The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Strategy Guide Blog #1

Through their official blog, Bethesda has released the first of presumably at least a few installments on the official strategy guide for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which appears to be fairly meaty judging by the numbers and photos released. Here’s a a couple of paragraphs to get you started:

This weighty tome clocks in at 656 pages. It is around 550,000 words. It has over 150 maps and well over 1,000 screenshots. It has an interactive online version with a malleable world map (and an iPad map app). But more importantly, it’s been designed to fundamentally aid the adventurer no matter what their skill level, knowledge of the series, or familiarity with past Bethesda titles. Here’s how the guide breaks down:

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Quests: A great swathe of this guide (just under 300 pages) is dedicated to helping you through every single quest that’s available. Due to the radiant quest structure and general derangement of the game’s developers, this numbers into the hundreds (there’s at least 500 variations of quest to try, and around seven times the number of quest-based activities compared to Fallout 3). Keeping track of these, finding them all, taking screenshots, adding little spoiler flags to quests with particularly spectacular revelations. well, this took around three and a half months alone.

The results are worth it; every type of quest is covered, and begins with a list of every important character you can interact with. For example, all of the thieves of the Thieves Guild are shown, along with a biography and any general help they give you. The main locations in Skyrim (such as the base of a particular faction) related to the group of quests are shown, along with every possible quest you can complete, in table format, with a pleasant little check box so you can mark off any quest you’ve completed. In fact, check boxes are attached to every table in the guide, so you can easily keep track of weapons, quests, and anything else you wish.

The hundreds of quests are broken down by type (the Main Quest, Civil War Quests,or those taking place in specific Dungeons) and Faction (the College of Winterhold, Dark Brotherhood, or more minor factions such as the Bards College in Solitude). The Quest chapters culminate in the dizzying number of iscellaneous Objectives, Favors, and World Encounters you can have. In short; if it’s in your Quest menu, it’s in this chapter.

Civil war quests? I like the sound of that.