Thank you Bethesda. You've really made sure to retain the very core of the experience with this Skyrim remaster. Not 10 minutes into the Special Edition and I'd already found myself stuck in a game-breaking scripting error that broke the intro. Watch as a rogue horse ensures that we can all wait forever for our turn on the block. This is the attention to detail we expect from Bethesda - this game is as buggy as when it was released in 2011. o_O

At least now it's on a console with a button dedicated to recording and Sharing™ these wonderful(?) moments.

Didn't even get movement control to the player before they encounter the first game stopping bug eh?

You probably just accidently downloaded a Sony approved mod

Watching someone else stream this (also on PC, no mods - I've not even set up a Bethesda account yet to enable the in-game mod downloader; not on Steam Workshop for this version) and so far we've seen three crash bugs on the stream just in the intro section. They also had the horse break the scripting of this intro before they decided to start streaming so this is not a unique glitch.

Really glad this was a freebie. Feel like the modding community need to actually fix this version to bring it up to the 2011 version.

But hey, don't worry guys! Bethesda wants us all to experience these game breaking bugs at the same time, so no review copies. Heheheheheheeh.

Also, is it me or does the game actually look worse? Those shadows are kinda harsh.

@shivermetimbers: Maybe I've been playing a heavily modded Skyrim too much, I thought the environments looked all right, it's no crazy ENB, but looked a lot better than I remember vanilla skyrim looking - unfortunately, indoor lighting was real rough. Then, I saw the character models and they look real rough. Maybe it's how lighting is handled, or maybe I've gotten too used to different skin textures/models, but yuck.

Oh well! Hopefully the new executable makes modding as easy as it is on Fallout 4. I can just pile stuff on Fallout 4, but Skyrim was like rolling a glass ball down a jagged rocky hill.

The game world looks ok (much nicer shadows, even if their tone mapping is crushing all blacks and their dodgy HDR* doesn't help that at all) but they really didn't spend any resources making the people look better. The hair options are crying out for mods on day 1 because I've seen better in games from 2004!

I should note that this footage is rather hastily captured/compressed for YT but is 1080p60 and max settings. So it'll need mods/ini edits to look better than this.

* not the fancy screen tech, the fake eye changing exposure tech you remember from HL2.

Wow... that's terrible. I wish I could join you in making broken Skyrim: Special Edition videos, but my PC version just crashes after launch. ITs weird, it's crashing like a modded Skyrim, only it hasn't been modded.

Playing on PC, things seem unable to find the ground. Spiders were jumping all over the place and a bear just got stuck in the ground and couldn't turn around to face me. The tutorial guide at some point just flew into the air and started doing Jacob's Ladder shit, and it turns out there was just some weird thing with the ground in that exact spot because it did the same thing to me and then threw me through the world.

Shit was fun, but I've already uninstalled it because I couldn't even tell what they'd changed (other than a weird blurry depth of field thing that doesn't work at all).

I haven't looked into this at all really. Is there actually any point to the PC version of this for someone who makes extensive use of Skyrim mods already?

They did a great job of making it feel like the same Skyrim by hardly improving the graphics as well.

Still baffle me that Bethesda can get away with things like this when another company will get it's shit kicked out of for things like this. This game will always be remembered in my book as the one that made me stop listening to the bombcast.

I didn't like the little Skyrim when it first came out, but since I had an Amazon gift cardI decided to give it another go because it seems like like something I should love.

I was sort of interested in how this would turn out, because I think Skyrim is a decent enough game (it's no Oblivion).

But since I already own the original on Steam this seems like a hard buy, especially with all the bugs I keep reading about, and just knowing I can install some mods for the original and make it look good.

Look better*

Isn't it free to those who own the original on Steam? (Are you missing some of the DLC, despite it all selling for peanuts in several Steam sales?)

I am optimistic that this could be a better platform (64-bit, few engine fixes, cleaned up modding interface bringing some stuff forward from F4) for mods in the end.

Right now it's only got the mods that could be ported over in the week of pre-release access that some mod teams got. Right now none of the new bugs introduced have been cleaned up by the modding community fixing stuff because they've had no time to work out how to fix them. Right now it's a crash-prone mess full of bugs and iffy updates to a game that didn't look great in 2011.

But that's not the end of the story. Although I was ripping into it in the OP, I still think there's going to be something here that could well eclipse the modded original. The real-time shadows and other effects updates are ok, the foliage density tweaks mean modders don't have to do that work themselves (reminded of just how much work Morrowind modders put into rebuilding the entire world with foliage), and the engine should be a better foundation for large and diverse mods to build on without becoming a house of cards that would always fall down after a certain size.

Of course, it helps that it cost me absolutely nothing to get this edition because I'd already got the 2011 game on Steam.

@shivoa: okay, that answers my question, thanks. I might look into the status of some of my most-used mods, but chances are I'll give it a few weeks or months for modding to pick up before I build a new character.

@yesiamaduck:Yeah I'm missing all of the DLC. I spent about 30 hours with the original when it first came out and didn't pay much attention when the DLC released.

@fnrslvr: Fair enough!

Apparently SkyUI isn't being ported over?

https://techraptor.net/content/skyui-not-in-the-works-for-skyrim-special-edition

Uh, this is probably a deal-breaker for me -- and probably a lot of the modding scene too unless someone takes up the reins, I imagine. I guess it isn't a huge surprise, though.

