Bethesda Game Studios releases are certainly prone to weird issues, but the PlayStation 3 versions especially so. Users have reported serious performance issues with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim when playing for many hours at a time, prompting a response from the company.
Bethesda has started to acknowledge these PS3-specific reports are a problem, promising specific fixes in a patch coming after version 1.3, which is expected later this week.
“We’ve been reaching out to a number of those users to collect save games, so we can take a look at their specific issues,” said the company on its blog. “Right now we know it’s not one thing, but a combination of smaller ones that some folks are seeing, but others are not.”
Version 1.3 comes after version 1.2, which fixed some things and broke others, ala backwards dragons. It's up for PC now.
Knowing things will change eventually doesn’t really help PS3 owners right now, but the company did offer some temporary solutions that could alleviate the pain on its message boards, which I’ll quote in full below:
- "Turn off auto saves. This can cause temporary stuttering since the PS3 saves these files in the background. This is most noticeable with large saves when fast traveling to a new area or entering a new area that auto saves.
- Clear space on your hard drive. Skyrim makes heavy use of the hard drive, and freeing up space on here seems to help many people. Hard drive speeds also differ in PS3 models. Some users have reported increase performance by upgrading their drives.
- Waiting for time to pass. Many things are running in the world depending on what quests you've done or places you have visited. Using Wait or Rest options, passing time will clear up some of these. It depends how long you wait, it may take up to 30 days for some items. Saving, resetting, and loading after this will have the largest effect."
The nature of the problems facing Skyrim on PS3 are understandably upsetting to users. Please report anything you’re running into within the comments, as I’ll be playing close attention.
I already have this, delicious. FUS RO DAH.
Yay fixes! Thankfully I havent seen many glitches on the 360 version. I feel for the PS3 owners out there though.
Awesome. I hope they keep it updated and give it a lot of lovin' 'cause it sure does deserve it.
FUUUUCKKKK YEAHHHHHHH. BUT I WANT TO PLAY GHOST TRICK, SKYRIM, PLEASE HURRY UP AND FINISH THYSELF.
Dragon Priest masks still make my face disappear. At least my elemental resistances are back.
Are the backwards dragons gone?
@Video_Game_King:
"Fixed dragon animation issues with saving and loading"
hope so
@Mikemcn: Slander and lies.
Wait 30 days in game, for some reason i found that funny.
@whylessness:
Why would you hope for that? Drunk dragons are awesome.
http://www.giantbomb.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/61-33394/skyrim-cant-possibly-be-a-goty-contender-right-guys-right/35-527211/?
has many experiences and thoughts.
At least Bethesda is trying to appear like they know what they're doing and are trying to fix this stuff. Let's hope they can and do.
Cool, now I'll play more skyrim on the PC now that 1.3 is out.
I was once a great game, like you... then I took an arrow in the knee.
@rjayb89: Ghost Trick was one of the best games this year if you ask me.
I do hope you bring up these game-breaking bugs in the eventual GOTY-deliberations, Patrick. You have done excellent work reporting on them so far.
Many, many PS3 versions of Skyrim are rendered 100% unplayable by this bug, through no fault of the players.
I mean, Skyrim is a decent game by all accounts, but Bethesda doesn't deserve a free pass on this one just because everyone at GB played it relatively bug-free on Xbox 360 and PC. Bethesda probably had to cut some corners to meet the 11-11-11 deadline, and it just so happened that PS3 owners got completely shafted in the process. They should be held somewhat accountable.
I feel like someone has stolen my sweet roll.
Pro-tips from Bethesda, "We make good games but we do it very poorly. We put it out on platforms we aren't prepared to develop for properly, do not buy our games again."
Good advice, will do.