It’s been a great week to be a Skyrim fan. As well as the highly anticipated release of the game’s official Creation Kit, Bethesda has also released two sparkling surprises alongside it: A HD texture pack (as some guessed would be coming) and a Valve-developed mod called Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1 (which precisely no-one guessed). All three are fantastic, so let’s have a look at them in turn.
The Creation Kit works similarly to previous iterations, allowing you to do anything from minor changes to creating whole new creatures, characters, quests and areas. All of the mods are available online on the Steam Workshop, which is already full of nearly 1,000 mods just a few days after release.
The Workshop handles mod installation brilliantly; you can install a mod with one click and it’ll be kept updated for perpetuity. It’s a world of difference from the traditional copy-files-blindly method or the slightly more civilised use-an-external-mod-manager style, and should make installing mods a lot more popular.
The HD texture pack is another great addition, bringing much clearer and larger textures to pretty much every object in the game. It’s particularly effective at higher resolutions, so if your computer can run it without problem it’s definitely a worthwhile 3GB download. Bethesda recommends that you’re packing at least 4 GB of system RAM and a graphics card with at least 1 GB of dedicated video RAM.
It’s the Fall of the Space Core mod that’s got everyone talking though, as a rare all-star collaboration between Bethesda and Valve. The mod is a relatively small one, bringing Portal 2’s neurotic space-centric Space Core to Tamriel in literal fashion. You’re free to keep the nigh-indestructable Space Core with you to listen to its amusing specific banter, and there’s even an option to use it to craft an awesome Dovahcore helmet. Don’t worry – no Space Cores will be harmed in the process.
There’s never been a better time to play Skyrim – so get out there, download some mods and the HD texture pack, and enjoy the brilliance that is 2011’s game of the year. Have fun!
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This article was written by William Judd, a freelance copywriter and tech journalist. William writes for MobileFun.co.uk, the UK’s leading online retailer of Skylanders merchandise, including the Skylanders Dragon’s Peak Adventure Pack.