The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition (free if you own the Legendary Edition)

Does Skyrim + all DLCs count as legendary edition? I bought all the DLCs before Legendary edition became a thing.
 
Yes. They state "If you own Skyrim and all its add-ons". Also if you look on Steam and you own everything and try to buy the legendary edition, it won't let you as you own everything in the bundle.
 
I don't own any of the add-ons so it looks like I'll buy them during the next Steam sale...will be cheaper then having to buy the Special Edition for full price on release
 
I passed up the legendary edition a few times when it was down below $14. It hit $9.99 last year and I missed that sale as well. Wonder if anyone is going to put it on sale now since they've announced this free upgrade.
 
Sp33dFr33k said:
I passed up the legendary edition a few times when it was down below $14. It hit $9.99 last year and I missed that sale as well. Wonder if anyone is going to put it on sale now since they've announced this free upgrade.
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I have a creeping suspicion this is near guaranteed
 
I hope they'll fix the issue where the game becomes cranky when it's running above 60 fps
 
chaikovski2002 said:
What is the point of this? You can REMASTER Skyrim with MODS?
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IMO they just took some mods that already existed and put them in the base version of the game, rewrap and resell (mostly to the console community).

If you own the game on the PC this is more or less pointless, no?
 
Not really looking forward to this because I suspect it will break ALL existing mods.
 
MavericK said:
Not really looking forward to this because I suspect it will break ALL existing mods.
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I doubt it, considering that some Skyrim mods work basically out of the box on FO4. This is still using the same engine and scripting system. It should be minimally disruptive to the game from a modding standpoint. Obviously anything that affects new assets or other things added in the Special Edition will need an update but I think a lot of the mods the community relies upon will still work.
 
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I think some folks are going to be confused at the true nature of this release...

Lets start by boiling it down to what it is: Skyrim that has been ported over to the Fallout 4 version of the Creation Engine. Just seeing the lighting is a dead giveaway, but I don't anticipate that engine change is at all a surprise to anyone.

Surface benefits? It'll increase the visual fidelity of the game thanks to a more capable engine, which is thanks to more capable consoles that can run it. Whether or not all the textures have actually been "remastered" or if it simply is now shipping with the same "HD Texture Pack" that had been available to PC for a long time, but I suspect it'll be a bit of both where that texture pack was further enhanced.

Core benefits? All the aforementioned is, in my opinion, just side-benefits to the true reason they've done this. What is that? It's simple really... Bethesda is now able to deliver on an original promise (well, more of a vocalized desire/wish) which was to provide the 360 and PS3 the ability to run mods! The groundwork for that had already been done with Fallout 4, and these two games share a more or less same engine, so I can only imagine the amount of work it took to port things over was "pennies on the dollar".

Intended audience? I think it's clear now, that it's a product intended for the X1 and PS4, not PC. As mentioned, we've had modding abilities to provide us with pretty much all the eyecandy that has been injected into this Remastered Skyrim, and there's not too much draw to get it for anyone already in possession of it.

How does Bethesda offer any sort of allure to previous owners of the PC version, that will still provide them with some income? Well they did it already, by quietly announcing* on Steam that if you own everything, this is nothing more than a glorified patch for us. It's quite likely most folk who live and breath TES will have all those DLCs already, so meh for Bethesda and really isn't much more than a "Thank you!". However, there are some folks who don't have all the DLC for one reason or another (myself for example, as I live in a rural area with only cellular """broadband""" that is not only slow, but capped per month), and instead of having to pay $40-60 for this Remastered Edition, you can simply pick up the remaining DLCs to complete your eligibility!

Is it likely those 3 DLC will go on sale between now and October 28? I think it's pretty safe to assume it will, but whether or not it'll be as cheap as before is in question. Personally, I needed both Dawnguard and Dragonborn, which are $20 each... I figured I might as well just pick it up in October to get it on physical media to save the download, but I considered the likelihood of that venture and concluded Bethesda likely won't do that (note: I don't know how the Legendary Edition is handled, if it's a 2-disc game, or Skyrim with just DLC codes included, but I'm assuming the latter.) So... I went to one of the reputable Grey-Market sites and grabbed the "3 DLC Pack" for $12.50, instead of paying $40 or waiting until they go on sale :p (not sure how people feel about those sites, or the forum rules, so I'll leave the links out of this post)

