A new video from Bethesda Softworks is a new extended trailer for the behind the scenes documentary which is available in the collectors edition of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The documentary details never-before seen behind the scenes footage, along with interviews from the Bethesda crew, to take you from concept to sketch and creation. You’ll learn various different insights into the game and how the world was made.

The Elder: Scrolls V: Skyrim will be released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on November 11, 2011.

Developer: Id Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: October 4^th, 2011
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 [reviewed], and PC

“Your reputation is everything here. If people don’t know you, they don’t like you.”

Such is the motto set for your post-apocalyptic adventure after the impact of a galactic asteroid alters much of Earth’s landscape. You take the role of a recent escapee from the government’s last-ditch effort for post-disaster reclamation after the world is nearly wiped out. With that kind of motto, it’s pretty clear you’ll have to fight for every inch of territory to survive and progress.

Thus is the stage set for this story driven post-apocalyptic first person shooter developed in-house from the people who brought you Doom. id Software is back and sets a different tone with this release of Rage. As noted in the quote above, you won’t get anything handed to you; you have to work for it. This point hits home with the heavy focus on the RPG elements, which include resource collection, a rather robust craft system and coming with it a ridiculous amount of mini games and more side quests then you can count. All of this is expertly implemented in which most modern shooters these days normally save for the multiplayer. It gives itself it’s own identity and separates itself from the cluster of other shooters on the market.

The game is a fairly traditional shooter opting for more close quarter combat instead of open zones like Far Cry or Battlefield. There are wide-open areas that allow for exploration, however, you’re kidding yourself if you want to go far out to explore without getting over run by bandits. These areas are reserved for your vehicle, which you’ll earn as soon as you complete a couple of missions within the first act of the game. Rage’s lack of cover-based mechanics makes for an entertaining trip through the wasteland’s various locations and battles. The first act of Rage is rather exciting as you are introduced to the games dark atmosphere, characters and world around you. You will tend to become attached to the story but by the time the second act rolls around you’ll find its more filler just to see the ending.

When it comes to combat, it increases in difficulty as time moves on and you’ll encounter different enemy types and be forced to use different tactics to move forward. Your main weapons are an assault rifle, shotgun, and crossbow and finally as your side weapon a wing stick. The weapons you are given feel powerful enough and aren’t gimped by any means. They seem well balanced and each provides their own sense of unique firepower given your situation. The combat areas are littered with glowing objects waiting for you to pick up and if you have the given schematic you’ll be able to take control of the crafting system to make ammo, health packs or whatever you need on the go without having to buy it. Towards the later half of the game you’ll find that you’ll need more advanced ammunition to take on the tougher enemies.

When you encounter different people throughout the world the people are just there. They’re waiting for you to come up and hit that button to hear their pre-scripted dialogue for you to continue the story or move into the next side quest. There are no dialogue trees or deep conversational topics to help you understand the story on a deeper level. The shooting does feel like classic id as if you’re traveling back in time to the good old days. However, it doesn’t go further then that. Each new weapon you get doesn’t have much to do other then its unique feature. The loot you find around the world is what you’ll most likely end up using to sell to vendors to earn extra cash for ammunition/health in the long run. There are no weapons upgrades unfortunately, so those used to the idea in other shooters, will be disappointed in this respect. The vehicles you’ll receive weapons for so you can take on the bandits riding around and will also help when you’re competing in races. Speaking of which, while there was so much concentration on the single player part of the game, the multiplayer feels more like an afterthought.

Each player is fit into a room and you’ll level up according to experience you gain and you’ll compete in races using various vehicles you can customize. There are no standard multiplayer here folk, just a race. Finally, remember the game takes 8 GB of space and if your on PlayStation 3 like we are, the game will take about 15 minutes give or take to install because of the detail of textures, people and environments of the large world of Rage. Even after installation on the hdd, textures still pop in and out in city areas and after traveling through each new area. This is not to say that the game looks poor, the game looks great, and despite that load times are going to be long.

