http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/01/24/skyrim-building-better-combat.aspx

I think they are just trying to make combat in Skyrim more interesting than the previous "swing weapon at enemy repeatedly until dead" mechanisms that were employed in Morrowind and Oblivion. Plain and simple. Don't over anolyze this, it is mainly an aesthetic feature to compliment the re-vamped combat, magic and stealth systems and I, for one, view this as a welcome and refreshing change for the better.

Absolutely.

Apparantly some of us didn't understand the implication of my post. Finishing moves as a purely aethetical perk, initiated when your opponent is near death, is a terrific way of diversifying combat. As The Darkest Hours said, "It's just a motion captured animation to take the place of "random slash #3" on the last hit you need to kill an enemy." I'm completely for this. What I've come to interpret from some articles is that once you have earnt or purchased these perks, and maybe upgraded them to a certain level, you can perform them, say, mid-way through combat. Probably should've explained it differently. Sorry for the confusion :happy: I was wondering if anyone else was beginning to think this way as well. I guess it's just an unfounded fear.

As I said in my earlier post, the only finishing move that should be an instant kill is the stealth throat slit with a dagger from the trailer, where you would normally be able to dish out close to an instant kill hit anyway.

As long as stats dictate them, they'll be fine.


Stats make an RPG. There's plenty of game that have stats that are not RPGs, but there's no RPG that doesnt have stats in some way.

Finishing moves are a great idea and one of the only ways to bring TES combat on par with other recent games. As long as the moves are stat based and only work if your next hit would have killed the enemy anyway there's no good reason not to have them. Makes the game a lot less hack n slash.

As far as magic finishing moves: I'm not sure about your character doing some special fire dance move to kill your enemy, but I wouldn't mind things like your enemy screaming out as he falls to his knees on fire, before his charred corpse falls flat on his face. I guess that's more of a unique death animation than a finishing move.

Make him drop to his knees, kick him onto his back, burn his face off?

This.

Simple, elegant, practical: how it should be.

Okay yeah this would be pretty awesome. As long as it doesn't get to the point of the new MK fatalities (freeze the bottom half of your enemy, rip their torso off).

+1 for magic finishing moves.