SKYRIM: SPECIAL EDITION
With PS4 under siege from dozens of remasters, many months back we decided against clogging up your issues with rereviews of the games you already know and love, albeit in slightly prettier form. It’s why we haven’t rescored the likes of The Bioshock Collection, or Batman: Return To Arkham, or the 86th rerelease of Resident Evil 4. But as the saying goes, rules are made to be broken – and it’s only fitting that we do so for a game that (let’s be honest now) knows a thing or two about being busted.
Skyrim returns to PlayStation somewhat overencumbered with baggage. From the infamous PS3 caching issue that rendered the game totally unplayable in 2011, which resulted in a veritable bruising in OPM’s original review before critical patches fixed the issue and we upped the score to 10/10, to the recent will-it-won’t-it-will-it mod debacle on PS4, there are a lot of brambles surrounding the Special Edition. But slice straight through those (might I suggest Nettlebane?) and one thing stands out: even five years on from its first release, Skyrim remains sublime. Only The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can claim to be its equal.
So long as you’re not expecting to pick up from your old save (you can’t), returning PlayStation players are in for a treat. Once you’re past the opening, that is. Yep, the scripted start still showcases The Elder Scrolls V at its stilted, ugliest worst, yet once it’s over and you’re free to begin your adventure, it’s really not hard to pinpoint the “special” in this Special Edition.
SCROLL MODELS
Everything looks vastly better. And I do mean vastly. PS4 is pretty much pumping out the top-end PC game from five years ago, and while its age means that Skyrim’s visuals are no longer as impressive as they once were and can’t hold a candle to the likes of Uncharted 4, there’s still beauty in this world. It’s especially noticeable outside, where Bethesda’s added in extra detail to ensure foliage is denser and there’s more grass. Combined with volumetric lighting effects your PS3 would have yellow-lighted over had you even mentioned the tech in its presence, it means Skyrim’s world now feels truly alive.
It’s also far more stable. There are still bugs, but lengthy loading times have been largely eradicated and framerate dips are rare. I’ve certainly not met anything close to gamewrecking; the instances of trying to figure workarounds to bypass problems are mercifully not present on PS4.
The only slight issue worth flagging up is that the bundled Dawnguard DLC encroaches on your journey by unleashing vampire attacks on settlements as early as level eight. This
“FIVE YEARS ON AND ONLY THE WITCHER 3 CAN CLAIM TO BE SKYRIM’S EQUAL.”
wasn’t a problem back when we’d finished the game before Dawnguard was released on PS3, but now the toothy town tussles can wipe out NPCs far earlier than ideal. Luckily, there’s a mod to fix that…
MOD ONE OUT
User-generated modifications are, of course, the headline act in Skyrim: Special Edition. You’ll have to surrender your trophy unlocks to mod your game, but if you’re prepared to do that then there’s a fun collection of add-ons to install.
As well as the aforementioned vamp-attack-smashing mod there are plugins that give you dramatically higher encumbrance stats (how does one million sound?), AI tweaks that make wild animals less aggressive, new hardcore difficulty levels, additional world signposts, new spells, extra visual effects, lore-based loading screens, entire new buildings… the list goes on.
But not nearly enough. Mods are quite literally a game-changer, and having them on PS4 is incredible, yet Sony’s small file size cap (1Gb versus Xbox’s 5Gb) and ban on external asset uploads means that we’re stuck with a severely restricted batch compared with the veritable treasure trove of changes available elsewhere.
It’s a maddening move that’s hard to reconcile, and even though Skyrim on PS4 technically outperforms the Xbox version in certain areas, it’s impossible to shake the feeling we’ve got the weakest edition as a result. Thankfully, the base game itself remains as utterly essential as always.
VERDICT
Five years on and Skyrim’s quality still stands head and shoulders above all RPGs not named The Witcher 3. It’s well worth a revisit, even if the mod support is sorely lacking versus other formats. Matthew Pellett