Earlier this year, Bethesda announced its plan to release Skyrim remastered edition, and in the following weeks console gamers rejoiced.
For those of you not familiar, "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" is a phenomenal role-playing fame released five years ago.
Regardless of your status as a gamer or non-gamer, you need to play it because it’s a masterpiece. And that’s exactly why it’s being remastered, so new players can enjoy it on Xbox One and Playstation 4 with better graphics and added mod support.
As any PC player knows, mods are a glorious part of the experience, allowing content creators to add on anything and everything they want and letting other players experience their wacky creations. Some personal favorites are the Thomas the Tank Engine mod – turning every dragon in the game into Thomas, James or any of their friends — and Midas Magic, which adds a host of new spells to the game.
For a long time these mods were exclusive to the PC gaming community, one incentive to choose PC over consoles. So when Bethesda announced this remastering with mod support, PS4 and Xbox One players were ecstatic.
Who doesn’t want to slay Thomas the train?
PC players, myself included, were furious that Bethesda is remaking a recent game instead of creating a brand new one. And though Bethesda tried to sweeten the deal by giving PC players a free copy, many are still angry that Elder Scrolls VI is being delayed by “Skyrim II.”
However, after my initial rage at this waste of time, I calmed down a bit. After all, I take mods for granted, and console players don’t have that privilege.
This past week Bethesda announced that mod support will not be coming to PS4 because Sony wouldn’t approve user-created mods.
Thus, half of the reason for a remaster is completely off the table, and unless you have a graphics fetish, there’s no difference between the PS3 and PS4 versions of Skyrim. But nonetheless, Bethesda is chugging right along with the release of “Skyrim II” in October.
This set me off. This whole situation is nonsense.
If Bethesda was featuring a game around mod support, the first thing they should have done is coordinate with Sony to work something out. This shouldn’t be a problem they’re dealing with a month before release.
Additionally, this shouldn’t even be a game. Skyrim has released graphical updates in the past for free, but now they’re releasing a remastered edition for $60? That’s ridiculous.
But okay, maybe they want to make it compatible for this generation of systems. If so, then the very least they can do is add more content.
RPGs are constantly inundated with paid, downloadable content which I very much enjoy, but why release a game with nothing new? To me, Skyrim Special Edition is just a money grab.
This is Bethesda trying to appeal to a new generation of gamers, just selling more copies of the same game. But in this process, they’re selling out.
First Fallout 4 was more shooter than RPG, now Skyrim gets a remake.
It’s starting to feel like Bethesda, a company known for classics like Oblivion, Doom, and Dishonored, is slowly reaching for more and more money, while quality of content slips through their fingers.
