Though it was initially released in 2011, Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is still a hotly discussed topic well over a year after its release. The popular RPG epic was named 2012 Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards last year, beating off competition from the likes of Mass Effect 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 to land the prestigious honour.
The raft of downloadable content that followed its release such as Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn (with a fourth, rumoured to be entitled Redguard, said to be in the pipelines) has ensured that it has remained in the public domain since.
Perhaps the massive replay value boasted in-game lent to Skyrim’s longevity – it was impossible to beat the game 100% in the traditional sense, and the “radiant quest system” meant there was always something new to do and a dungeon to be cleared.
Still, though, the time is fast approaching to think about its successor, the Elder Scrolls VI. Here, we take a look at 10 vital improvements Bethesda need to make in the next Skyrim game.
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17 Comments
I do like the ideas of the better transport, and the renovating castles, dungeons etc would make it alot more entertaining. Even if it had some element of bandits breaking into one of your renovated castles to try and pillage it.
Bandits pillaging your newly renovated castle is an excellent idea and could work in the same way that Giants caused you troubles when building a home in Hearthfire. Good one.
The game series isn’t called Skyrim 1,2,3,4 or 5. The game series is called “The Elder Scrolls”… how can you not know that?
I couldn’t take this article seriously as soon as you kept referring to the new game as Skyrim 6, it’s called the elder scrolls you know.
I am aware that the franchise is called The Elder Scrolls, hence why in my introduction I state: “the time is fast approaching to think about its successor, the Elder Scrolls VI”. Writing “Skyrim 6″ was simply my way of trying to abbreviate instead of constantly typing out “Elder Scrolls VI”, “Elder Scrolls VI”, “Elder Scrolls VI” all the time.
Admittedly, “Skyrim 6″ is clearly an erroneous term and will be corrected. Apologies.
Couldn’t you just have copied and pasted ‘Elder Scrolls VI’ or even used ‘ES VI’? Interesting article and I do agree with weapons it would be nice to see much more variety and the renovating of castles and cleared out caves would be an exciting feature to explore. Maybe you could also use a renovated dungeon as a way of creating your own kind of guild where you could recruit characters from across wherever you are playing.
Things I’d like to see:
1. More House customization – i.e. choose anywhere in the game world (within reason) to build your house. Allow placement on any surface of in house items (i.e. house items do not have a set location, you pick where they go).
2. Clear out dungeons/castles/cave and transform it into a house, a base, a shop or even a pub or inn. Imagine, clearing out a tower and making a cool pub out of it! Random customers would arrive and eat up your stock, and leave coin. You could hire a steward to run it, and occasionally go and fetch more stock for it.
3. More weapon variety as others have posted.
4. More puzzles in dungeons (more difficult too).
5. Air combat! (Dragons or something similar).
6. Longer quest storylines (i.e. mages guild, fighter guild, thieves guild) some in skyrim were great (Thieves Guild) and some were way too short (College of Winterhold).
Air combat would be cool, not sure how it’s work unless flying dragons became more of a potent feature in the game. I noticed something new (new to me at least) about dragons during a play-through recently, if you kill one in mid air (with an arrow or via the storm call shout) they will fall from the sky and plough a furrow of earth when they land, making a big crater. I had never seen that before, I suppose because I usually kill dragons via hand to hand combat.
What transport do you want? Cars that travel the map in a minutes! The Elder Scrolls series is all about exploration! You miss out on so much if you skip to every place or fast travel all the time (as I found out in my second play through compared to my first)! If you need to get somewhere fast, take a carriage! Instead of complaining about having to walk in Skyrim enjoy it! The scenery, the random stuff all of it!
If you read that section you’d know I made to reference to cars and other absurdities. I agree that there is a certain shine to exploring the map inch by inch, taking everything in etc. but it’s still a tedious process, especially when you have played the game a while and end up seeing all the same areas and end up getting stuck in repetition.
jeez dude, find a way to speed up the process of loading screens? Do honestly think that developers haven’t ratcheted everything they possibly can into reducing loading screens to their absolute minimum? No one likes loading screens, mate. They can’t just “find a way”. That’s like saying microwaves should find a way to make your food hot instantly instead of having to stand around while the ions jiggle around. Such a pain isn’t it?
If you found traversing the entirety of the map on foot to discover the areas then an open world game isn’t for you. What would you prefer? All the map points to be open for quick travel immediately and you just whiz around? wtf is the point of having a large area to explore then? I loved hoofing it around to every corner of skyrim and was disappointed when I had to start using the quick travel.
I agree that the dragons were balls. The AI was very predictable and unfortunately they were the worst part of the game while trying to be the most awesome. But dude, you seem like a smart fella, are you not considering how head smackingly difficult it is to make a game like this?
Ok, a few issues with your wants for Elder Scrolls VI.
1) Bugs and glitches are alway going to be in video games, regardless of who the developer is. Don’t forget this was the first game with the Creation engine, and anytime you have a new engine, the game will have bugs. Sure, Bethesda games are always known for being buggy, but if you’re playing on a PS3 (which you made mention of in the article) then no wonder. I know people who play it on both consoles and PS3 is hands down the buggiest.
