Skyrim Early Launch
Written by Craig Will, puffkix Friday, 01 April 2011 14:00
A recent phone interview with Bethesda's Community Manager, Mae Dupp, has left us with quite a sensational feeling in our guts. It seems that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be in our hands much sooner than we thought, albeit it may not be as happy an occasion as we once thought.
Originally slated for the memorable date of 11.11.11 Bethesda has decided to push the release date up: to next week! I had the opportunity to talk to Mae Dupp about this decision:
GN: Bethesda is not necessarily known for on-time release dates, much less moving games up in the calendar year. What makes Skyrim so special?
MU: Well we feel that we have an obligation to our fanbase to release our next game as bug free as possible without compromising our commitment to on-time delivery. With that in mind we decided to scrap nearly half the content originally planned for the retail release of the game.
GN: Wait, you've cut the game in half?
MU: Yes, Fallout 3 and Oblivion both came under some heavy criticism for glitches. Bugs are to be expected in games that attempt the scope we go for and it seemed obvious that the easiest way to crack down on them would be by removing some of that scope.
GN: What you're saying is that we are going to pay $60 for half the game that was already coded?
MU: In short, yes. We will be releasing all the cut content as DLC throughout the life of Skyrim though. So it's not like it won't ever be available.
GN: Free DLC I would hope?
MU: That hasn't been determined yet. When Oblivion came out we were pretty successful in selling Horse Armor for over a dollar... We might see what we can get out of this.
GN: This sounds terrible!
MU: Rest assured, the game is still going to be fun and most importantly completely bug free! That's something we've never been able to claim. In fact we're trying to talk marketing into putting that on the cover as a selling point.
Well, there you have it. Skyrim is coming out next week, 7 months early, but with only half the original content and the scrapped content is going to be DLC someday...
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