It’s going to take quite some time for any game to reach the same level of player interaction and machinima that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has enjoyed these past few months. In their effort to improve and expand upon the game’s foundations – and possibly to encourage even more fan involvement – the developers at Bethesda have rolled out Update 1.5. The update is available now on Steam with console releases forthcoming, but a brand new trailer gives a taste of what to expect from the improved combat.
As much as Skyrim is lauded for being an incredibly rich and engaging open-world role-playing experience, the gameplay itself comes down to two basic elements: acquiring items and killing things. Thankfully Update 1.5 looks to improve both aspects by correcting dozens of glitches and quest-breaking errors, and making executions and attacks of all types even more satisfying.
The one aspect of the update that most fans will be excited to see is the addition of new Kill Cameras for both ranged and magic attacks. While the cinematic flourishes that capped off a skirmish have been making melee fans happy since launch, now those who prefer crafting deadly spells or a bow and arrow can enjoy the same. Not to be left out, a new batch of melee kill animations are also being added to keep things fresh.
Have a look at the new stabs, slashes and yes, suplexes that will soon be avaialable on every platform. Obviously the content of these aptly-titled ‘Kill Cameras’ is of M-rated nature:
While the improved and updated set of finishing strikes will be a welcome change to those still working their way through Skyrim‘s story, we can’t help but think how quickly the fan community will be using these new animations to different ends. The Creation Kit’s early success showed how passionate the fan base of The Elder Scrolls is today, and even those who don’t know a frost dragon from a dragon priest can enjoy the hundreds of Skyrim mash-up videos now gracing the internet.
Update 1.5 also brings in several improvements both visually and mechanically – a sign that Bethesda continues their ongoing challenge of solving the logic problems that plague an otherwise outstanding property. Even if the developer claims that some of the technical problems were overblown, a game as large an complex as Skyrim is bound to have some flaws.
The Skyrim Update 1.5 is available on Steam for the PC now, and will be arriving on all platforms in the near future. Check out the official blog post for all the details.
Follow me on Twitter @andrew_dyce.
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Oh sweet. Those kill cams were one of the things in that sizzle reel that I really hoped they would add.
The new kill cams are awesome, for every kind of attack (melee, archery, magic)! Can’t wait for it to come out for the XBOX 360!
Any new first person ones?
hate this game so much, the recent patch for 360 not only made load times longer but i have get ridiculous frame rate lag, no matter where i go. plus they didn’t even fix the f***ing issues related to guild quests >:( it didn’t stop there either, the PoS game went on to screw my achievement list by starting fresh yet keeping my achievements for it, but allowing me to delete it from game history (still keeping the points on my account).
downright the worst game dev studio i have ever come across, they suck across the board, and the only reason people play their piss poor games is b/c they’re over hyped and are fads (like minecraft and CoD). how these jokes could get studio and GoY puzzles me, but if i ever met tod howard i would destroy him verbally so he knows that he isn’t the god of game dev and his team couldn’t make a game to save their lives.
They are known as an excellent development team because they ARE an excellent development team. They truly care about the product which they are making.
Whatever happened, I can almost gaurantee that it was either an isolated incident or a player/user-created one. There have been no mass complaints about the framerate or the guild quests. Aside from the PS3, which was to my knowledge fixed.
In short, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
ohh please, if you studied game dev you would call it like it is instead of acting like a fanboy downer, the animation, textures voice acting and score in the game all suck, the combat is extremely boring and uncreative, quests are long and boring, with hardly any variety. the only half decent thing is the scale of the world, take that away and the game is nothing but a copy of its predecessor with features from its predecessor . use some common sense prior to assing off and trying to look cool in front of other fanboys.
Dude everyone that bashes this game acts like we are in the golden age of video games where every things has to be perfect. Skyrim is f**king awesome for its time, but its going to look like s**t in twenty years.
