The Elder Scrolls 6has some seriously huge shoes to fill.Skyrimsold 20 million copies between 2011 and 2014 and has continued to sell well on Steam nearly ten years after its release. Not only that, but no first-person RPG has achieved the same critical success asSkyrimsince its release, leaving the previous game one of few reference points for developing the next game.
However, as is so often the case with theElder Scrollsseries, the modding community comes to the rescue.Skyblivionis an ongoing volunteer project to rebuild the entirety ofThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivionin theSkyrimengine, and the excitement around it could be indicative of the features to keep and improve upon inThe Elder Scrolls 6.
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Gameplay Lessons
Skyblivion’s appeal isn’t just that itupdates the graphics ofOblivionto matchSkyrim’s. WhileSkyrim’s graphical leap forward is significant, it is possible to makeOblivionlook very good already using graphic enhancing mods, and the difference alone would not be enough to motivate a total remake.
Skyrim’s melee combatmay have been criticized, but it was a huge step up fromOblivionfor many fans of the series. WhileOblivion’s class system was far more complex thanSkyrim’s, combat was significantly clunkier, and composed mostly of running back and forward towards the enemy swinging a sword until they rag-dolled to the floor. One ofSkyrim’s biggest strengths was that it made the game extremely accessible. Combat, though clunky, was very simple.
The smooth simplicity ofSkyrim’s first-person experience is one of the main focuses of theSkybliviontrailer, which doesn’t recreate theObliviontrailer in the new engine as fans might expect but instead focuses on the first-person perspective of the player running through the wilderness of Cyrodiil. Bethesda should look at some of the key appeals of a remake likeSkyblivionto see which features ofSkyrimimproved uponOblivionthe most, even if some of these decisions were often criticized.
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Community Lessons
The existence ofSkyblivionat all also makes one thing very clear – one of the greatest assets that theElder Scrollsgames are theirmodding communities. The fact that a huge volunteer project likeSkyblivioncould get off the ground and attract enough developing talent to get to the point it has is staggering.
One of the key reasons this is possible is because it is relatively easy to modSkyrimusing theCreation Kitcompared with other games. Even though theSkyblivionteam is recreatingOblivion’s world from scratch, thanks to the Creation Kit it has always been the scale of the project, rather than the technicalities of programming quests and NPCs, which has been the main challenge.
The Elder Scrolls 6will need to be even more accessible to the modding community, especially if Bethesda wants the game to have the samelongevity asSkyrim. While the Creation Kit is one of the best modding tools released by a major developer, the next game needs to take strides to make modding even more accessible, just asSkyrimworked to make its combat and class system more accessible for the vast majority of players.
Skyblivionis a huge project, but the nextElder Scrollsgame should be accessible enough to creatives that it doesn’t take huge groups of volunteers to make their own quests and stories in the game. The existence of such large projects as recreating all ofOblivionshows that fostering the modding community forThe Elder Scrolls 6will be almost as important to its longevity as the success of the vanilla game itself.
With Bethesda facing unprecedented competition from developers like Obsidian Entertainment and its upcoming gameAvowed, it could be Bethesda’s ability to make its next game accessible to modding to a never-seen-before extent that could give the older franchise the advantage it needs to survive into the next generation.