Downloaded it on PSN and played it about four hours last night. And I fucking love it. I know your thread is supposed to a joke, and a funny one at that, but I actually think the thread title is appropriate in a non-joking way as well. Man this game is good. And all the menu stuff feels so snappy and good compared to old Skyrim and Fallout 4. Just small things like auto-saving no longer freezing the game for a second or two when entering the menu or quicksaving actually makes a pretty big difference.

You downloaded a mod didn't you?

Modded Skyrim from 2011 on Pc >

I'm not sure why anybody would expect anything less than a buggy mess from a 5 year old bethesda game, they just threw the game into the modded fallout 4 engine and said "fuck it".

I'm not at home now and only really played 15 minutes last night before the UI, mouse acceleration, and depth of field made me quit. I didn't bother looking since I wanted to check out the game, but can that depth of field be disabled in the launcher?

It's... not good. It's real wonky. I turn that stuff off in ENBs and it works a lot better there.

@fnrslvr: Right now, there's no point. It's a buggier version of the same game that came out in 2011. If you never played a modded version of Skyrim with truevision or a very light weight, performance focused ENB, you'd see some graphical enhancements. But if you ever installed any graphical enhancing mods, this won't look anywhere near as good.

In the future, having a 64 bit executable removes the 4 gig memory limit that made Skyrim a jenga tower once you started modding it. I've had weird stuff happen in Fallout 4 when I haphazardly remove, update, install mods, but infinite loading screens and crashes have never happened to me there, where in Skyrim, I was needing to merge mods together to keep things reasonably stable.

I haven't messed with it but there is a slider for depth of field in the in-game options menu.

You mean the dragons still fly backwards?

And every dungeon ends with an ice guy?

Sweet

Man, I feel left out. I've played every Elder Scrolls game for hundreds of hours, and I never get weird bugs like this.

@rvone: Cool. Thanks. I glanced in the menus, but had forgotten about the default mouse acceleration, which made me ~ QQQ out. I'll take a second look tonight!

The FOV seems to also be handled differently here. In Skyrim, I used to run a 90 FOV and felt things were great. In Fallout 4, 90 felt very narrow and made me feel uncomfortable. I had to up it to 100 or so. Found myself needing 100 FOV in this version of Skyrim as well.

Why does it look worse on PS4 than it did on PS3? What?

@mordukai said:

What about this game made you stop listing to the bombcast? This confuses me. I don't remember that far back, what were they saying on the bombcast about the game that made you come to this decision?

Surprised to see so much negativity. I fucking love this version. I'm playing on my PS4, and it's just a vast improvement over Xbox 360 (as it should be). The thing that really makes it stand out however is just how much better the core game is compared to Fallout 4. It's just no competition. Fallout 4 does not hold up well when compared to Skyrim.

@sterling: Probably a reference to the GOTY discussion that year. It got pretty uncomfortable when Jeff just wouldn't let go of Saint's Row The Third as GOTY, when Ryan, Patrick and especially Brad was arguing heavily for Skyrim.

Edit: Also, for your other comment: The PS4 version looks much better.

@bojackhorseman: I may go back and give that a listen. I don't remember that goty discussion. Also I just looked up comparison videos, and yeah it does look much improved. When watching the OP vid though, I remembered it looking exactly like that. But, human memory and all that.

The way Brad carried himself on that year's GOTY discussions. Wasn't much about what he said about this game but more to do how he was when he threw a tantrum during it.

I don't think I could go back to Skyrim after The Witcher. Yes, all you people championing The Witcher 2 in 2011 - you were right.

Now there is a remaster I could really get behind for the PS4. Maybe even throw in the first one as well.

@sterling: imo I think the first game should be far divorced as humanly possible from the other 2, not only because I don't think it's very good but also because it's kind of embarrassingly sexualized

I had similar issue. Hadvar was stuck inside a horse. Anyways in case you are wondering that is on PC with ultra settings, so it looks nowhere as good as the original basic with few mods.

@yesiamaduck: Only if you chose to partake in that part of the game.

@mordukai: Don't think Jeff fared any better to be honest. They both were ultra stubborn that year, but I'm at least glad Skyrim won the GOTY. Anything else would have been insanity.

IIRC, Jeff and Vinny really liked Saints Row 3, Ryan was on the fence, and Brad championed HARD for Skyrim, to the point that he would dismiss anything anyone else said but would point out the same flaws in Saints Row 3 when neither game was perfect.

I would have preferred Saints 3 winning it just because it would have been different than 90% of other sites, but it doesn't bother me nor does it even matter; the actual arguments going on though, woof.

I still listen to the Bombcast (though not on schedule), but it was definitely the reason I stopped listening to GOTY.

"Hey guys, why not do a live action trailer to this one so the guys that joined us at Fallout 4 and have no reference point can get no idea it's a five year old game?"

Todd, you beautiful bastard.

I have never played the game before so would you guys recommend playing with mods the first time? I kinda want to play the game without any but I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm playing on X1 by the way.

I expect nothing more from Bethesda at this point.

@pompouspizza: Maybe play it without mods first. I always like to play things without mods first time and then you know that you areas you want mods for.

Also it might be worth waiting for them to sort out any bugs before adding mods, as they can upset the game even more.

I saw that PC Gamer put up a thing on Skyrim and they had exactly the same game-ender with the horse so this is less a "weird things happen when we all record it" and more a very common way that the intro to this game breaks. How did this ship? This clearly was seen during testing and was not considered something that needed to get fixed before release.

If you want to track your progress then I think achievements are off even with the most trivial of non-gameplay affecting mods so you either have to play vanilla or just dive into those mods.