I really hope you play COD, so I can shove your “the game is nothing but a copy of its predecessor with features from its predecessor” comment in your face.
can you describe ot me how the game is epic, what makes that depressing looking hack and slash borefest so ‘epic’ in your eyes and the eyes of every bethesda fangirl ?
i bet you and the other suckers calling the game epic cant even properly justify why without me having a counter argument for your points, so go ahead and try.
fyi i don’t play CoD (or shooters in general), if i did i wouldn’t have said that comment about this trash franchise, without expecting people to jump on me.
If Skyrim “sucks,” which RPGs are good?
While I in no way am saying Skyrim sucked. As a game, and a RPG…doesn’t hold much salt next to Mass Effect. Even with that ending Mass Effect 3 was almost a perfect game.
…almost. It’s not Golden Age, but I think it tops out at silver.
the ME series is pretty good (though the 1st one has the worst tps i have come across). fable lost chapters was decent though short and not as large scale and elder. amalur is good minus the boring/repetitive quests and annoying camera, borderlands is really good especially for diablo style RPG fans.
those are just some i can think of on the spot, they are in no way shape or form my top rated RPG’s. i rate and dissect all games equally, so in all honesty i have no ‘favourite’, but i can say with confidence and as an amateur game dev, that skyrim in no way shape or form deserved GoY and bethesda didn’t deserve to be called studio of the yr, especially with all the day one issues that game had (in some cases still has).
Damn, that sucks for you, being in the minority of users who are still encountering problems with Skyrim.
But all I got from your second paragraph was KEYBOARD RAGE BETHESDA SUCKZ MAJOR BALZZ GUYZ LUK AT ME INSULTING PPL WHO PLAY THIS GAME ARNT I SO INTELIGENTZ?! MY ARGUMENTZ IS SOOOOO GUUDZ EVEN THOHZ I DONT HAZ ONE HAHAHAHA!!
Now post an actual, critical review of why you “hate” this game with reasons to back up your claims before you launch another mindless attack at this game with nothing to back up your arguments.
read my 1st post, i state multiple issues with the game, i’m not going to spend 2-3hrs going into detail about why the game is poor on so many levels. half you skyrim lovers cant even explain what makes the piss poor excuse of a game so good, all you clowns can say is ‘you don’t know what your talking about ‘kid’, its an epic game’ WHY IS IT EPIC, WHY DOES IT DESERVE GOY ?!?! can you morons explain or are you all ignorant sheep that just follow the flock and give out knee jerk reactions when someone goes against your clone views ?
Skyrim is the epitome of an RPG. It has everything you would want out of an RPG to offer. It has a huge world to travel and explore with creatures and animal life spread throughout the lands of Skyrim. The combat, while not perfect, is a good solid implementation and a HUGE step up from Oblivion. Using bows and magic were greatly improved and combat in general was much mkre satisfying than Oblivion. The quests were very enjoyable on my part. While I felt the main story was lacking, I don’t play The Elder Scrolls for just the main story, I like to explore the guilds the game has to offer and craft my own story along the way. It is a role playing game after all. The quests were fun, some in particular were very enjoyable, and didn’t have me feeling bored like I am when I complete quests to level a character on World of Warcraft. The graphics were not amazing but tbey were not horrendous either. They were honestly pleasent to look at from a distance. If you get closer to textures they become blurred and ugly, but you can say that for almost every game not optimized to run on a PC with high res textures. I’m not sure about you but I thought the score was really good. It added alot of atmosphere to the world and made me feel as if I was on an epic jorney and always gave me purpose. The voice acting was two sided; for unique characters like the leader of the Greybeards the voice acting was really good, but on the other hand voices get reused alot for similar dialogue, for example “I use to be an adventurer like you…” and you know the rest. That was something that broke my immersion from the game but was remedied by a tiny mod. Leveling you character in Skyrim is a great upgrade from Oblivion. The whole system for upgrading flows nicely, literally as you’re putting points down on perks throughout a constellation of a skill. You can be whatever yoh want to be. A devestating mage adorned with heavy armor and a warhammer. A silent ranger who can run throughout the forest and through city’s delivering arrows into the hearts of enemies throughout the night. I can be a fearsomd warrior with dual maces and dispenses pain and suffering to the innocent and the guilty alike. This is what Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls is about. You can make your own story in Skyrim and live how you see fit. This is what RPG’s in general are about! This is why Skyrim is such a powerful game. It combines everything you need from an RPG and more into a HUGE package. You can play this game for hundreds of hours, while in say CoD you’d have difficulty getting 10 hours out of single player content. These are the reasons Skyrim won RPG of the year. These are the reasons Skyrkm has won multiple Game of the Year awards. And Skyrim IS the reason why Bethesda has won Studio of thr Year.
