Bethesda’s most popular and famous game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has become known as a masterpiece of gaming over the years. Although the title isn’t without its inherent flaws, there are few people who haven’t got their hands on the game and tried it at least once. It’s all a testament to how well it was made.
Knowing just how big Skyrim has become, it’s no wonder its development is full of cool little details and insane stories about how certain aspects of the game came to be. It’s no easy task to make a game that can persist for ten years, certainly not without a few tales from behind the scenes.
10 The Dead Body Room
The dead body room was something that was only included in the Special Edition of Skyrim. It’s an area that players can access through console commands, and is most likely a place that developers possibly intended for curious players to find one day.
It’s essentially a green and purple stone dungeon with a pile of dead bodies at the center, a collection of just a few of the people the Dragonborn has slain during their adventure.
9 The Importance Of Green
The development of Skyrim started shortly after Fallout 3 was finished. It’s hard to imagine how some must have felt in Bethesda’s studios, transitioning from a post-nuclear apocalypse world into a vibrant medieval fantasy setting.
Developers have actually stated that this transition was widely anticipated and welcomed, since it was a nice change from designing bleak, post-nuclear worlds. The use of the color green in particular was something developers were excited for, as Skyrim’s graphics have more greenery.
8 A Real World Map
The open-world of Skyrim is one of its most impressive assets and the one thing that has made it so immensely popular among people. There’s just so much to see and experience and almost any mountain and cave can be accessed with enough determination.
However, building Skyrim from top to bottom was a long process. Developers actually had a giant map of the province on their office wall to help track which of the vast areas had already been completed and which ones were still work in progress.
7 The Toughest Sound In The Game
With a great, immersive game, sound design is absolutely crucial. It needs to feel believable and empowering, without coming across as fake. Sound designers had to walk a fine line to find the perfect balance between these two approaches.
One aspect, in particular, was difficult: magic. Some spells were difficult for designers to create a sound effect for and really had them scratching their heads. Overall, they did a fine job!
6 A Choir Of 90 Voices And 30 People
When players first start up Skyrim, they’re greeted by the song of the Dovahkiin blasting in the background of the start menu and getting them into the mood for a Viking-themed adventure across the northern province.
One would think it was a massive choir of people who sang this song, but in reality, only 30 members were included in the choir. The song was recorded multiple times and overlayed three times to give the illusion of a 90-member choir.
5 First Time For Level Designing
Those who are familiar with Oblivion will remember just how repetitive the game felt in multiple different ways. From voice acting to dungeons that looked nearly identical, there wasn’t that much variety overall to spice things up.
That’s because Oblivion didn’t have actual level designers working on it. For Skyrim, the team decided to ensure each dungeon was individually designed with a unique tale to tell, and it definitely shows in Skyrim.
4 A Language Written In Claws
The Thu’um might look like just random scribbles on the wall, but Todd Howard was very particular about how he wanted this language of the dragon race to look visually. Not only did it need to make sense linguistically, but it also had to appear as though a dragon had actually written it.
After designing dragons themselves and determining how many claws they had, the team tried to simulate how a dragon would write, and based the different words and symbols on the real physiology of dragons.
3 The Song Born In One Weekend
Back to the main theme of Skyrim, that song which everyone recognizes and has grown to love. This song was actually quite difficult to design since it’s sung in Thu’um rather than in any human language that fans would recognize.
That being said, the song is anything but gibberish. Emil Pagliarulo had to make sure the words would rhyme in Thu’um, make sense when translated in English, as well as sound good with the main theme of the series. Legend says he completed the task within one weekend using old recordings of Beowulf.
2 Dragons Inspired By Bats And Eagles
Many of the creatures of Skyrim received a lot of attention and detailed work, but none received as much effort as the dragons themselves. These were the main selling point of Skyrim as well, which is why developers knew they had to really nail them and make them feel frightening and powerful.
In order to create a realistic animation for dragons, developers went straight for the animal world. They studied bats and eagles for when dragons would be in the air, and lizards, and other reptiles for their movement on the ground.
1 Countless Of References
The development team of Skyrim was full of passionate individuals who were fans of other game series, movies, and shows that helped them get inspired for the creation of Skyrim. From Dungeons & Dragons to Minecraft, tons of other games influenced the birth of the game.
Even some movies saw references made in Skyrim, mainly Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, which may have inspired the frost troll cave found in the game.
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