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Skyrim: Bethesda’s Designers Obsessed Over the Details

November 1, 2011 by Ian Miles Cheong

Bethesda’s designers and developers obsessed over the details that make the world of Skyrim.

There's eleven (or ten, depending on where you live) days left before Skyrim holds us within its grasp. It's not the other way around, because you'll undoubtedly be too enthralled with the game to play anything else once you get your hands on it.

Just to build up your sense of anticipation a little bit more, Bethesda has released a new trailer called "Behind the Wall: The Making of Skyrim" that talks up a storm about the game, in addition to some new gameplay clips.

The developers talk about what's great about the game—the ability to be in control of your own game experience. There are no accidents, and the player is free to interpret everything on their own—which Todd Howard admits that designing a game of this type can be terrifying.

Designed by a core team of 30 to 40 developers, the same team has been together for ten years developing Morrowind, Fallout 3 and Oblivion.

"It wasn't a question of whether we were going to do a fifth one. It was more—how is it going to be different?" said Howard. "There's so much stuff in the game. It is in orders of magnitude larger and has more things in it than we've ever done."

Todd Howard says that the team obsessed over the little details. Players have to choose from objects within the game world to interact with, ranging from books, food, and a variety of crafting items. The game has, in total, 315 spaces including large dungeons, small dungeons, towns, and exterior play spaces.

"On some level, we get ourselves in trouble by trying to make the ultimate 'fight dragons' game, the ultimate 'be a warrior' game, the ultimate mage game, and the ultimate thief game, and the ultimate assassination game—all these kinds of different styles."

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim comes out on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 11.

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