Bethesda ‘Game Jam’ video shows us what could be coming to Skyrim

Bethesda’s Todd Howard was on stage at the 2012 DICE Summit, kicking off the summit with his “Why We Play, Why We Create” keynote. Howard shared some interesting statistics throughout the keynote, including the fact that Steam users, on average, log 75 hours in Skyrim.

As interesting a statistic as that is, that was hardly the most exciting thing Howard had to share. During the keynote, the developer shared the result of Bethesda’s annual “Game Jam”, where developers are allowed to create anything they want for one week on the company’s time.

This year, as the developer had just shipped Skyrim, the only stipulation was that the team must develop something within Skyrim — and what the team managed to come up with is pretty darn exciting.

To see it all for yourself, you can check out a clip from Howard’s keynote below, where he shows the results of the Skyrim “Game Jam”. Or, if you’d prefer, you can find a bullet point list of all the cool stuff the developers made directly below the video, courtesy of Game Informer.

As Howard points out himself in the video, keep in mind that the team doesn’t know if any of this stuff will ever see the light of day–it could be DLC, it could be release for free, or it may never be released at all. Still, it’s cool to see.

• Spears
• Seasonal Foliage
• Flow-based Water Shader
• Kill Cams for Magic and Ranged Combat
• Stealth enhancements such as water arose and Assassin’s Vision
• Guards can re-light darkened areas
• Paralysis Runes
• Dungeon enhancements like hanging structures and moving platforms
• Water currents in dungeons
• Dark dungeons
• New follower commands for combat style, training, distance, equipment, etc.
• Set favorites for followers
• Adoption
• Build you own home…complete with skeleton butler!
• Spell combinations! Flame + Raise Zombie = Conjure Flame Atronach, Fear + Healing = Drain Health
• Goblins
• High Level Draugr
• Waygate fast-travel
• Epic new mounts
• Mounted combat
• Dragon Mounts
• Soulbug Familiar
• Kinect Shouts
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
• Enhanced Underwater Visuals
• Snow Footprints
• Verlet surfaces for non-rigid objects…like the Fat Giant
• Ice & Fire Arrows
• Werebear!
• Lycanthropy Perk Tree
• Vampire Feeding
• Become a flying Vampire Lord
• Vampire imp minions
• Mudcrab animation tweaks