Elder Scrolls fanatics all received some wonderful news as the creators of the incredibly popular fan-project Skyblivion released a cinematic trailer.
For those that aren’t familiar, Skyblivion is a mod that’s been in development for quite a while. It’s a volunteer-ran project of passionate video game players working to recreate the entirety of the fourth Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, inside of its sequel, Skyrim.
The result is the massive world of Oblivion’s Cyrodiil, complete with hundreds of quests and side-quests, dungeons, and every other detail – recreated in full within Skyrim’s superior graphics. It’s beautiful enough to bring a tear to the eyes of Elder Scrolls veterans and newcomers alike.
Most of all, it’s completely a passion project. Being worked on entirely by volunteers means that there’s no fear of a greedy corporation manipulating Skyblivion and its followers into a twisted money grab. TESRenewal, the modding group that heads the project, does the work out of a desire to spread the joy that gaming brings. In fact, Skyblivion will be completely free!
Once completed, the game will be completed modular, meaning that players will be able to pick and choose which facets of the mod they want to have installed. Installers will need to have all Skyrim and Oblivion DLC installed, as the mod is dependent on some of the assets within. These include Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine for Oblivion, and Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn for Skyrim. It’s a solid assumption that players into Elder Scrolls enough to know and care about Skyblivion likely already have these, though.
The journey of Skyblivion started back in 2012, gaining traction swiftly from the following that TESRenewal already had from projects such as Skywind, which sought to do the same thing for Morrowind, the third game in the Elder Scrolls series. Skywind has received a good amount of attention as well, and is worth the attention of Elder Scrolls fanatics.
Progress has always been slow, seeing as it can be difficult to find programmers and creators skilled enough to work on a video game while also being able to work for free. Best of all is the message in the video’s description:
“We are super excited to see all our hard work pay off, more importantly, though we are excited to show those who have supported us all this time what it has been for. It’s been a long ride but we are finally at a point where the end is almost in sight.”
While there’s no definite release date, knowing that the end of the wait is in sight is more than enough for now.
