The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Could Get Dragon Mounts, Spears, Custom Homes, and More

Bethesda Softworks’ Todd Howard kicked off the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit this evening with a lengthy and inspiring keynote speech (the entirety of which is up on GameSpot) that revealed a significant amount of interesting information related to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Specifically, he mentions that the game has sold “multiple millions of copies” on PC and that the average PC player clocks in at least 75 hours (tune in at 36:10), while also taking the time to roll a “Game Jam 2011” video (tune in at 21:00) that showcases dozens of features the team added to the game during a week-long creative marathon after it shipped. Many of these are pretty amazing, and will hopefully be added as free or paid content later on:

‘¢ Spears
‘¢ Seasonal Foliage
‘¢ Flow-based Water Shader
‘¢ Kill Cams for Magic and Ranged Combat
‘¢ Stealth enhancements such as water arose and Assassin’s Vision
‘¢ Guards can re-light darkened areas
‘¢ Paralysis Runes
‘¢ Dungeon enhancements like hanging structures and moving platforms
‘¢ Water currents in dungeons
‘¢ Dark dungeons
‘¢ New follower commands for combat style, training, distance, equipment, etc.
‘¢ Set favorites for followers
‘¢ Adoption
‘¢ Build you own home.complete with skeleton butler!
‘¢ Spell combinations! Flame + Raise Zombie = Conjure Flame Atronach, Fear + Healing = Drain Health
‘¢ Goblins
‘¢ High Level Draugr
‘¢ Waygate fast-travel
‘¢ Epic new mounts
‘¢ Mounted combat
‘¢ Dragon Mounts
‘¢ Soulbug Familiar
‘¢ Kinect Shouts
‘¢ Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
‘¢ Enhanced Underwater Visuals
‘¢ Snow Footprints
‘¢ Verlet surfaces for non-rigid objects.like the Fat Giant
‘¢ Ice & Fire Arrows
‘¢ Werebear!
‘¢ Lycanthropy Perk Tree
‘¢ Vampire Feeding
‘¢ Become a flying Vampire Lord
‘¢ Vampire imp minions
‘¢ Mudcrab animation tweaks

Hats off to Game Informer for rounding up the full list.