Skyblivion Mod Offers New Progress Update Trailer
By Fergus O'Sullivan 06 December 2016
The new Skyblivion trailer shows off the hard work of the volunteer team behind it and will likely fuel the fires of impatience among Elder Scrolls fans.
Just in time for the new year, the Skyblivion team decided to give the world an idea of the progress they have made so far, and it’s looking good. The TES Renewal Project, the people behind the plan to port The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion into the engine of its successor Skyrim, has been hard at work and they are ready to give us a sneak peak at the fruits of their labor.
The Skyblivion project started back in March 2013 with the goal of moving the excellent story of the fourth Elder Scrolls installment away from its clunky 2006 graphics and into the brand-new packaging of the Creation engine, while also adding full voice acting support and even doing battle with some of Bethesda’s famous bugs. At the same time, other members of the all-volunteer team are also working on a similar endeavor, called Skywind, that means to do the same for the third game in the series, 2002’s Morrowind. Ambitious indeed, but they have something to show for it.
The trailer shows an Imperial Province that has come alive like it never did in the original game and is guaranteed to draw players in just as its neighbor to the North did. Fans will have to be patient for a while longer, as converting the 22 square miles of Oblivion’s map into the new engine is no easy feat. Since decade-old graphics can’t simply be copy-pasted, each element needs to be modeled by hand and so Cyrodiil is essentially being rebuilt from the ground up and with it, the entire game. Some impatience from the fans can be forgiven, though.
Skyblivion promises to be more than just a pretty face as its gameplay is also undergoing a major overhaul. Once TES Renewal is done, all that will be left of Oblivion will be the excellent story, in every other way it will play like a modded Skyrim. Each Elder Scrolls game plays a lot better than the one before thanks to small improvements and players will be able to roam around the games they remember so fondly with tools like interactive maps and easy-to-access menus. Swinging a sword has become a lot more fun over the years, too, so there’s that, as well.
Currently there is no release date for either Skyblivion or Skywind, meaning fans will have to make due with playing the recently released Skyrim Special Edition to get their Tamriel fix. The truly impatient, however, can speed up the process by volunteering with the TES Renewal Project.
Skyblivion currently has no release date.
