News Bethesda reveals Skyrim Special Edition system requirements

Huh, looks like my current Pc disguised as a console may struggle then with an i5-5200 and 960GTX. Strange that the specs seem so high as I understand similar specs to mine is able to run Skyrim with the 2k texture mod at ultra

Out of curiosity, anyone know why the consoles need 2x the space to install as well?

"The Windows release of Skyrim Special Edition will be free for those who have already purchased the original Skyrim plus the Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn downloadable content (DLC) packs, as well as being sold separately for anyone who does not own the original. All versions are set to launch on October 28th."

I think thats just PC owners, console gamers will have to re-buy

 

My PC makes easy work of running Skyrim now, with the high-res texture dlc and a water mod, hopefully it will run Remastered well enough. (i5 3570k @4.5GHz, EVGA GTX 970 (factory OCed, boosts to 1362MHz))

 

I still don't quite see the point of this edition for the PC. It's basically normal Skyrim with some improved graphics, aye? So nothing that can't already be achieved on a PC with a few mods?

At least it'll be free for owners of the original plus DLC (and presumably that means the Legendary Edition?).

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what they have done and how it looks but, I also think it's a very poor substitute for getting-on with developing Elder Scrolls 6.

Presumably Zenimax don't want Bethesda releasing ES6, while they are still raking in money with the TESO cash shop and the graphics upgrade for Skyrim is supposed to appease those of us waiting for ES6.

 

I wonder if we can hope for fixed triplewide support, so the UI isn't totally hosed.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Shame, as Skyrim looks great in triplewide, it's just unplayable as soon as you need to do anything in the inventory.

 

Flawless Widescreen fixed Skyrim on 21:9 for me, SkyUI also goes a way towards fixing it.

As for why this was released; essentially because Bethesda more or less finished it while developing Fallout 4.

To explain: One of Bethesda's first actions when developing Fallout 4 was to port Skyrim to the next generation of consoles and see what they did when given that kind of code, then improving the engine from there for Fallout 4. Essentially; Skyrim on Ps4/Xbone existed before Fallout 4, so this was a case of updating the engine to the latest version used for Fallout 4, then going over and QA testing and bugfixing before release (I'm paraphrasing and simplifying here, I doubt it was as easy as plug 'n play, but probably not as horrible as F4 development, as the engine already existed at that point for that platform.)

Plus it gives people on newer consoles a much prettier version of Skyrim, which I don't see being an issue as Skyrim has proven itself to be a very long lasting title, add in mods, what of them will run on Xbone, and I can see it achieving multi-thousand hour playtimes on consoles. (I'm discounting PS4 mods with the glut of restrictions Sony have placed upon them.)

 

It won't be Bethesda without bugs :-D