The Skyrim That Should Have Been

What if Bethesda Game Studios, makers of Skyrim, could do anything they wanted for a week? That’s what the studio did after completing Skyrim and the results are amazing.

Bethesda’s Todd Howard showed a highlight yesterday at D.I.C.E. 2012 that featured all the unique features that his team came up with during their Game Jam. Some of the features almost seem like stuff that should have been in the game from the start like seasonal foliage and expanded follower commands.

There were also some unexpected ideas like Kinect-enabled shouts and a lycanthropy skill tree that should be added to the game.

The thing is, these are just ideas from when game developers go crazy. None of this is guaranteed to show up in the game. Some of this stuff may show up in DLC or title updates, but don’t count on it. What you can count on is that modders will add most of this stuff to the game now that the ideas are out there.

Watch the video below and be amazed at the Skyrim that could, and should, have been. Watch out for the end especially as it may be the greatest add-on ever. I don’t want to spoil it, but it would change boss fights forever.

There are 5 Comments. Add Yours.

Mike McDonald
February 9, 2012 at 10:00 am

Bethesda didn’t exactly shy away from console DLC in the Fallout titles. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have some interesting stuff in mind for Skyrim. DLC = easy dollars. They know this.
- Zach Walton
  February 9, 2012 at 10:17 am
  
  A lot of this stuff, especially the graphical enhancements, could only be done on the PC though so I expect more free DLC like the hi-res texture pack they released yesterday. The other stuff like Dragon Mounts and Giant Mudcrabs I can see coming as DLC to all platforms. Once again, for Bethesda titles, the PC version is definitely the definitive version for the huge modding community. You get a great game on consoles, but you can make the game better yourself on the PC.
John S
February 10, 2012 at 6:16 am

The lighting affects, water effects and the snow footprints certainly felt like something which should have been in the game to begin with.

I liked the idea of mounted combat and the spear fighting looked pretty awesome as well.
Baron
February 10, 2012 at 2:11 pm

They shouldn’t be proud of this video; they should be ashamed that the rank & file workers came up with so more great ideas in just a single week than the actual designers did with all their months of time. That this stuff wasn’t included in the initial release shows just how designed-by-committee and creatively bankrupt this game was–> they could have given this opportunity to ‘do whatever you want’ to their team months earlier and gotten a slew of great things for the release.
- Duh
  February 11, 2012 at 10:42 am
  
  @Baron
  
  You aren’t too bright. It says in the video that this was all from the Bethesda Team. The thing is with a lot of these mods, that they need new animations and some new programming to make them, so I’m sure a lot of it was almost already made.
  
  Game Developers continually have ideas and want to implement EVERYTHING in game. However, the game must ship eventually. Skyrim was also primarily made for the console, meaning a lot of this had to be stripped down. The same thing happened to Oblivion.
  
  In conclusion. You’re a dummy.