Rockstar co-founder and veteran Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto lead Dan Houser seems to be working on a lot of things at his new studio, Absurd Ventures, and one of them is a new sci-fi IP that might just be the setting of the big open-world action game that just got outed in a job listing.
There are two impossibly massive Skyrim mods remaking classic Elder Scrolls RPGs, and both had some extensive, gorgeous gameplay to share this week
04.05.2024 - 12:33 / gamesradar.com / Dustin Bailey
The mod teams behind Skywind and Skyblivion, the two massive projects remaking Morrowind and Oblivion within Skyrim, have been at work for a long, long time, and it's finally starting to look like that work will pay off. Both projects shared some extensive developer updates this week, complete with some absolutely gorgeous-looking in-game footage.
For Skyblivion, we get some lovely flythroughs of the rebuilt locations with some lore breakdowns, alongside a look at some new and improved features over the original. I'm particularly impressed with the more varied Ayleid ruins, which will now feature unique assets depending on what region you find the dungeon in. There's also some very neat tweaks to class creation and leveling up, as well a full-on rebuild of the lockpicking minigame that stays true to the way it worked in Oblivion.
Skyblivion is actually pretty close to launch. The devs are still recruiting volunteers, but they're committing to a 2025 release date, which is certainly a lot closer than The Elder Scrolls 6. It's been in earnest development since 2016 - with early forms of the project dating back to 2012 - but it looks like launch is finally in sight.
Skywind, a similar project remaking Morrowind, has also been in development for the better part of a decade, but its developers still haven't committed to a firm release target. (They're also still looking for volunteers, as you might expect.) But they do note in their update video that the mod is "closer than ever before" alongside a look at the team's progress.
This video is a lot more technical in nature, but even if you're not interested in the development details, there's a lot of very impressive footage and some interesting gameplay details. Particularly notable is the fact that Skywind revives the old Morrowind armor system with 14 distinct armor slots. Yes, that means separate left and right pauldrons. For a particularly staggering idea of the scope of this project, the video notes that Skyrim had 1,100 NPCs voiced by 70 actors. Skywind has 3,000 NPCs voiced by 300 actors.
I've been eagerly awaiting both these mods for years now, and while it's easy to cynically suggest they might never get finished after all this time, the progress these volunteer developers have managed to make so far is genuinely astounding. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be playing Skyblivion next year with Skywind not too far behind.
The best Skyrim mods are only getting better.
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