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Has Bethesda Signed Their Death Warrant With The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition?

If the Skyrim Special Edition is marred with even an ounce of bad flour, Bethesda might just find themselves in hot water. By the time The Elder Scrolls VI’s comes around, they could be switching on the oven whilst we’re all off ordering take-out. Picture Bethesda making dinner when we’ve already eaten our sweet and […]

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If the Skyrim Special Edition is marred with even an ounce of bad flour, Bethesda might just find themselves in hot water. By the time The Elder Scrolls VI’s comes around, they could be switching on the oven whilst we’re all off ordering take-out. Picture Bethesda making dinner when we’ve already eaten our sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style with a side of boiled rice. Picture someone telling Bethesda we’ve eaten too much – and we’ve eaten the same thing for too long.

Essentially, the Skyrim Special Edition will set the expectation for the future of Bethesda’s multi-million dollar series of high fantasy, role-playing action. They can’t afford to mess this up. And if they want to prove their critics wrong, Bethesda can’t afford to keep doing their business towards the wind.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Skyrim the first time around; but I’m not ignorant to the issues it faced. There were plenty of times I wanted to re-enact the printer scene from Mike Judge’s Office Space. Snap the disk in to fragments and deliver them to the four corners of the earth, never to be reunited. Perhaps it was just blind conviction that kept me playing, or maybe I’m just your regular 21st century masochist.

No, I don’t think that’s true. After all, there are plenty of things Skyrim does right. Its art direction was impeccable. As with most Bethesda games, it breathed with a spine-tingling atmosphere, and the world felt more alive than any ancient Nord Draugr. I think it’s fair to say that Jeremy Soule did half the work here, and no doubt concept art teams had done the rest.

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It must have been Todd Howard who first drew everyone’s attention to the art of Skyrim, citing the immaculate visual representation of a salmon fillet. On a side note, whenever I see these kinds of promotional materials, I can’t help but imagine Howard going the way of Peter Molyneux – promising more than what’s given.

But no doubt, in the coming months, we’ll be seeing a plethora of videos demonstrating just how far they’ve come with the Special Edition. But how far can you really go with Skyrim though, other than a fresh coat of paint and a wipe down? I’m no business strategist, but it sounds like Bethesda is diverting resources and investing in the past, rather than its future.

On the other hand, a Skyrim Special Edition could be one huge experiment; a test to see how well game mods perform on the console. It makes sense that Bethesda wouldn’t want to try such a risky manoeuvre with The Elder Scrolls VI. Either way, it’ll be a make or break procedure. Taking customizable modifications to the casual audience could reshape the landscape of console gaming, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, these things have a tendency to end up monetized, so don’t count on console utopia just yet.

Believe it or not, I can see the future of Bethesda placing an emphasis on mobile gaming, offering micro-transactions by the back door. From Todd Howard’s July presentation, we can see how Bethesda was not quite finished with Fallout Shelter, meaning it was always much more than a promotional tool. Whilst the game has since moved to PC, people seem reluctant to talk about Bethesda’s obvious focus on the mobile frontier – a notoriously casual platform with the potential for exorbitant profit margins. Of course, we’ve seen companies like Blizzard successfully maintain camps in the PC, console, and mobile markets. But like any hedge fund manager knows, it’s all about the high-risks and high-rewards.

Even Fallout 4’s latest additions smell fishy – feeling more like micro-transactions dressed up as something far more superfluous. Armour racks, weapon racks, etc. – the contraptions expansion is more like a post-apocalyptic Sim’s catalogue than a full-blown DLC.

The reality is they are providing a few more virtual goods for a little bit more of your money. So when we really think about the July presentation, we find that Bethesda offered little more than a micro-transaction, an update for a mobile game, and a re-mastered version of Skyrim. Perhaps I’m being too finicky; but Howard didn’t exactly announce something to write home about.

It’s been five years since I was sitting alone in my bedroom, traversing the northern reaches of Tamriel, a half can of energy drink to get me through the night. A lot has happened for Bethesda since then, but I wonder how far they’ve actually come in regards to the video games they make.

In 2016, as I sit down to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, I’ll be worrying about who’s really escaped in to a world of fantasy – the players, or the development team responsible for volumetric god rays and screen-space reflections.