thanks for your honest opinion, but paragraphs are key for keeping the reader hooked (i sorta got the jist half way though). when i bashed the combat i was comparing it to other RPG’s, not skyrim’s predecessors (i haven’t played any of them to be honest).
the general game world might be large in scale, but that doesnt hide the fact that there is nothing to do in majority of the dungeons or areas. i ran into ton of bugs with faction quests which mean i cant complete the thieves guild or even kick start the warriors guild, hence why i really hate the programmers and most of the team.
the game in general looks horrible (besides open fields during the day) and everything feels gen1 console era. there is probably one music track in the game that i like (one of the 2 combat ones) but even that gets boring after i hear it every 2-3 ‘battles’ which brings me to my next point, the game lacks any combat (though it works in its favour since the combat is downright horrible and boring/uncreative), so there is no sense of liveliness in the world b/c i hardly run into anything and when i do it just auto attacks, without leading into combat.
for instance in amalur the monsters go about their business, whether it be praying to a statue or sleeping, but when i approach them, they get up, look around then get into attack stance and real multiple attack animations as opposed to skyrim’s generic attack that every creatures does.
dungeons are small repetitive and don’t really give the players any incentive to explore besides curiosity. i’ll use amalur again as an example (since i’m currently playing and enjoying it alot), the dungeons in that game are huge and really make you feel like you’re in a cave full of spiders, or an abandoned mine post, further drawing me in. i got no feeling like that in skyrim and just wanted to get everything over and done with asap so i could move on to the next tedious and boring task.
i suppose skyrim is more for the hardcore RPG gamers that really get into a game and their character (that of which i am not b/c atm i am happy with life and don’t find the need to escape to a fantasy world to forget about life and its troubles).
what i really hate is how people make it sound like the holly grail of RPG’s when it clearly isn’t, there is no sense of progression in the game (even after killing the legendary dragon i’m referred to as ‘citizen’, until recently the game was infested with game breaking bugs (for me it still is), nothing in the game looks or sounds good, no real sense of accomplishment at the end of quests lines (as opposed ot most RP{G’s that rewards players with decent loot). there is no proper estate management (something i loved in fable2), marriage system is trash (for me broken).
how this game gets such praise i will never understand.
P.S it’s pretty late atm where i live so i don’t have the brain power atm to write all this up in a 50 page essay for the US embassy, so please excuse my lack of anything in this long and fairly negative response.
peace
This guy says the score, sound and graphics all suck. To me, it spells out T-R-O-L-L.
And personally, I would block this guy because of that fact and that he goes on and on and on about how Skyrim is “terrible”.
You know what is terrible? Trolls (definitely Frost Trolls, the one when I was gonna go see the Graybeards scared the crap out of me) and people who have no lives at all that they have to go online and tell everyone what they want them to think of them.
In short, you do not believe Skyrim sucks, you want us to think that you do, you want us to hate you and call you names… I have to ask this last part, how is your self esteem? After all, you want us all to hate you and call you a troll while thinking that you hate a game.
BTW, please block the trolls.
@ jwalka
http://cheezburger.com/View/5983826432
Btw about ur first paragraph, must me user error.
Is it normal that I’ve never experienced a single bug since Skyrim’s release on 11/11/11? I’m really confused as to why people talk about Skyrim being buggy…oh, they must be refering to the spiders and stuff…insect bugs, not glitchy bugs. Understood, sorry, now I get it
.
