Bethesda finally opens up Skyrim’s massive world

There are more than 300 books embedded in the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That’s an astonishing thing, considering this is just a video game. Then again, this is a fantasy role-playing game, so there’s no such thing as having too much detail in the universe.

But it’s a reminder that the developers at Bethesda Game Studios, which has been working on and off on this title for part of the past five years, see their job as creating an entire world — a full-blown fictional universe. In that context, the number of real books embedded in the game seems too small. It is a reminder that some video game creators are building huge epics, not just simple stories wrapped around game mechanics.

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“We’re trying to make this a great fantasy world, and the details really bring it home,” said Howard.

The books are just one more detail that makes Skyrim stand out as one of the most anticipated video games of the year, particularly for fans of the fantasy role-playing game genre. The game comes from a seasoned team that did earlier Elder Scrolls games Oblivion and Morrowind, as well as Fallout 3. It is a good example of what happens when you double down on game quality and take a long time to bring a big game together.

Todd Howard, head of the project at Bethesda Game Studios (which is owned by Bethesda Softworks), said that the company rewrote the entire game, from the graphics engine to the user interface for this fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series. There’s a new quest system and all sorts of other things. So much has been redone that it was like creating a new game from scratch.

The game takes place in Skyrim, the northern-most province in the fictional world. The game takes place 200 years after the events of the fourth Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion.

You can customize your character, playing in the third person or the first-person point of view. You can wield weapons in either hand and learn all sorts of spells to defeat your enemies.

A god named Alduin has taken the form of a massive dragon and threatens the world. Your character, the last of the Dragonborn, can speak the language of dragons and use their power against them. In Skyrim, the dragons have returned and that is a mystery. You must try to defeat the dragon and save Skyrim.

Everything about the environment is believable. The snow-capped mountains are sometimes sunny, thanks to a full climate simulation in the game. The world is as sophisticated as J.R.R. Tolkien’s full Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“We want to bring a lot more life to the cities, not only in looks but in game play,” Howard said. “You’d be surprised how much we obsess over flowers and all the little things.”

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Of course, the big deal is about fighting a big dragon. You can fight little ones for practice, and then finally take on a giant flying beast. The animations, sounds, and music all make the feeling of fighting a terrifying winged beast seem all the more real.

Skyrim will be released on Nov. 11. And as for those 300 books in the game, you can read them all.