Supposedly it's an in-game screenshot, and I recall that one thread about it on these forums had someone pointing out flaws in it that indicated it is, like low polygon counts in some places, the clouds being sprites, and such. And if it were concept art, it's of a completely different style from the other concept art, and looks to be a 3D rendered image rather than a hand-drawn 2D one, so I'm inclined to believe it's an actual screenshot, just a really good looking one.



I doubt we'll see that kind of detail on the Xbox 360 version, which is what all the screenshots we've seen so far have been from. Will the high-end textures on the PC version look that good? We'll see.



It's not supposed to look appealing. That's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you're looking at there, and seeing as the game is set in an irradiated and hostile location, I don't think "Ooh! Pretty!" was the kind of reaction that the designers were going for with the game's environments, on the other hand, Skyrim is likely to have a fair amount of that. But speaking purely in terms of the level of detail in its textures, it's certainly much better than anything we've seen of Skyrim to this point, and indeed, a lot of other games I've played, for that matter.

In terms of the design of its environments, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has much more in common with Fallout than the Elder Scrolls, and as much as I like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, speaking purely in terms of graphical quality, those games have nothing on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. if you ask me. Fortunately, they don't need to beat it graphically because the gameplay and setting are quite different, and I enjoy both Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for what they offer in that regard.

But back on the subject of Skyrim's environments, the game is definitely looking to be much more impressive in that regard than Oblivion. I've criticized some aspects of the game's graphics before (Like the water effects in the trailer.) but these are mostly because, to me, those things didn't look up to the technical standards I expected from the game. Speaking in terms of design, I've been impressed by much of what I've seen.

I doubt we'll see the game's environment change except as a result of scripted in-game events (Such as say, a town getting destroyed by a dragon as part of the main storyline.) and really, I'm fine with that. After Bethesda goes to great lengths to craft such an impressive looking world, all by hand, as we've been told, I don't want it to possibly be ruined by changes that occur over the course of the game. Besides, I doubt that enough in-game time will pass for most players to really see any major changes in the landscape beyond ones that happen as a direct result of events that take place in the game, like buildings getting destroyed or built as a part of quests (Seeing as it's rather unrealistic to expect such things to happen as part of non-scripted events in a game like Skyrim.) then again, we might see some trees getting chopped down as a result of woodcutting, but removing a tree that gets chopped down and replacing it with a stump probably isn't that hard to program, and I think that's how it will likely be handled.

In an interview with Todd Howard, he stated that dragon attacks on your character and on villages aswell are completely unscripted. I'm fairly sure they won't be capable of razing entire cities to the ground but I'd bet there to be buildings that catch aflame and certain objects specifically made to be destroyed by an assault. Objects like statues or wagons that are placed in towns for the sole purpose of burning to ash or being crushed to rubble.

Indeed, I was only pointing out that people say Bruma is as cold as Skyrim. It was not my claim that it is a snowy wasteland. I said I hope for more... colourful places, I'd hate just wastelands again.

That's possible, though it seems to me that even though the actions of the dragons themselves aren't scripted, it wouln't be that hard to script certain objects to be destroyed when dragons attack them. In any case, I'm sure this will be limited to select objects, we won't be seeing the entire landscape of the game transformed by dragon attacks, I think.



Looking at the screenshots we've seen so far and the gameplay trailer, it certainly looks to me like it's not all snow covered wastes, in fact, the maps we've seen so far seem to indicate that the game has quite a few areas that are not permanently covered in snow. I think Bethesda realized that having the entire game be all snow and ice would get rather boring, just as when making Morrowind, Bethesda obviously didn't think people would want to play a game covered only in volcanic ash.

and again, I am not the person who claimed it was all snowy wastelands.

Hey if you guys want to know about the different "landscapes" (cough, cough), you can always turn back to page one and read my original post.

You have done very well in describing what you saw of Skyrim in vivid detail. It reminds me to focus less on what I would like to see in the next TES game, and to instead recognize the beauty that is already there. Great post.

Haha thanks a bunch. I saw you reading it for quite some time and I just assumed you left your monitor on. I'm glad you liked it. Skyrim really is shaping up to be a breathtaking game.

An excellent and well educated first post :icecream:

I love what they are doing with the landscape; having like three types of forests, the Reach, Volcanic Tundra, Icy Tundra, and more. It's going to be amazing to behold. The one thing that I hope they nail, however, are the transitions to the various environments. This wouldn't be too hard, but I'd like to see it in a non-sloppy and realistic fashion.

I appreciate all these kind comments. Thank you.

You wouldn't believe how long I looked for the specific names these regions were given! I think I remember Todd mentioning them in his hour long interview and I wasn't about to watch it again just to find out what they were formally called. About your post, I do believe they will do a great job with enviromental transitions. One recent game that did a great job in that department was Red Dead Redemption. It was practically seemless. So much so that you'd say to yourself "Whoa, when did I end up in Tall Trees? At what point did The Great Plains end?". I know as superb as the country side looks so far, the developers won't let bold borders of, say, Volcanic Tundra conflict with the Reach or any combination of the sort.

My concern is that most if not all towns and villages will b just 3 farm houses with few npcs. The textures not being high enough and places "pop" out of nowere. :dry:

I've thought about this too. According to, well pretty much every source on the web, Skyrim will have five "massive" cities (I feel the need to put "massive" into quotations because I've never seen it any other way). It would make sense if the rest of the towns were vastly inferior to these so called "massive" citites not only because its a lot of work to develope five unique metropolises that are all reportedly larger than the Imperial City and without doors but because if you think about it, how big are settlements in Greenland or Antarctica? Or even a thick, sometimes snowy wilderness like Alaska? Skyrim is a rough combination of these places and its only reasonable that settlers in the mountains live off soley what is available to them. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much because some of these towns & villages have already been previewed like Riverwood and the one in the trailer where we see a robed character take a stroll. I think they look swell.

