The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most anticipated video games of the year and it has lofty expectations to meet, coming off the success and critical reception of the franchise's previous installments. Matt Carofano, Lead Artist on Skyrim walked us through a lengthy and detailed gameplay demo of the sequel to Oblivion where we got to see the game's new Creation Engine at play as we battled dragons, dual-wielded bloodied swords and angered some peaceful mammoths.

Skyrim has been in development since Bethesda finished work on Fallout 3 and it introduces a new game engine and an overhaul of all core gameplay mechanics. Over the past several months we've learned of the of newness Skyrim is bringing to the franchise in its RPG elements, controls, menus, spells, etc. but the demo showed us all of these ingredients mixed together with the more detailed and fleshed out Northern-most province of Tamriel.

"We created an all new game engine for Skyrim. It's got a new renderer, a new user interface, new animation system, new scripting system and it's really been tailored to fit this game."

Dynamic shadows, weather and snow add to the improved day and night cycle players of Morrowind and Oblivion are accustomed to. Details including bloodied swords after making contact with flesh of an opponent and Fallout 3 style slow-mo killcams help make combat sequences much more cinematic and immersive, made better by a variety of finishing moves.

While playing the game, each trigger on your Xbox 360/PS3 controller controls whatever weapons, spell or shield you have in that hand. The neatest feature is putting spells in both hands, and casting each hand at the same time to perform a more powerful version of that same spell. This combat can be enjoyed in the traditional first person perspective or the much improved and better-animated third person view, which heavily builds upon what Bethesda tried to introduce as a viable gameplay option in Oblivion.

Just like in Oblivion, whatever you see you can travel to or in the case of mountains in the distance, climb. But it's not just the vast and lush lands of Skyrim that see a beautifully rendered makeover, but the menu systems as well.

"We also wanted to change our user interface and make it a lot more exciting. We find that in a lot of games, the user interface ends up being a spreadsheet, and we wanted something a little more interesting to look at. So, you can use the left stick to go between the four different menu sections... going into the inventory section, every item is detailed in 3D for you to look at. So you can really get an idea of the culture behind each weapon and item and what makes it unique."

In modern RPGs, the word "streamlining" usually refers to something not wanted from loyal fans of said franchise but in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda has done a remarkable job at making an intuitive menu system that works for fans new and old. The details and functionality is still there - it's just presented in a more sensible and user-friendly way.

Activate the menu and the re-designed HUD pops up, segmented into four sections in a design reminiscent of a compass; Skins, Items, Map and Magic representing the four directions of North, East, South and West, respectively. The menu system also includes a Favorites section which works just like any web browser would and it allows players to quickly access chosen spells, weapons etc. via the D-Pad.

When opening the Skills section, the player literally looks up to the stars and here all of the player's progression is detailed. The skills are broken down into perk trees, allowing the player further customization of their character - every time a player levels up, they can pick a perk.

"You are what you play. Anything you do will help you level up."

From the demo we witnessed, the RPG system employed in Skyrim seemingly rewards players much more frequently. We saw one-handed weapons and heavy armor jumping up a level more than once.

The world map also sees a redesign and now offers a 3D view of the land. From here, the player can fast-travel between explored locations and it all works very smooth and quick.

The demo took us to the town of Riverwood to show an example of everyday life of the citizens of Skyrim. Jobs can be taken at the lumber mill or from the blacksmith and the tools can be used to improve your weapons. You can even "sabotage" the lumber mill which affects the game's economy.

As we already knew, the dialogue system has been revamped as well, now presenting itself in a cinematic fashion with full voiceover. Unlike in previous games, the conversations are not only more organic, but they can be exited at any time since they take place in real time and can be interrupted by an attack.

By far the coolest feature of the gameplay is the added ability of dual wielding any one-handed weapon, or mixing things up with shields, staffs, different types of weapons and even spells.

We saw the standard spells in action, although they often take different forms than what we're used to (chain lighting, circle of protection, etc.). Frostbite and fire can be shot like a fire extinguisher or a flame thrower, continuously launching from your hand until you let go of the button, but there's also your standard one-shot projectiles like fireballs. Also joining Skyrim in addition to the powerful dragon shouts are the new ruin magic abilities which work as traps on the ground.

Guardian Stones replace birthstones but work in a similar fashion of allowing the player to pick a special ability and help customize your character.

Much of the 30-minute Skyrim gameplay demo played like one long quest, which involved a golden item taken from thieves which we overheard from a previous conversation. Towards the end, a journal entry reveals the solution to a puzzle where said golden item is actually a key. This led us to an area with dragon text which only we, the Dragonborn protagonist, can read to learn a new dragon shout ability.

Outside of this side quest, which emphasized more a more in-depth questing system, we played through a few scenes involving meeting children and a pet dog in town, mounting and riding a large Clydesdale-esque horse, fighting a giant spider, combat with dragons and an instance in an open field where we bothered a pair of peaceful mammoths and their companion giants.

"Dragons have become our big boss creatures in the game. They're completely unscripted and we don't know what they're going to do each time. They have their own AI and special abilities."

This led to an interesting battle which also involved another, much larger, dragon swooping in to join the battle. The player ran to the nearest ruins where an archer and a soldier helped battle the winged beast. The foot soldier mistakenly ran up to the dragon only to be eaten by it before we managed to take it down and absorb its soul. This concluded the epic demo of Skyrim.

The game demo did succumb to two errors, one where the game froze and the second where a dragon flew into the ground and disappeared. Both required  restarts but this was not an issue faced by the other groups demoing the game. Skyrim is currently in pre-Alpha stage so errors are expected however, after the terribly buggy and borderline in inappropriate release of Fallout: New Vegas, we hope The Elder Scrolls V is released with the needed polish, especially since it's a title our staff is dying to get our hands on.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases on November 11 for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

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