20 Minutes of Skyrim Footage

Bethesda Softworks has released 20 delicious and appetizing minutes of Skyrim footage. Definitely one of the most anticipated games of 2011, Skyrim will deliver an incredibly in-depth and customizable experience tailored to each specific player's style and choices.

Skyrim's world is living and breathing. Townsfolk have their own lives, animals have their own individualized behavior, and of course, the dragons are kind of a big deal in the world. Players will be afforded a huge amount of freedom and can either pursue a number of side quests and see the world or stay within the main quest line. To illustrate the kinds of freedom allowed in Skyrim, you can even play as a vampire, similar to Oblivion.

During the gameplay, you will notice that the armor and weapons of the player character will not be degraded in any way, adding to the game's method of leveling up particular portions of a character's skills. Unfortunately, the marriage mechanics are not shown off, though the dream of a cat-man marrying an orc female will definitely be fulfilled.

The footage below was shown behind close-doors at the past few game conventions. The video, broken up into three segments, will leave you wanting more of what Skyrim has to offer, which is a lot of content. Combat, NPC interaction, and exploration will all be featured in the series:

Part 1

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xwboyafbwc

Part 2

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7WohnlLEQo

Part 3

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt7IeycKJKQ

One of the best and perhaps more intimidating parts of Skyrim is how large everything feels. The world is exactly that - a world. Lighting effects look especially impressive and create a much more immersive atmosphere. When you have 150 different hand-created dungeons, that immersion is going to go a long way to making a player's individual experience that much more gratifying.

There's a lot to be said about what Skyrim does great, it looks like a tightly knit package: from the graphics, the music, the combat, and the world, Skyrim will definitely be eating up a lot of people's time when it comes out in a few months.

Skyrim releases November 11, 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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