Bethesda reveals Skyrim dragon mounts, house-building, Kinect shouts, and more!

Update: Swapped in a better version of the video.

Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, gave the opening keynote at the 2012 DICE Summit this evening. Among his slides, he included a number of videos, one of which showed off what the developers refer to internally as the “Skyrim Game Jam.”

After the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim wrapped last year, the team was given a single week to throw whatever they wanted inside and mess around. The experiments ranged from humorous to “OMG why the F wasn’t that in the game?!” so it’s definitely worth a look.

Players have been requesting a dragon mount since before the game came out, and that (along with any other features seen in this video) may eventually become a reality, as Howard stated they all have the possibility of being released as paid downloadable content or in free updates.

A list of the internal mods:

• Seasonal foliage
• Flow-based water
• New weapon: spears
• Kill cams for magic and ranged combat
• New stealth options like water arrows and assassin view
• Guards can relight dark areas
• Paralysis traps
• Hanging structures and platforms in dungeons
• Water current in dungeons
• Dark dungeons
• New companion options and customization
• Build your own home
• Adoption
• Combine magic to create new spells
• Goblins
• Way Gate fast-travel
• New unique mounts
• Mounted combat
• Dragon mounts
• Soul Bug familiar
• Kinect-enabled shouts
• Footprints in snow
• Better animations for fabrics
• Ice and fire arrows
• Werebear
• Lycanthropy (werewolf) skill tree
• Become a flying Vampire Lord
• Vampire imp minions
• New Mudcrab animations (?)
• Giant Mudcrab enemy (!)