Bottom Line: This isn’t to say that Rage is a bad shooter by any means, it is certainly pretty at times, but that’s still not painting over the truth. Rage feels as if Id is holding a lot of ideas within Rage and for whatever reason, these ideas aren’t realized. However, what is here is a game that is more then likely worth a try if you’d like a different kind of shooter. Rage’s main campaign can easily be completed within an 8-10 hour window of free time.

In this video, the Resistance has heard rumors of an Ark surfacing in Jackal Valley, and they need you to search the site for a valuable data decrypter. Finding it won’t be easy as the valley is home to one of the Wastelands most brutal factions, the savage Jackal Clan.

Rage will release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on October 4, 2011. We are currently playing the title for review and will be posting it live on launch day for your convenience.

Bethesda Softworks today announced the voice cast for the highly anticipated new entry in the Elder Scrolls franchise. Skyrim will feature an ensemble cast of Academy Award nominees, including Christopher Plummer (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” “The Insider”), Max Von Sydow (“The Exorcist,” “Minority Report”), and Joan Allen (“The Contender,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”).

Christopher Plummer, a two-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Tony Award winner and Academy Award nominee, takes on the role of Arngeir, a powerful Greybeard elder. An order of philosopher monks who are masters of the Way of the Voice, the Greybeards live in silent isolation atop Skyrim’s largest mountain.

Academy Award nominee, Max Von Sydow, stars as Esbern, a chronicler and agent of the Blades who has survived in hiding. Long obsessed with the foretold return of the dragon Alduin, the World Eater, Esbern will teach you how to confront this epic evil.

Tony Award winner and three-time Academy Award nominee, Joan Allen, will be making her videogame debut as Delphine, one of the last remaining members of the Blades – an ancient warrior society once sworn to protect the Emperor. Like you, Delphine is trying to unravel the mystery of the dragons’ return.

In addition, iconic actress and singer, Lynda Carter (“Wonder Woman”), voices Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, one of the Nord heroes who overthrew the dragons in ancient times.

“It’s been incredible to have all these actors together,” said Todd Howard, Game Director. “When you start a project, you always make your wish-list of actors, and to actually hear them in the game, it’s amazing. We can’t wait for everyone to experience it.”

Skyrim’s cast also includes

·         Michael Hogan (“Battlestar Galactica”), who plays Imperial General Tullius, in charge of crushing the Stormcloak rebellion.

·         Vladimir Kulich (“The 13th Warrior,” “Smoking Aces”) portrays Hogan’s nemesis Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm and charismatic leader of the Stormcloaks, who aims to make Skyrim independent of the Empire.

·         Claudia Christian (“Babylon 5”) joins the cast as Legate Rikke, General Tullius’s chief lieutenant, a loyal Imperial officer as well as a Nord who firmly believes Skyrim must remain part of the Empire.

·         Diane Louise Salinger (“Carnivale”), Renee Victor (“Weeds”), and Saturday Night Live-alum George Coe (“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”) round out the star-studded cast of more than 70 different voice actors delivering over 60,000 lines of dialogue.

Look for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim launching on November 11, 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

The game will hit stores on October 4 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Check out the trailer below.

The new add-on will be available for download on September 20 for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live and $9.99 for PlayStation Network and Steam.

Bethesda released the minimum system requirements for the PC version of RAGE today. The game is definitely shaping up to be graphically impressive and will showcase the new id Tech 5 engine.

So, read on below to see if your PC will be able to handle Rage…Rage releases on October 7 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Mac/PC (via Steam).

Minimum:

• OS: Win XP SP3, Vista, Win 7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo or Equivalent AMD
• Memory: 2GB
• Hard Disk Space: 25GB
• Video Card: GeForce 8800, Radeon HD 4200

Recommended:

• OS: Win XP SP3, Vista, Win 7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad or Equivalent AMD
• Memory: 4GB
• Hard Disk Space: 25GB
• Video Card: GeForce 9800 GTX, ATI Radeon HD 5550

In the days where RPGs have been played on multiple discs, much like BioWare’s Mass Effect series, Bethesda mentioned to one curious reporter about the size of the newest release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Some games this year on Xbox 360 have moved from 2 discs to even three discs (LA Noire). With the large world, characters and environment you would come to think that Skyrim would need more then one disc, however, it just needs one. This confirmation comes from the games Art Director, Matt Carofano. So, it looks like you can look forward to staying on the couch all those long hours battling dragons and not have to worry about exchanging discs.