2) Traveling… IT IS AN RPG GAME. Exploring on foot is encouraged. That is how you trigger the random encounters and fights. It is always a great way to discover loot and unmarked locations. Granted, while I saw no issue with the wagons taking you to the major holds, I wouldn’t mind being able to travel to smaller towns as well. such as Whiterun or Rorikstead. Other than that, I feel that by allowing the player to fast-travel to every major location would take part of the fun away.
3) Build a castle… PC my friend, is what you should be playing on. The Creation Kit offers great ways to make your own mods for Skyrim. It is a shame that it cannot be given to console players, but maybe with the next-gen consoles it can be available. But lets just say this was to he am added feature, why? Why would you be able to build a castle? The only way that building a castle would be plausible is if it tied in with the story.
4) Enemy AI… Really? At level 40 you were hacking away enemies with ease. Congrats? I guess? I don’t know what setting you played on but level 40 for me was mighty difficult and by the time I hit level 79, I was questioning my skill tree distribution. Even now, Dragon Priests give me a headache and some dragons still make me wish I was level 20 again.
5) Gore… Perhaps. While the violence in the game is that of brute nature, is this really necessary? Don’t get me wrong, but I find the final kill cam to he at times lacking, but I do not need to behead every enemy I do battle with. This is really unnecessary.
Mounted combat is the only one I semi-agree with. Combat while riding a horse isn’t glorified, nor is it epic or precise. You are riding a horse, that is galloping on uneven land, so the clunky aspect IMO was right at home.
I agree about the weapons, espeically as a veteran Elder Scrolls player. The selection was… rather lacking? And the styles too. Again, mods on PC have rectified these issues, and especially when it comes to the armor fit for the female body.
One thing TES:VI could benefit from greatly within the aspect of gameplay is “living events”. I hate to reference this, but look at Red Dead Redemption; you can walk into town and see a woman being dragged out if a saloon, and you can help and add to your reputation. Help good old Herbert Moon whose store just got robbed for the umpteenth time. Escort that damsel into town. Help that man retrieve his stolen horse. And be tricked by maurauders who use a gorgeous woman as bate. What made these events so great, wasn’t the fact that by your 6th hour of play you knew them all, but the fact they occurred at random and so often that you may never get to play that hand of poker when you want.
Another thing is… I may get flak for this and if so, I guess I deserve it… Living holds/towns. Whiterun was alive, but it wasn’t…. As alive as it could be. Hopefully, now with the Creation engine being used for Fallout 4, Bethesda can try and give more variation to the towns we visit. Maybe it is asking for too much, but take this for example; Whiterun has two families that live there that stick out more than others; Battle-Borne and Gray-Mane. I remember the first encounter I had in Whiterun was being asked, “Grey-Mane or Battle-Borne.” I was dumbfounded but instead of inquiring more, responded “Grey-Mane”, only to be told “You’re no friend if mind.” And then being constantly threatened to have my face bashed in. YAY SUMMER CAMP ALL OVER AGAIN :D. But while the history of the rivaly that is Gray-Mane and Battle-Borne can be learned about, you rarely if at all see the rivalry play out in Whiterun. Sure, some words are exchanged but it never gets to a boiling point, and during the Battle for Whiterun, you still do not see it taken to the next level. So, perhaps TES:VI can rectify this detail?
They already introduced thrown weapons in the Dragonborn expansion: Riekling Spears. Please update number 8.
None of these are really ‘vital’. I mean the glitches is probably te biggest problem but with incredibly large game like skyrim, the testing could literally take years if you were to attempt to iron out every glitch which you would probably fail doing. This whole article does seem to be grasping at straws for potential improvements. All they really need to do is build upon whats currently there and improve a little bit on each part. Its hard to beat a masterpiece of a game like skyrim
Biggest improvement they can make . . . when you have a Companion with you (ie Follower like Lydia) they need to make it so that thay don’t run into your line of fire with the bad guy you’re fighting. Honestly – she does it . . . every . . single . . time – and I not only end up blasting her but NOT hitting the mob.
Better and more sofisticated battle system. Evading moves like: backsteps, siderolls etc, attack,-counterattack moves etc. It is really pity for such an epic game, not to have worthy battle mechanics(I would dare call it poor). It realy gets boring sometimes and it lacks of challenge. Fully agreed with more weapon and armor variety.
Furthermore, they definately need to change the level up mechanism. Characters should be allowed to level up their chosen class skills (warrior, thief, mage, etc) without mixing one with the other. Also, some more classes and bigger skill trees would be also interesting.
Looking forward for this.
1. Kids. There’s gotta be like a make a baby with your wife or something. Or maybe just the ability to adopt a child.
2. You can hire more companions up to 4 maybe
3. MORE RACES!!
4. Barber Shop- To you know change your hairstyle when you get bored haha
5. Ability to open up a shop, inn, or something
6. More animals and characters
7. “Ride a dragon” option. Or you could have a dragon as a pet.
8. More Weapons and Armor. Maybe we can even design our own armor??
9. Ride a Mammoth!!!!!
10. More things to say to people/ more interaction. Like you can give something to a random person like a cabbage then they will respond with something like… “Thanks!” hehe or you could give a girl a ring then she’ll fall in love with you. something funny like that!!! :D