in the latest trailer for the MMO, the game’s producers reveal that the Daedric Lord Molag Bal is the key antagonist throughout the game’s main storyline. In fact, he steals the player’s character’s soul at the beginning, and players must fight to get it back. The quest will see players traveling to Coldharbour – the oblivion plane belonging to Molag Bal.

All of this certainly looks nice, but the real challenge will be convincing fans of Bethesda’s sprawling first-person RPGs to give The Elder Scrolls Online a shot. MMOs, especially those that are subscription based, are not exactly in vogue anymore. Still, Besthesda and Zenimax Online could knock it out of the park by creating an MMO that can last more than a few months before going free-to-play.

We’ll probably get a firm release date at E3, but The Elder Scrolls Online is still set for launch later this year.

That’s the case this year for gamer’s who haven’t trekked across the plains of Skyrim. Almost two years after the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda has announced that a “Legendary Edition” of the game will launch on June 4 (June 7 in Europe) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The game will cost $60.

Skyrim: Legendary Edition will include a version of Skyrim updated to the 1.9 title update and all three of the game’s DLC’s: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn.

Bethesda announced earlier this month that it has officially stopped development on Skyrim. The team that was still working on the game has been shifted to a new project, which could be The Evil Within, Fallout 4, or some other unannounced Bethesda title.

Over the past two days, Bethesda has posted two more Vine teasers on its Twitter feed:

vine.co/v/bFldAQgTIr6

— Bethesda Softworks (@Bethblog) April 17, 2013

mystery revealed tomorrow @ign vine.co/v/bUqveJ2uFeZ

— Bethesda Softworks (@Bethblog) April 18, 2013

As you can see, both of the above teasers look nothing like Fallout. If anything, it’s looking more and more like Bethesda is finally ready to reveal Zwei, a game from horror mastermind Shinji Mikami.

As the latest teaser reveals, we’ll find out more about the publisher’s next game tomorrow on IGN. It would be kind of hilarious if Zwei was Fallout 4 in disguise. That’s not to say Fallout fans should expect anything though. We’re probably still at least a year off from an announcement.

Bethesda posted the following Vine teaser on its Twitter account today:

vine.co/v/bFPjjheVnau

— Bethesda Softworks (@Bethblog) April 16, 2013

As you can see, there’s no explanation. Many are assuming it’s a teaser for Bethesda’s next game which many first assumed was an impending announcement for Fallout 4 or whatever Bethesda Game Studios is working on next. For Fallout fans, that’s unfortunately not the case as Bethesda’s Pete Hines put that assumption to rest:

@aegies You talking about the Vine thing? Guess again

— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) April 16, 2013

Of course, it’s easy to forget that Bethesda is also a publisher, and the publisher has two games on the horizon. One is codenamed Zwei, a new survival horror game from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. The other is an unnamed project from MachineGames, a developer made up of ex-Starbreeze staff. Some are saying that their title is a new entry in id’s celebrated Wolfenstein series.

The funny thing is that the Vine teaser could fit both scenarios. The record is playing Bach’s music, and Bach was German. Zwei is a German term and the creepy mood of the Vine teaser fits a horror-themed game quite well. On the other hand, Wolfenstein traditionally takes place during World War II and has the player fighting nazis in Germany.

Bestheda hasn’t said anything else since the Vine teaser, but we’ll probably learn what the mystery game is soon enough. Besthesda generally doesn’t keep fans guessing for long so we should be seeing a proper announcement before the end of the month.

On the official Bethesda blog, the studio announced that Skyrim is now pretty much complete. The studio says that it will release minor updates here and there, but it’s safe to assume that we won’t be seeing anymore expansions released for the title.

Bethesda says that it’s had a small team working on pre-production for its latest title, but the game has now reached the point where it requires the attention of the entire team. There’s no hint as to what this new title is, but we should be getting an announcement pretty soon if it’s already far enough in development to warrant the entire team’s attention.

While some, including yours truly, would love to see Bethesda apply itself to a new IP; some early signs are pointing to Fallout 4. The biggest hint is that Erik Todd Dellums, the voice actor of Fallout 3′s Three Dog, said that he was back in the studio recording lines for the role. This set off plenty of speculation that Bethesda was either working on Fallout 4 or a Fallout TV show. We won’t know for sure until an official announcement, but Bethesda’s new project may very well be a new entry in the Fallout franchise for next-gen consoles.

If the thought of Fallout 4 isn’t enough console you over the lack of new Skyrim content going forward, you can always get into the modding scene. The amount of mods available for Skyrim on the PC is astounding, and the tools available for modding, from the Nexus Mod Manager to Steam Workshop, make modding easier than ever before.