At any rate, my friend feels they are doing this because of how much of a market that Skyrim has created, that it's so popular that "Skyrim" is more of a brand name compared to The Elder Scrolls. Doing this is simply marketing related for them, that it's about the Remastering and availability on current-gen consoles. Personally I feel it's primarily about being able to give console gamers the ability to mod Skyrim. It's a matter of "this is so easy, we'd be fools NOT to do it, because look how well the news to give consoles mod support has been received!", and to be honest it has indeed been well received. I actually wouldn't be too surprised if this was a decision made within the last couple months and is why it's not going to be released until the end of October. A point that same friend made is that it'd have been a lot smarter to release it on Nov 11, which I totally agree on, but oh well :)

That's my 2cents worth.
 
It's a nice gesture. Good for them. For people that already bought it I think it's super cool that isn't going to cost anything extra. Everyone wins. :)
 
Oh two points I forgot to comment on hah First was another of the reasons my friend felt Skyrim was picked to remaster vs Oblivion, which we both would've really loved to see. That's what she felt was why Skyrim was picked due to the market recognition, and why I felt it was because of ease of portability to the updated engine and gaining a mod system with it.

Also I had added a * after "quietly announcing" and that it had been on Steam. I feel they did this, instead of at the show, because it would've no doubt upset console version owners and seemed unfair. Even I feel they should be given at least SOME discount, be it half-off or only 25% off. I know it's new hardware but fact remains they're really only moving over assets, not updating an engine to function on said new hardware.
 
Do you guys think this will replace the legendary edition in the store? or will it be a different "title" and come in in its own place in the store and its own price?
 
DF-1 said:
Do you guys think this will replace the legendary edition in the store? or will it be a different "title" and come in in its own place in the store and its own price?
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Would expect a full replacement on Steam, just like Deus Ex HR Director's Cut replaced the original completely on Steam. If you own the non-DC, you can still get it but it's invisible in the store to anyone else.
 
They're probably making a PC version simply because people would complain if they didn't. I have the normal 'ol version of Skyrim and probably won't bother (I've done all I wanted to do), but I appreciate the gesture.
 
I would be surprised if they would throw out 5 years of mod work by not allowing some type of compatibility or easy conversion between existing mods and Skyrim SE. Most of the work was done years ago and people have moved on.

Regarding the Legendary upgrade, if it's $40 does that mean Skyrim SE will also be $40? I can't imagine them giving away a free $60 game if you buy a $40 game.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
What is the point of this? You can REMASTER Skyrim with MODS?
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Few big things:

1) Professionally updated, cohesive, graphics. While there are some damn good mods out there, there are also some not so good mods out there. Some really have trouble with fitting in the artistic style of the game. This should all look both better and cohesive, and as such be a great starting point for further improvements.

2) More memory for mods. They say they are using the newest version of Creation Engine used for Fallout 4 which is 64-bit. So more mods should be able to be loaded up without it shitting itself. A big issue with huge Skyrim graphical mods was just hitting in to the memory limits of a 32-bit program. This should remove that.

3) DX11 rendering. Again, from the newer engine. You really can't do everything in an older you can in a newer one. Particularly when you are talking about the DX9/10 divide. The new, more powerful unified shaders mean you can do things that were either too computationally expensive or simply falt out impossible in DX9.


So no, this isn't some amazing new game release... but then they aren't selling it as such. It is an improvement, one you get for free if you already own all the content it has.
 
I think the biggest thing is return of PAID MODS for Skyrim and Fallout 4, not through Steam or Valve but through the game itself and through Bethesda's Business Model. Get ready for it! See the new MODS option in your main menu in Fallout 4? Thats what its there for!
 
chaikovski2002 said:
I think the biggest thing is return of PAID MODS for Skyrim and Fallout 4, not through Steam or Valve but through the game itself and through Bethesda's Business Model. Get ready for it! See the new MODS option in your main menu in Fallout 4? Thats what its there for!
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The FO4 TOS explicitly prevents the sale of or the receipt of monetary compensation for FO4 mods and Bethesda did a huge amount of backtracking over this last time, and admitted they were unable to solve some of the problems inherent in selling mods like this. There was already all of this FUD months ago when the Mods item showed up in the FO4 menu and it turned out to be nothing, just the hooks for first-party free mod support.

Do you have something new to add to this discussion or are you just interested in stirring the pot?
 
