‘Skyrim’ Reboot And Updates For ‘Fallout’ Titles Revealed At E3

The Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) kicked off on Sunday with Bethesda announcing a Skyrim reboot, as well as big updates and downloadable content (DLC) for its Fallout titles.

Bethesda has been putting a lot of time into making Fallout 4 more customizable for players. It started with the Automatron add-on, which not only brought new missions for the player to battle The Mechanist and his evil robots but also added a feature that allows players to build and customize their own robots.

Then the company released the Wasteland Workshop. This DLC gave players the ability to make traps to capture creatures and tame them to fight on the player’s behalf or kill each other in arena-like battles. It also introduced design features that allow players further customization for their settlements.

At the E3 press conference on Sunday, Bethesda announced the upcoming release of the Contraptions and Vault-Tec Workshops DLC for Fallout 4.

The Contraptions Workshop will allow players to build crazy contraptions, reminiscent of Rube Goldberg machines. Balls traversing tracks can set off triggers that cause other chain reactions and so forth. The DLC also adds features such as elevators, fireworks, equipment racks, greenhouse kits, and other fully designable features that players can use to upgrade their settlements.

The Vault-Tec Workshop will allow players to build their own Vault-Tec vaults, complete with new barbershops and cosmetic surgery stations to customize the appearance of vault dwellers. It looks like this DLC will operate in a similar fashion as the Fallout Shelter game the company released for mobile devices, but with more depth. Once the player builds the vault, they attract dwellers to move in and then manage the operations of the vault like an overseer, including performing experiments on the inhabitants.

The E3 event also showed a teaser for a Nuka World DLC, which will add new missions to be set in a Nuka-Cola theme park.

The last Fallout announcement was that the mobile game Fallout Shelter would be receiving a significant update. According to Bethesda, Fallout Shelter has been downloaded and played by over 50 million people. The update will bring dweller quests, new locations, enemies, and characters, and an all-new combat system. The game is also being ported to the PC.

Arguably the most exciting E3 revelation that Bethesda had in store was that The Elder Scrolls V, more commonly known as Skyrim, will be receiving a PS4 and Xbox One reboot, titled The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition.

Skyrim is probably one of the most beloved titles in the Elder Scrolls franchise. Originally released in 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Skyrim won several awards, including Best RPG from VGX and the Kerrang! Best Video Game Award. Despite being 5-years-old, the game is still heavily played.

According to a Reddit post, “There are still 47,000 people playing this game [Skyrim] currently, which makes it in the top ten games of concurrent players,” which is astounding considering that it is not even a multiplayer game.

It was not indicated at the E3 event whether the Skyrim reboot would receive any new content. It appears to be a straight port to the current generation hardware, but Bethesda has a track record of going above and beyond, so it would not be surprising to see new official add-ons brought to the reboot as downloadable content.

Even if Bethesda does not release any new DLC for the reboot, it announced that the game would have access to player created mods, something that was previously only available on the PC version. This addition alone should extend the playability of Skyrim exponentially.

The E3 video of the Skyrim reboot shows incredible graphical improvements. The game will have fully remastered art and effects. Some of the graphical improvements include volumetric god rays, screen-space reflections, new snow and water shaders, and more.

Gamers should be quite excited about Bethesda’s E3 revelations. Unlike many E3 announcements, players do not have long to wait for Bethesda’s newest offerings. The Fallout 4 Contraptions Workshop is being released next week, on June 21. The Vault-Tec Workshop will follow in July, as will the Fallout Shelter update. The Nuka World DLC will be available in August. Finally, the Skyrim reboot is releasing on October 28, 2016.

[Image via Bethesda]