If you watch the skull part again, the sword knocks off one of the skulls jaw and also breaks it.. Yeah.. So neck or not, you are just going to be decapitated.

Break a jaw? Sure. Decap 3 heads at once, nah, I'll wait for a better source on that then Spike TV.

As long as its not over the top I'm fine.

Not everywhere. The Dovakiin pictures show a Nord wearing armor without pauldrons. I've seen plenty of characters that aren't wearing helmets. The Draughr's appear to be unarmored, along with zombies, and villagers, and most other creatures. I also remember plenty of bandits that didn't wear complete sets of armor, and some that don't wear any at all, in past games. Bandits also have mages, and mages typically are unarmored.

In summation, not every enemy will be armored. A combat knife won't dismember someone wearing power armor, but I bet a claymore will decapitate someone wearing leather armor. I volunteer, for the claymore wielder position.

I definitely agree. Perhaps that's where "dual wielding" will come in and the enemy will use their off hand? One can only hope...

I agree that it shouldn't be like bloody mess on Fallout, but the occasional heavy strike on an already crippled appendage, especially these "kill blows" we've been seeing should cause those.

One finishing move I'd like would be to dismember your enemy, have him/her pick up their arm and walk away from the fight. Perhaps they could even pass out from a loss of blood after a quarter mile or so...

I would like decapitations in my skyrim,I still remember the executioner concept art that got my hopes up. I think it fits but not at the frequency of fallout decapitations. When direct X11 become's more of a thing,you could use tessellation for scar's and deep cuts as well. I wonder if skyrim itself has DX11 compatibly out of the box,even if Bethesda wont use it.

Decapitation would be a great thing to do to a corpse... it would make trophy collecting easier, plus it permits you to send a message to people (or at least think you have) if you place the head of your victim in the bed of a sleeping NPC so when they wake...

Source: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1189517-part-02-todd-howard-interview-norwegian-magazine-gamerno/

"Q: Can you damage the limbs of your enemies?

Todd Howard: How should I answer this? Yes, there is a kind of system, but not like in Fallout 3

Q: How about sword fighting? Can you choose to swing your sword to the left or right?

Todd Howard: Yes, you choose the direction with the control stick. It is also possible to perform different combo attacks, jumping backwards and so forth."

They can scream and terror, camera panning to their residence showing crows fleeing from the sound.

I want both of those. I do not want over-the-top Fallout-esque explosions by merely hitting them with a sword, but if i cut someon's neck with a sword hard enough I expect their head to come off.

In most Beth games to my knowledge, gore of any kind is toggleable in some way or another. The E3 demo certainly seemed gorier than Oblivion, with one guys neck spitting a little blood out for a second or two when he got cut. My guess: either the demo-player somehow didn't manage to cut off a limb, or they had it toggled off. A lot of people watch E3, and they probably didn't want it to seem excessive.

That being said, Elder Scrolls is a fantasy franchise, not a... I'll call it a "Duke Nukem" franchise for lack of a better word, like Fallout. Fallout has always been about being over-the-top and rediculous, while Elder Scrolls has always been a serious quest about really serious problems, like the invasion of their world by demon-like creatures. Fallout can be serious, but the ability to be an advlt film star in the second one was no coincidence. Sure, it wasn't made by Bethesda, but Fallout 3 tried to stay true to that advlt feeling. That's why, even though it will probably be rated M if it isn't already, (I'm not up to date with that) it won't be anything as bad as Fallout in that department.

I like Fallout for a different reason than I like Elder Scrolls. While it would definately add to the game in my opinion, they come from different roots, and I don't expect to much in terms of removing limbs or decapitation. I also don't really see crippling being added, as I think we would have noticed it in the gameplay we've seen. I could be wrong though. I hope I am. But we'll just have to wait and see.