Bethesda’s vice president of marketing says the developer wants Skyrim: Special Edition to feel like an upgrade for PS4 and XBO in “all the ways possible.”
Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls: Skryim is one of the best-selling RPGS of all time and still, has an active userbase five years after release. So it’s no surprise that Bethesda saw fit to announce a Special Edition version of the game at this year’s E3 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The game, out this October, will feature a number of graphical upgrades and introduce support forSkyrim mods on consoles for the first time. But other than that, Bethesda hasn’t revealed too much additional info about the upcoming remaster.
IGN attempted to get Pete Hines, Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing, to spill the beans in an interview at E3 that was published today. Hines didn’t go into too much detail but he did say that the team is aiming to create a true “next-gen” experience with Skyrim: Special Edition.
“In all the ways possible, we’re trying to improve it and make it as next gen and appropriate for these consoles,” Hines said. “So performance or effects or whatever we can do to make the game look and feel better, we’re gonna give it a go.”
The fact that Hines said “performance” may imply that Skyrim could see better animations or a better framerate on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One than on their predecessors. That’s not terribly surprising but given all of the graphical advancements that are coming, it’s nice to hear that the overall performance and playability of the game is still a priority.
It will be interesting to see where the final Bethesda visuals on consoles end up when compared to some of the mods available on PC. Projects like Beyond Skyrim provided PC gamers with better graphics than Bethesda’s a long time ago and more improvements are on the way. It’s also not clear yet what the selection of mods available for the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will be, but it’s likely there will be additional limitations when compared to PC.
While the PS4 and XBO releases seem to be getting most of the attention, Bethesda is also throwing a couple of bones to PC gamers to get them on board with the new title. The publisher has confirmed that Skyrim: Special Edition will work with all existing PC mods and added that old PC saves should be transferable. PC gamers who already own Skyrim: Legendary Edition or the main game and all of its DLC will get Skyrim Special Edition for free.
Skyrim: Special Edition is out October 28 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