As for textures not being "high enough" and "places that 'pop' out of nowhere", I haven't seen any of that. Maybe my eye isn't keen on spotting those kind of things. I've noticed that PC gamers have a better knack for pointing out mistakes in textures. Everything looks good to me.

Landscape looks like a good fit. Wonder if the whole game space is as ambitious and up to par. Also interested in how they handles barriers. Most likely natural though and probably no invisible walls around certain areas as Obsidian did in FNV. I found things like the water lacking though. The streams before the giant in the trailer and the giant ruin cities waterfalls reflected that they need to be worked on. Overall I think so far they will succeed in capturing the feel of their own fictatious land. Note: the trailer and I assume majority of pictures releases are from the xboz 360 version. What this says is its on track to look great on consoles. Should look stunning on PC, although maybe not the graphical heights they were looking for. To be fair making an RPG thats competant should be the major goal though. Looks on track to deliver more than the Witcher 2(Maybe not in graphics) and Mass Effect 3 if Bioware and EA keep up the dismantling.

TES needs a desert area really. In Oblivion someone made a mod for it and it shows just how much it needs that variety.

I can point out a number of reasons why that is not concept art.. though it may be shopped a bit. (not that much, though)



I highly doubt you'll be seeing a sandy desert in skyrim (though there may be many arctic deserts..)

Perhaps when/if TES Elswyr comes out.

One province at a time. Hammerfell and Elsweyr have dry, sandy wastelands so I guess you'll just have to wait until they come out with the next one if you want it that bad. The current enviroments in progress are already so impressive though.

Yeah that would get very old very fast, we already know there is going to be a glacier area, and frozen mountains which should be cool ( no pun intended ) but you deffinatly need some variety, even Oblivion had a variety of areas with diffirent feels to them.

Very true and plus if you've noticed, The Reach and Volcanic Tundra are on two separate ends of the Skyrim map entirely, so they've taken into account not to place vastly differing environment extremely adjacent to each other.

If I would have known that, I probably wouldn't have made the comparison. :sweat:

I can hardly wait to venture up High Hrothgar and survey the province. Another thing I've been wondering is, will they change the style of the land when you look onto other countries? Will you be able to see Red Mountain from the very ends of Eastern Skyrim? Is the White Gold Tower visible from the southern-most cliff? In Oblivion, there was no hope for this but now that TES V has a much longer drawing distance, it may be a possibility. Fogs and clouds may play a part in blocking some views but I figure why not suggest it while we're on the topic.

Its not Solitude, its Windhelm. Solitude is too far north to have so much green, plus take a look at the map, Windhelm extends over the river.

My only concern regarding landscape and such revolves around scale. They've said that the map is the same size as Oblivion's, which is small by current standards, but that's another matter. So, the map area isn't changing, but there is an increase in mountains and mountain height. So they're scaling the game in the z-axis (kept wanting to say y-axis... stupid Maya), but not in the x-axis or y-axis. That means steeper slopes. It worries me that much of the apparent gain in land due to height will be in-accessible or unusable because it's simply too steep to do anything with or transverse.

It also worries me that once you get in game, those impressive looking mountains will look conspicuously small.

Windhelm has windmills.

Good call on that. You could be right.


Yeah, I know what you mean. Besides not being able to get up there by preferable means, we may not even be allowed up there. I really did dislike how in Fallout: New Vegas you couldn't even reach the top of most of the "mountains" because they had invisible barriers blocking them off. I've also considered that the height of the mountains in Skyrim may be a trick of the eye, which seems likely. I imagine it's very hard to make one life sized. If Bethesda knows what we want (and they do), then there should be no problem with the height or matters of travel upon them. I'm sure there will be multiple paths leading upward to every crag, mesa, peak, and tor regardless.

I have faith in no invisible barriers on mountains, because every time Beth brings up freedom, they mention the ability to look across the land at a mountain and say, "You can go anywhere you look". They've stressed this I know of at least 4 times in interviews and such. Expect barriers at Skyrim's borders, but as far as mountains go, the steepness will be the only opposing force.

Um... if you'd had even a quick look at the map in the concept art video, you should know that:

1) Windhelm is not by the ocean whereas this city is clearly over a very large body of water, more than a tiny river, not to mention that if that were Windhelm, the image on the map would have to cross the whole river at least
2) Windhelm is in a snowy region
3) Solitude is on the border of a pine forest region and a Tundra marsh region
4) Being Northern doesn't always mean snowy

Well I don't think anything on the map is final yet so Windhelm could end up closer to the ocean than it appears now. Looking back at the different versions though, I can see where you two would think both cities. Windhelm is near a river delta on the map but Solitude is also close to water. I think if I had to guess, I'd say Windhelm though. Usually the names tend to be ironic and we've already seen a windmill near the base of the town. Windmill - Windhelm. I think Solitude is on an island, if I'm not mistaken, that looks to be surrounded by glaciers.

Edit: Then again, UESP Wiki says that Windhelm serves as "a base for Imperial troops guarding the Dunmeth Pass into Morrowind". I'd find it hard to guard a passage to Morrowind atop a rock formation on the other side of a river. We'll have to wait and see I suppose. :teehee: