Skyrim: new gameplay video

A new 7 minute video of Skyrim gameplay has emerged. Huzzah! The video and some interesting observations are below, so if you’re wanting to minimise spoilers you should probably stop reading now.

The video is on the Xbox 360.

The third person protagonist seems to have more fluent movement, making that style of play (as opposed to the first person default) a real option rather than a slightly clunky poor relation.

The video also showed the combination of two identical spells (one per hand), which yields a more potent result together than singly. Staves are shown to be one-handed, so you can have a staff in one hand and a blade in the other.

Giants herding woolly mammoths (peaceful, unless you try murdering them) and a number of dragon fights are shown. The dragons look fantastic, and are dynamic in the world, attacking not only the player but other NPCs as well. Dragons are included throughout the game (not right at the beginning, but thereafter). Sometimes multiple dragons must be fought at once.

Landscapes included in the video are an alpine forest area, a snowy mountain and tundra. There will be seven major regions of climatic difference.

Todd Howard stated that the game has at least 300 hours in it. I suspect blogging may be light in November.

Main factions are:

College of Winterhold, for mages

Companions, for warriors

Thieves Guild

Although not in the video I’ve read elsewhere that the Dark Brotherhood make a return. I certainly hope so, as those quests were the best in Oblivion, in my opinion.

More than 150 dungeons confirmed as being in the game.

So, lots of nice footage and juicy info. I’ll leave you with a new screenshot, of a giant herding mammoths (naturally, it’s owned by Bethesda Softworks).

Thaddeus