Written by FOR MORE INFO LOOK AT THE GAME INFORMER SCANS BELOW
On graphics:
- New game engine!
- Dynamic snow, not some premade ground texture bullshit.
- Flowing Water.
- Character creation greatly improved.
- Character models and faces have been incredibly overhauled.
- Characters have alot more facial and body animations.
- Dynamic ultra realistic shadows.
- Plants and tree branches all move independently giving the land scape a new found life.
- Scenery textures have much more detail.
- Armor looks way better.
- They hired tons more voice actors so there is a lot more variations in NPCs.
On leveling:
- Totally revamped, no more class selection at the start of the game, every skill you level contributes to your overall level. And each time you level you get extra health plus the ability to get either more health, magicka or stamina.
- Each level also brings you perks. Cool abilities I guess like in Fallout 3.
- Also, the leveling was moved from 1-25 or something like that to 1-50, but 50 is soft-capped, you just advance really slow after that.
On skills:
- The 20 Dragon Shout abilities that you acquire from stealing the souls of dragons you have slayed give you the ability to teleport, slow down time, force push etc.
- Mysticism is gone.
- 18 skills, down from 21 on Oblivion, and 27 on Morrowind.
- Tries to accomodate players who want to specialize in a certain proffesion (like mage or thief), while at the same time giving room for players who like to do plenty of everything. They want to keep a special care so that this feels good, not prone to cheating and organic.
On the story and lore:
- 200 years after Oblivion. Set in Skyrim, a region north of the imperial city, where the Nords live.
- The dragons are returning, as it was prophetized. You are gonna be trying to stop the wicked dragon god. You are a dragonborn, a dragon hunter. Your mentor is one of the last blade, voiced by some old dude from Shutter Island and Minority Report.
- Also, there is a civil war, since the king is dead.
On combat:
- Finishing moves, unique to each weapon and enemy you fight.
- Hotkeys for switching weapon, item, and magic load outs quickly during battle.
- DUEL WIELDING! They want to make it more dynamic and tactical. You have to assign each hand with a function I think, either magic, 2 weapons, a weapon and a shield, etc.
- SPRINTING! You can also waste stamina by sprinting, allowing you to get access to tactical postitions.
- Emphasis on really improving the combat this time around.
- They are also putting care on how each weapon feel on your hand.
- Enemies include were-yeti’s, giant spider, dragons and other cool creatures.
On quests:
- Quests are much more dynamic now, thanks to Radiant Storytelling technology (RANDOMLY GENERATED QUESTS).
- The quests are now more determined by how you build your chracter, individual actions and overall much more dynamic. Examples provided: If you are more of a magic user, some other mage may approach you who may not have had if you were just a melee character. Or if you killed some dude who owned a store that was gonna give you a quest, his sister would inherit the store, but she may resent you before giving you the quest. Also, if you drop a weapon in the street instead of selling it, it may just dissapear, some kid may get it and give it back to you, which would lead to a series of stuff, or some dudes may fight over who gets it.
- Also, it said that the quests you are given would be modified by how you have played (I guess like scaling the quests). For example, the location of a rescue mission would be determined by which location you have visited (it will try to give you a dungeon you haven’t been in) and I guess also giving you appropiate enemies to your level.
On Conversations:
- Conversations aren’t done in a zoomed in static shot anymore.
- Start a conversation with some and they will act like someone would in real life, looking at you occasionally and walking around a bit and also continue doing a task if they were doing one while talking.
Jobs:
- You now have lots of fun things to do when your not adventuring.
- Cooking
- Alchemy (potion making)
- Mine various minerals.
- Practice your farming skills.
- Go to a forge and carve a new weapon out of red hot metal.
Other:
- You can’t run backwards as fast as you do forward.
- 10 races to choose from (Holy crap thats a lot of races)
- Dragons are a constant threat and can decimate cities during the game.
- Beards
- Kids are in the game.
- You may duel any NPC on the streets western style.
- There is an option for no HUD.
- Third person view has been improved
- 5 massive cities, more variation in caves and underground stuff.
Here links to the screenshots and info from the new issue of Game Informer.
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim1.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim2.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim3.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim4.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim5.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim6.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim7.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim8.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim9.jpg
- http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff116/mazx9999/skyrim10.jpg