Skyrim is a game that many of us have a hard time leaving behind. Even six years later, the sweeping soundtrack still rings in the heads of millions of gamers as they go about their days, wishing they could use a Dragon Shout to clear traffic lanes to speed up the commute home. We all just want to live in the Elder Scrolls V world just a little longer. Now, with Skyrim remastered, more players are refusing to leave the snowy peaks around the Throat of the World. In an interview with GameSpot, director Todd Howard has confirmed that one of the most popular games of all time is going strong, still hosting “millions” of gamers every day. Including himself.
“When you’re making a game like Skyrim, it’s your whole life, and you start losing perspective on, is this fun? Is this not fun? What’s good? What’s bad? Being able to come back to it, you really see it–it’s kind of one of those rare times when you sit down and you see something you made as a gamer. You kind of forget all the versions of a certain feature or what it took to get it there and you’re just playing it for what it is.”
Bethesda’s Fallout 4 is also enjoying similar success, showing no signs of slowing down. Although it wasn’t quite as groundbreaking as Skyrim, the large amount of DLC and customizable settlements have kept people in post-apocalyptic Boston. Granted, unless you really loved living in a post-apocalyptic Boston, it was just another Fallout to some. There was less of a sense of being the character. Possibly because of the focused storyline and voiced main protagonist.
But, that is going to change with VR. Howard hopped into another interview with Glixel and gave an update on the main reason this author will be back and fighting mutants in Fallout 4 — VR.
“Fallout is going great. There’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s super exciting. We are doing the whole game. You can play it start to finish right now, and the whole thing really works in terms of interface and everything…
The Pip-Boy is on your wrist and we’ve been able to present so that it works the way you expect. You look and there it is. The fact that the gunplay is a bit slower than in a lot of games has certainly helped us but we have V.A.T.S., so you can pause or slow down the world,” he says, describing the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System that allows you to freeze real time combat and target specific areas of enemies before unfreezing the action and watching it play out. “I assure you, V.A.T.S. in VR is awesome. We love it.”
All of that seems amazing, Todd, and I can’t wait to actually creep around the dilapidated buildings of Diamond City completely immersed in a VR helmet, but what about Skyrim VR?