One artist has put the two together (along with Portal and Skyrim) to create some killer mashups.

“As the sun sets on this current generation of video games, I’ve been thinking about some of the classic games that people will still (hopefully) point to years from now and hold them up as games that made a difference, and possibly, for some child out there, Portal or Skyrim will be a memory from their early childhood,” says the artist, Joey Spiotto.

Right on. Hopefully, my kids will sleep with a Mr. Bubbles. Maybe even a Dovahkiin doll. Maybe, if I have a daughter, she can don the orange pants and white tank-top of our Portal heroine for Halloween. Those are the kinds of thoughts that occur to me while looking at these wonderful little prints. Bravo.

You can purchase the 3-print set for $50 over on Etsy.

[Joebot via Kotaku]

Bethesda has jumped on the Sony hype train today by finally announcing the U.S. release dates for Skyrim DLC on the PlayStation 3. “Dawnguard,” “Hearthfire,” and “Dragonborn” have all been available on the Xbox 360 and PC for months, but PlayStation 3 gamers had been left out. Whatever the problem was, Bethesda has overcome it, and PlayStation 3 gamers can finally dust off their copies of Skyrim and distract themselves until they can get their hands on next-gen PlayStation 4 titles.

As announced back in the middle of January, the Skyrim DLC will be released in reverse order of how they were released on other platforms. Luckily, the release dates are only a week apart for each. “Dragonborn” will come first on February 12, followed by “Hearthfire” on February 19. “Dawnguard” will be released on February 26.

Bethesda stated that all of the Skyrim DLC add-ons will be marked down during their individual release weeks. Also, the release dates for Europe will be coming “soon.”

To jog everyone’s memory of what Skyrim DLC has to offer, here are all the trailers for the add-ons, in the order of their PlayStation 3 release schedule:

Bethesda and Microsoft obviously have had an exclusivity deal for Skyrim DLC, as the three add-ons – “Dawnguard,” “Hearthfire,” and “Dragonborn” – were all released on the Xbox 360 for weeks before they appeared on the PC. PlayStation 3 gamers got the shaft, though, as no bit of Skyrim DLC has yet appeared in the PlayStation Network Store. There were rumors of technical problems, but whatever the trouble Bethesda seems to have managed it.

The add-ons will be released in an odd, backwards style for Sony’s console. The latest Skyrim DLC, “Dragonborn” will be the first to appear on the PS3, followed by “Hearthfire” and then “Dawnguard,” the first DLC that was release for Xbox 360 back in June 2012. The 1.8 update for Skyrim will also be coming to the PS3 just before the launch of “Dragonborn.” Bethesda stated that all of the content will be released in February, though no specific dates have been given.

A specific date has been given, however, for the PC version of “Dragonborn.” The latest Skyrim DLC will be coming to Steam on February 5.

Solstheim is located to the northwest of Vvardenfell, where The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The island and the city of Raven Rock are inhabited by Dark Elves, and the island is somewhat famous for being a large source for ebony. Solstheim is also home to the native Skaal Nords, as well as Ash Spawn and Rieklings, which Dovahkiin will be battling. From the Elder Scrolls website:

Encounter new towns, dungeons, and quests, as you traverse the ash wastes and glacial valleys of this new land. Become more powerful with shouts that bend the will of your enemies and even tame dragons. Your fate, and the fate of Solstheim, hangs in the balance as you face off against your deadliest adversary – the first Dragonborn.

Some teasers about the story behind the Dragonborn DLC were revealed earlier this month in the trailer for the new content. Players will be battling the “First Dragonborn,” who has mysteriously returned to Tamriel.

The DLC includes new spells and shouts, including a shout Bethesda states will allow players to “summon the inner power of a dragon to deliver colossal blows and strengthen other shouts.” In addition, players will gain access to Bonemold and Chitin armors, as well as Stalhrim weapons. The best part, though? Dragon mounts:

Zenimax Online shared the very first gamplay trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online today. In it, the team talks about bringing together two very different games – the single-player epics and MMOs. The team also discusses some really ambitious MMO design elements such as the Megaserver that contains all the players on a single server.

The initial response to The Elder Scrolls Online was skepticism at best and outright hatred at worst. The early previews did little to allay those fears. The latest preview is actually exciting, and it looks pretty good. The emphasis on the traditional Elder Scrolls single-player may help bring in the traditional players into the fold.

If Zenimax Online can deliver what they showed today, I think that The Elder Scrolls Online may very well be a hit. It looks like the core Elder Scrolls experience has been preserved, and the MMO players will be content with the new innovations in the space.