And now, the real reason for the Special Edition has become apparent: Elder Scrolls 6 is not coming for a very long time. Translate "it's just going to take technology and time we don't necessarily have right now" however you want, but I'll take it as they want to finally build a new engine from scratch, which means they're going to have to learn to code again. It's been 5 years since Skyrim came out, and I think this means it'll be at least another 5 years before ES6 comes out. The Special Edition is just to keep the market from completely forgetting this franchise exists.
 
evilsofa said:
And now, the real reason for the Special Edition has become apparent: Elder Scrolls 6 is not coming for a very long time. Translate "it's just going to take technology and time we don't necessarily have right now" however you want, but I'll take it as they want to finally build a new engine from scratch, which means they're going to have to learn to code again. It's been 5 years since Skyrim came out, and I think this means it'll be at least another 5 years before ES6 comes out. The Special Edition is just to keep the market from completely forgetting this franchise exists.
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If that's the case, I think it will be worth the wait. They're probably referring to consoles in saying the technology isn't there right now...
 
I think this is great, but is the FO4 really that much "prettier" than Skyrims? I prefer the look of Skyrim with 4k texture mods to FO4 graphics. It seems more real, I get a more cartoon-ish vibe from FO4 for some reason. Mod scene will definitely be interesting.
 
evilsofa said:
And now, the real reason for the Special Edition has become apparent: Elder Scrolls 6 is not coming for a very long time. Translate "it's just going to take technology and time we don't necessarily have right now" however you want, but I'll take it as they want to finally build a new engine from scratch, which means they're going to have to learn to code again. It's been 5 years since Skyrim came out, and I think this means it'll be at least another 5 years before ES6 comes out. The Special Edition is just to keep the market from completely forgetting this franchise exists.
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I wasn't expecting ES6 for awhile but then I looked at the release date for Skyrim and it was 2011...so ES6 should be a year or 2 away based upon the past Scrolls games...doesn't feel like 5 years since Skyrim...looks like Bethesda wants to try something new though before going back to it
 
HeavensCloud said:
I think this is great, but is the FO4 really that much "prettier" than Skyrims? I prefer the look of Skyrim with 4k texture mods to FO4 graphics. It seems more real, I get a more cartoon-ish vibe from FO4 for some reason. Mod scene will definitely be interesting.
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Looking at the trailer they're keeping the same aesthetic in model design and texture usage. The engine is just being updated to take advantage of modern lighting techniques and expanded memory.
 
polonyc2 said:
I wasn't expecting ES6 for awhile but then I looked at the release date for Skyrim and it was 2011...so ES6 should be a year or 2 away based upon the past Scrolls games...doesn't feel like 5 years since Skyrim...looks like Bethesda wants to try something new though before going back to it
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Read again what they're saying about what they're doing. There was 5 years between Oblivion and Skyrim, and they've just told you that the team that works on Elder Scrolls isn't even working on ES6 yet. You won't be seeing ES6 until the 2020s.
 
evilsofa said:
And now, the real reason for the Special Edition has become apparent: Elder Scrolls 6 is not coming for a very long time. Translate "it's just going to take technology and time we don't necessarily have right now" however you want, but I'll take it as they want to finally build a new engine from scratch, which means they're going to have to learn to code again. It's been 5 years since Skyrim came out, and I think this means it'll be at least another 5 years before ES6 comes out. The Special Edition is just to keep the market from completely forgetting this franchise exists.
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Well that's fucking stupid.
 
Hopefully we don't run into the same situation we had with a HUGE gap between Daggerfall and Morrowind. I still remember them talking about the transition from DOS to Windows (and 3D) adding an additional couple years to the development cycle.
 
evilsofa said:
Read again what they're saying about what they're doing. There was 5 years between Oblivion and Skyrim, and they've just told you that the team that works on Elder Scrolls isn't even working on ES6 yet. You won't be seeing ES6 until the 2020s.
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my wording was confusing...I meant that I wasn't thinking about ES6 coming out anytime soon but then when I went back and looked at the release date of 2011 I was surprised it was that old...I'm glad Bethesda wants to work on other franchises besides Fallout and Elder Scrolls
 
Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines has confirmed that saves will transfer between vanilla Skyrim and Skyrim: Special Edition on PC...

 
polonyc2 said:
Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines has confirmed that saves will transfer between vanilla Skyrim and Skyrim: Special Edition on PC...
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He said "should", not "will", but that's probably true. It's not until you start removing mods that use scripts that saves go to hell.
 
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