblivion and fallout 3 were lookers when they came out so I am sure Bethesda is aware that this is an asset they should be counting on.
(Unrelated to it but related to my idiotic spending habits, I remember F.E.A.R. looking awesome when it came out back in 2005. But, daaaamn, in 2010??? It looks like fucking SHOGO and I should know, I actually play Shogo from time to time. Back when Monolith, you know, had a sense of humour).
Oh wait, it has been confirmed that it’s an “all new engne, built internally”: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/12/12/bethesda-says-skyrim-engine-all-new/
Not that I have that much trust in Bethesda’s coders but hopefully they know why this is best for them…
Built internally? What the fuck does that mean? I guess it could mean that id are technically internal, and id built id Tech 5 … so that /could/ count as “internal.”
Sly bastards.
Oh, and …
Shogo-1
Fear-0 (yeah, suck it folks, I don’t do retarded acronyms; goes for you too, Stalker.)
Oh dear god. Bethesda’s last proprietary engine was the XnGine… unmitigated disaster. It powered Daggerfall. I sure hope “internally developed” means “internal to ZeniMax,” not “internal to Bethesda.”
I’m liking Evil Genius, actually. It’s slower-paced and there’s a lot to learn, but it’s fun. It cost freaking 2.50. It won’t replace Civ V on my desert island strategy game list any time soon, but it’s a pleasant diversion.
Spell creation, yes! A source of good memories.
Favourite from Morrowind: Water walking, 10 seconds, ranged. Cast from off shore, see enemy charge towards you and drown when spell wears off. Repeat, laughing.
Favourite from Oblivion: Water walking, long duration, range:touch. Cast on horse.
Sakey, I reject the pun in the title of this article, as it is based on a commonly misunderstood meaning. “Wherefore” means “why,” and nobody would ask “why Elder Scrolls.” I know you are trying to ask “Where is Elder Scrolls Five?” but wherefore would you misuse the word “wherefore?”
If anybody knows of another website that requires needless nitpicking, let me know. I’m apparently rarin’ to go today.
But… why Elder Scrolls? Someone needs to tell me, as I have still only managed to create a character in Morrowind and proceeded no further.
Kthugha, you must understand the subtle, layered complexity of my wit.
You see, the previous Elder Scrolls was ES FOUR. This one will be FIVE. FOUR (Oblivion), was god-awful. So it would have been totally appropriate to say wherefore Oblivion, because why, why, why would they create such a crappy game?
A clever fellow like me might have even made it Wherefour, Elder Scrolls?
On account of it being Elder Scrolls 4.
Based on the assumption that I might have done this, the Wherefive comes into play. This is what we call predicatively predicted wit. Because I might have used the title wherefour in the past (but didn’t) it follows that I would use the title wherefive in the present, based on assumptions of past witty turns of phrase that did not but could have taken place.
There is also the possibility that I did not know “wherefore” meant “why,” but that suggestion is utter foolishness. Wherefore someone would say that, I don’t know!