The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Preview and Interview

Considering the recent showing at QuakeCon, GamesCom doesn’t offer as much news for Skyrim as for other big titles, but it still an occasion for some publications to put out new previews, just as GameSpot does, letting us know their thoughts on the most recent demo shown:

Things like crafting, enchanting, and potion-making have all been greatly expanded in Skyrim, but what really caught our attention is the way you can forge weapons almost entirely from scratch. Sure, you could do something similar in Fallout 3 with weapons schematics, but in Skyrim you’re working with much-less-refined ingredients. Here’s an example: you come across a wolf that looks at you funny, so you clobber it to death with your mace/blunt sword/clobbering fists. Suddenly you have some raw animal hide that you can take to a tannery to convert into leather. Later on, you’re off adventuring through one of those fancy new dungeons when you spot a shiny vein of iron in the wall. You pull out your pickax and chip away at it until you get a nice supply of raw ore. Then you go find yourself a weapons forge, and suddenly you’re able to create a fancy new leather-hilted iron dagger and feel the calming satisfaction that you just became a blacksmith. Now those wolves will think twice before looking at you funny.

While G4TV offers a video interview Bethesda’s game director Todd Howard, courtesy of QuakeCon.