E3: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Impressions

There were lots of amazing games at this year’s E3, but I think the one that stands out the most for me is “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”. Just the sheer size of the game and the detail that was put into it were enough to leave you speechless after watching the demo. Skyrim takes place two hundred years after everything that happened in Oblivion, and has been built from the ground up shortly after the development team completed Fallout 3.

When they started working Skyrim, developers knew they had to do something different from all of the other games they had created thus far. They decided to create a brand new engine that came to be known as the “Creation Engine”. What’s so special about it you ask? Well for starters it draws distance completely different from any of the other Elder Scroll games, so when you’re looking really far you actually see everything off in the distance. And it’s not just some gray outline, the game will draw more details as you head towards the object in its direction.

This new engine also allows for dynamic lighting which lets any object or structure to have its own unique shadow, making everything seems that much more realistic. And wouldn’t it be nice to be in a world surrounded by trees that actually have different weight properties in their branches, so when the wind blows they all react differently? Of course it would be and that’s exactly what you get with Skyrim, but that doesn’t just stop there. The wind mechanic will also be able to determine the flow of rivers and streams adding yet another layer of realism as you journey across the land seeking out your quests. Seeing all of this as I watched the demo, I was totally blown away.

The demo started off with us going down a path while Todd Howard, the game’s director, showed off how easily you can switch from a first person to a third person view when playing the game. He then rotated the camera a little showing us all of the little detail in the nearby rocks, on the ground and even on plants. You can immediately see that the developers have put in lots of effort into creating Skyrim. Todd then told us how you don’t actually pick a class in the game, but rather select a character and go off on your journey. It is the journey that will help determine what kind of character class you really are. If you want to wield weapons you can go ahead and do so, if you want staffs, bows or magic you can do that too. There’s nothing tying you into a certain class and forcing you to stick with it for the entire game. How you play, is completely up to you. Of course you will build up your skill for using a certain weapon and improve on it, but you can always pick a different route for your character down the line without having to restart the entire game if you so wish.

As we continued further down the path in the demo, we came across an enemy archer who began shooting as soon as he spotted us. We proceeded to run up to him and he switched to a melee attack for close combat. This is where Todd explained that you can actually shoot spells with one hand and wield a weapon in the other. He showed us this ability by shooting an ice spell at the archer to slow him down, then striking him with the sword for the final blow. In Skyrim you can actually have a different spell in each hand and if you hold down the buttons on the controller, you’ll charge the shot to make it more powerful. You can even mix spells so that you can shoot ice and fire at the same time.

At this point we were shown the game’s menu which is divided into 4 sections: magic, skills, items and map. Each of these gets very detailed allowing you to do things such as look at your items in 3D by rotating them 360° degrees or review your skills by drilling down through the different levels to select the perfect spell that you are looking for. One of the things that really stood out to me was how much detail went into each of the inventory items as we rotated through the them a little to see for example how meat can look before and after it is cooked. Another cool thing that we were shown before closing out of the inventory was the quest book. You can actually flip the pages just like you would a real book; the animations in this game are really detailed and are very fluid.

As our demo continued, we came across a small town. Todd told us that Skyrim has a bunch of these little towns throughout the world along with five big cities, each with their own economy. The game mechanics will allow you to sabotage the town’s economy if so choose, but what was really cool was that we could actually engage with the town folk and take up the jobs they have in the town to earn a living. Towns are also great places to get horses if you don’t feel like walking as you journey from one quest to the next. We got ourselves a horse and went on to ride it up a mountain for the next part of the demo. As we got higher and higher, the weather changed and eventually it started snowing. In Skyrim, the weather is dynamic and it can change anytime which is another nice touch adding yet more layers of realism to the game.

As you journey through the world of Skyrim, you’ll eventually come across some dragons. We were spotted by one in our demo and it started circling around us as if we were its next meal. Todd told us that most of the dragons in the game are not scripted so you never really know what they are going to do. And since right now we were no match for this dragon, we high tailed it out of there and entered a dungeon.

There are over 150 different dungeons for you to explore, so grave robing will never get old. Once you’re inside one, you really start to appreciate all of the little things that have been added to make it look as realistic as possible. Each cave has a great mixture of shadows and light and as we moved through it, you can’t help but stop and look at the beauty of light beaming down through the cracks in the rock. We turned a corner and came across two enemies, but they weren’t a problem as we just used our bow and arrow to kill them quickly. Further down a narrow passage, we were attacked by what seemed to be rabid wolves. Todd quickly moved the character back away from them and shot a spell at the ground. As the wolves ran into it, they were blasted with ice and we proceeded to finish them off with a sword, splattering blood all over the place.

As our demo wrapped up further down in the dungeon, we found an altar and a wall with some ancient language writings which you’ll eventually be able to learn. Since you’re dragon-born, you have the ability to master new shouts and battle cries that can help you along in your quests, but this won’t be easy. In order to learn these new abilities, you’ll first need to slay a dragon and then absorb its soul. Once you have done that (did I mention it won’t be easy?) you’ll be able to do such things as call on the power of the thunder, slow down time or even run extremely fast for short distances.

I know that I am probably going to get bashed here, but I have never played any of the Elder Scrolls games. It just wasn’t my type of game and so I had no interest. But after seeing a bit of Skyrim, let me tell you that it’s a day 1 buy for me. You don’t want to miss this game as it releases on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 later this year.