The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim OXM UK Details

Another spread on Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has appeared in the March issue of OXM UK magazine, and as is usual, a summary of the info contained within has been posted to the official forums.

‘¢ There is a perk that will lower the sound of your footsteps.
‘¢ Perk for Axe that enables deeper cuts, which means prolonged bleeding. You can hit someone once and they will eventually bleed out.
‘¢ Eventual perk upgrade for Maces that will allow you to hit for full damage, ignoring armor stats.
‘¢ The article mentions placing runes on the floor (that we know already) but in particular talks about ‘lob a frost rune down and if an enemy wanders over it, shards of ice will be launched through its body’
‘¢ Telekinesis is an available spell.
‘¢ ‘No more agility to build up so don’t have to keep jumping around to level up’ (I assume they mean no longer skills like acrobatics and athletes but they use the word agility)
‘¢ When you kill a dragon you’re able to absorb its soul which will make you learn a new dragon shout.
‘¢ There is a dragon shout called ‘Unrelenting Force’ which pushes anything standing directly in front of you backwards.
‘¢ Dragon shouts have cooldown periods after each shout performed. Individual shouts will have their own cooldown time.
‘¢ In the northern parts of Solitude is the Bard’s College. The city is a busy port and there’s event similar to bonfire night that has the burning of an effigy of King Olaf.
‘¢ Windhelm is the largest city. It has a palace that should look spectacular. This is also apparently the hangout for the Imperial Guards who monitor the path to Morrowind.
‘¢ Bleak Falls Barrows is a dungeon, with ancient Nord catacombs which features rivers, tree roots coming through the ceiling and light coming through odd cracks.
‘¢ 120 Dungeons and they claim that ‘no two areas will be alike’.
‘¢ Just to re-confirm this fact straight from Todd Howard. Oblivion had 1 dungeon designer with artists doing the rest. Skyrim has 8 dungeon designers.
‘¢ Whole world is hand-crafted. Oblivion had some generated landscapes and there is NONE of that anymore used in Skyrim.
‘¢ The Shivering isles expansion inspired the team that unique, hand-crafted cities, where no two buildings look the same, was the way to go.
‘¢ Example of a ‘Radiant Story’. OXM UK recieved a quest to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve a golden dragon claw antique and take it back to shopkeeper Lucan. If you killed Lucan, the quest would change to his friend Camilla instead.
‘¢ The Snow. Has been a lot of confusion about this. OXM UK says that snowfall is dynamic. Instead of a texture with a bit of white added, landscapes realistically get dusted with snow landing in appropiate nooks and crannies.
‘¢ There are one-off puzzles in certain dungeons.
‘¢ Example of new AI: ‘Wolves have a den. Few times a day they go out and do a patrol and hunt in a pack. If they kill something then they’ll hang out there. If you go outside and they’re on patrol they will come after you. If they’ve killed something they will guard that and not chase you down as they want to look after it.

Hand-crafted cities and over 120 unique dungeons sounds promising to me.