PC.
Guys, don’t worry about jwalka. Ignore him, he is just a raging infant smashing his head against the keyboard. Just comment on the new patch and not some other retarded mess. Some people are to ignorant to realise people have other opinions. Then again, we are talking about an eight or ten year old here. Just enjou the video and comment on what you thought of it.
stfu reject, you not only contradict yourself, but assume i take the role of majority of online users. you sir are a clear definition of ignorant s***bag that sucks the balls of devs without analysing anything beyond the ‘pwetty game world’. so before assuming you know wtf you’re talking about pull your head out of your ass and try to think logically, not like some die hard fanboy.
So what games DO you like? I seem to recall you bashing pretty much every game, especially the most popular ones…
Me thinks you just want attention since you take the time to look at the stories for so many games then proceed to fight with ppl over the comments. You apparently want to be inflammatory since you always comment on how a game sucks in a story about that game, which is where you’ll find the most people that like it. Additionally, you apparently OWN and PLAY the game according to your first post which is bizarre since you apparently hate the game and studio so much.
You want to make yourself sound like God’s undiscovered gift to game development by going against what’s popular. If that really is what you are, start working at a studio. If you are as well versed in game development as you claim, getting a job should be easy. Once in said job, turn the gaming world upside down with your incredible skills and you’ll be able to call the shots on who sucks and who doesn’t. Until then, stop acting like a child by trying to get a rise out of people. They like the game, you don’t, move on. You aren’t going to change anyone’s mind just like they won’t change yours.
a game with soo much crap got goty… smh. should have been arkham city
Obvious signs of a little kid. Just got trolled so hard. Plus I find it funny that you twist my words by calling me a fanboy when I never said “This game is so beast”. Just shows that you lack maturity.
I won’t deny that Skyrim was a disapointment for me. It did not live up to the same feel Oblivion had. While Skyrim is an excellent game, I was disapointed. The reason why the game is really good is because of its excellent combat and adventure. Skyrim deserved GOTY only because all the other games that came out in 2011 were not that good. Skyrim was the best game of 2011.
I think that feeling could be do to the lack of different types of swords, i know i miss having seperate long and short swords, other things like that.
jwalka, you really need to calm down dude. Every game can’t be made especially for you. Sure, you may have had some crappy thigs go on with your game, but through all its crap, Skyrim is in fact a really good game. And don’t even say I’m a fanboy. Parasite Eve, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 9 are some of my favorite RPGs and this is the 2nd Elder Scroll I played. So I’m not TES fanboy.
There is one thing I can’t get over, you have posted on nearly EVERY Skyrim article decrying the game and calling it a PoS and other things as well. What are you tying to do? Are you trying to prevent everyone from buying this game among other games (don’t lie, I have seen you on nearly every article pertaining to popular games) or are you just tring to stir up things?
What is your goal? Seriously, what is it?
jables what is your first name? Is your last name ables?
I actually agree with jwalka actually. The game was a glitchfest. I played it for a long fn time and it was just in hopes that the next 5 mins might get more interesting. The only storyline i enjoyed out of all of them was the dark brotherhood and that was repetitive. All the voices were just tweaked versions of others in the game. I mean even the devs kinda admitted to the texturing being blah when they released the video showing flowing water and seasons changing.. It was a smoother version of oblivion.
I personally lost alot of respect for the devs releasing that “this is what the game could be video” and not actually coming out with anything for release.. i already traded it back in.. i dont feel like waiting for what could be when it comes to games like that.. Im sure i will be bashed for it but I would say def not a Game of the Year game more of a “here ya go… we got bored half way through making this but we think youll like it enough”
The 1.5 update for the PS3 is complete rubbish! Every time your playable character submerges in water the game freezes. EVERY TIME! They promised bug fixes and managed to create new ones. If they don’t fix this soon I am done with this game forever!!!