Whereas a lot of players are largely done with remasters of older games on the whole, there are some titles that seem to be exempt from that treatment. These are games from the previous generation that were so good and so vastly influential, that players can’t turn down the opportunity to play enhanced versions of them. And indeed, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was one such game- it was a title that people had been expecting a remaster for for quite a while, and when it was finally announced, there was jubilation instead of cynicism.
Of course, remasters are usually not Bethesda’s thing- not for their own in house games, anyway, which have never been modernized for newer systems. So why did Bethesda decide to remaster Skyrim? Yes, it remains their most successful game ever, but what specific reasoning prompted Bethesda to bring the game back?
In an interview with The Telegraph, Bethesda’s Todd Howard revealed that one big reasons was mods, and the team’s desire to bring them to consoles.
“As far as coming back to Skyrim, the mods were a big part of it,” Howard said. “Particularly on the PC, it still gets up into the top 10 Steam games and I think that’s because of mods. So that was one of the reasons we really wanted to have modding for Skyrim on the consoles. And I think the modding really builds into ‘you’re going to make this world your own.’”
Which is as good a reason as any to bring the game back- and even those who aren’t interested in modding Skyrim will get the chance to play it again, but better than ever before. Win win for everybody.