Hopefully spears will be in, but... yeah that's an axe.

I like that one, looks like the Iron Halberd from Morrowind. Fingers crossed.

http://images.uesp.net//b/be/MW_Weapons_Halberds.jpg

It is in, you can see in Game Informer, its just a big axe.

There are definitely pole armed weapons in the game including spears and long axes and maybe a combination which is a halberd they wouldn't make concept art if it wasn't in the game.

this

Halberds are spears with a hook and an axe blade combined to form the head of the weapon.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l92/Tlantl/images5.jpg

Pole arms with a single axe blade are pole axes.

I haven't seen anything other than pole axes in the concept art. And none at all in the paintings and screens they've released.

There is a screen shot with the long axe blade, its in game informer.

Halberds come in all sorts of variations, just like swords, axes, etc. Examples: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Halberds_3.png, http://www.mamalisa.com/images/blog/halberd.gif(the last three here aren't halberds though), http://www.ritterruestung-handgeschmiedet.de/englishversion/weapons/pictures/halberd.jpg.

About as likely as beheading.

I recall a lot of spears in the Oblivion concept art too...

Edit:

That is not a halberd, just a large/long axe.

The OP's linked screen shot depicts an axe. It has no point at the end of the pole, just the head of the axe. For it to be a halberd, it must have a point attached to the end of the pole, with some sort of axe head as well.



It is a bardiche to be specific, I believe. Bardiches have no spear point, and a rounded blade attached to the front. It is a pole-arm none the less. The fact that it is erased does not bode well for the cause, though.

Well I had mentioned and showed concept art since the Todd Howard interview video about how there were halberds in the concept art but no one seemed to care but once it's in the art video it apparently is big news <_<

Unless they don't want us to see more than it's shape. The weapon doesn't look to be erased, more like shaded instead of fully rendered. Was this intended or just the way the artist used a pole arm shaped weapon for the character's pose.

I do think that the art indicates that two handed weapons might be more than just an axe a hammer and a claymore.

Sure looks like a large axe to me...

This also could be true. When thinking about it, Its just concept art, so why would they erase a weapon that possibly could not be included in the game?

So, it's still a polearm. Any weapon mounted onto a long shaft is a polearm. So saying "it's not a halberd' is just being annoyingly semantical since the point of the thread/topic/post is still understood by mostly everyone.

It IS in the game, again its in Game Informer, pic of one of the zombie warriors has one.

The leftmost zombie warrior is holding what looks more like a two-handed axe. It's not clear what weapon is being held by the zombie in the middle - it's obscured by the leftmost zombie.

However what is suggestive are the different ways that the warriors are holding the weapons. The leftmost warrior has its hands close together on the shaft, and closer to the bottom of the shaft, and looks like its using the axe in a chopping motion - you can accentuate the weight of the axe head by swinging from the base of the shaft. By contrast, the middle zombie's hands are significantly further apart on the shaft, so it looks it is not being used in a chopping motion, but rather a thrusting motion - it's much easier to thrust a shaft accurately if the weight of the weapon is evenly distributed between the hands/arms.

But just because they have one polearm doesn't mean we will see the many different types, including spears. Also, since in Morrowind halberds were governed by the spear skill, the idea that the weapon in the picture might be governed by the axe skill (or two-handed, w/e) makes a big difference.

It could also just be something that features in an animation. Animation files can contain model meshes within them in the Oblivion/Fallout engines.

To not give us false hope? But, if Bethesda really did specifically censor that bit of concept art just for the purposes of this video, just for the purpose of not leading us to believe that halberds are in the game, then surely they would have deleted the silhouette as well???

I'm not sure I see the relevance of which skill that weapon will be governed by... After all, longswords and axes will both be governed by the one-handed skill, but those are clearly different weapons.

If halberds are in, what will presumably distinguish them from two-handed axes are (1) skill perks, and (2) animation (axes will chop, halberds will thrust).

It's the animations that concern me. If all the "pole-arms" are animated as axes are, we won't be seeing any spears, which are themselves also pole arms.

There is another smaller pic on the opposite page that shows a zombie warrior were you can tell that it has the big axe and that its what the zombie warrior in the middle is holding, the big two handed axe.