The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Editorials

Bethesda’s recent announcement for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has prompted a couple of new editorials, starting with this piece on The Big Pixels that makes the argument that the sequel needs to follow in Morrowind’s footprints rather than Oblivion’s:

Even the little things, like Morrowind’s narcotics (skooma, derived from refined moon sugar, is like heroin, especially for the game’s cat-like Khajiit race), are crafted with enough loving imagination to make them barely recognizable from a real-world perspective, yet totally compelling. The choices presented to players at every single turn are barely describable, and simply can’t be appreciated by anyone who hasn’t poured dozens, if not hundreds, of hours into exploring every aspect of the game.

There is barely a single object in the game that can’t be picked up, manipulated, sold, dropped, stolen, stored or displayed, and the numbers of available weapons, worn items, spells, skills, and enchantment are infinitely more than what Oblivion offers. The obvious argument is that sometimes, simple is better, but not so in the case of The Elder Scrolls. In Morrowind, you can create a sword that does fire damage, breaks your enemies’ weapon and allows you to breathe underwater – or walk on water, or levitate – as long as you’re holding it. You can create a staff that makes you invisible while it allows you to pick locks and makes you more persuasive, as well.

And then we stop by NowGamer for a quick take on why Skyrim shouldn’t be released until the next generation of console systems is upon us:

The issue isn’t that Skyrim won’t be good. It will be. It’s not even that Skyrim will be buggy. It will be. The issue is that Skyrim doesn’t belong in this generation of consoles. Oblivion blew away everyone’s expectation of what an RPG should be and should accomplish, rewriting the hierarchy of the entire genre overnight. We suddenly expected more from our games, demanded the same level of ambition from our developers and hoped every game we played would accomplish even a fraction of what Oblivion did. Amongst a sea of mediocre launch titles, which promised much but delivered little (we haven’t forgotten, Perfect Dark), Oblivion was king.

That’s why Skyrim’s place at the dying end of 2011 feels wrong. It should be the opening act for a new dawn of consoles, not the one closing the curtains on this. How much can really be accomplished on this technology anyway? Any multiformat release has to consider Xbox 360’s limitations in mind and that technology is creaking. Epic can conjure all sorts of voodoo magic to make Gears of War 3 look good but will it play like a game that feels as though it’s pushing the technology? Doubtful.