[ripten/Destrcutoid]

Bethesda Softworks announced that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Anniversary Edition will be available in North America July 12th. The anniversary edition will retail for an MSRP of $29.99 and contains the original award winning game plus the Knights of the Nine® and Shivering Isles® expansion packs.

This North American edition also includes; Collectors Steelbook, Making of Oblivion, Oblivion Game Map, and a $10 mail-in rebate to save on the purchase price. So essentially you could only be paying $19.99 for the game which will release on Xbox 360, PC and Playstation 3. Contents for the Anniversary Edition for other countries will be revealed soon.

Seeing as you’ve all been good boys and girls this year, E3 has delivered a gameplay video from Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim already. We won’t spoil the video for you, but expect to see monsters, dragons and wide open spaces. We’re incredibly excited for this and we hope you are too. Enjoy!

Next up, shortly after the official announcement of the game, Bethesda has given us the first teaser trailer for the upcoming sequel, Prey 2. The trailer unfortunately doesn’t reveal any gameplay and is a new twist in film making. It presents itself as a live action trailer shot in “found footage” style.

While, there isn’t any gameplay the trailer definitely has my keen eye interested and we should definitely be hearing more news about the game as E3 approaches in June. The game will be releasing next year on major consoles.

Bethesda has today announced that Prey 2 is coming to the 360, PS3 and PC. The game will be released in 2012, and is currently in development over at Human Head Studios. They’re the same team that created Prey, and this time round they’re using the id tech engine.

“We are thrilled to be working with Bethesda on Prey 2,” said project lead Chris Rhinehart. “Prey 2 will provide gamers the opportunity to explore a new facet of the Prey universe, one that offers fast-paced action in an open, alien world. We’re excited to show gamers the title we have been working on and hope they will be as excited by this title as we are.”

Bethesda has confirmed that the first DLC pack for Fallout: New Vegas will be released on the PS3 and PC on Tuesday, 22nd February. Dead Money was previously exclusive to the Xbox 360. However, the more important news is that there will be three brand new DLC packs in the coming months.

They will all launch simultaneously on the 360, PS3 and PC. Our Bethesda PR contact didn’t have much to say on the newly confirmed DLC, but apparently they will “have details to share with you on all of those soon”. Intriguing.

Bethesda has redesigned the Elder Scrolls series’ menus for Skyrim to streamline the interface and apparently make something Apple would be proud of (closed off and controlled then). “You know in iTunes when you look at all your music you get to flip through it and look at the covers and it becomes tangible? One of our goals was, ‘What if Apple made a fantasy game? How would this look?’ It’s very good at getting through lots of data quickly, which is always a struggle with our stuff,” Skyrim boss Todd Howard said.

Skyrim has a compass menu with just four options. If you press your right button, you will bring up the inventory. Skyrim’s inventory has fully-rendered 3D objects and their respective descriptions. If you press left, it will take you to magical items. This is where you can locate your spells and something about what they do.

What’s interesting with all this is that Bethesda has got rid of the eight-item limit about what can be assigned to the d-pad and have replaced it with a favourites system. With this, you can bookmark as many spells and items as you want. Your favourites will be listed alphabetically.

If you press up, you will see a starry sky that controls hero development. Characters don’t have classes in Skyrim, but the game groups the skills into three key types: thief, warrior and mage. There are six main skills within each of them. Nebulae represent classes and constellations represent skills in this sky. The corresponding stars light up when each of the 18 skills are improved and perks are added to them when you level up.

Finally, if you press down you will access a zoomed out map. You can do all the things you would expect with it, including exploring the world, managing quests, planning routes and partaking in a bit of fast travel.

id Software and Bethesda have announced that QuakeCon 2011 will take place on August 4th-7th 2011 at the Hillton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. QuakeCon will once again host North America’s largest bring your own computer LAN party with thousands of gamers hooking up their systems to play against world class opposition apparently. Also expect hardware and software showcases from other companies as well as contests, entertainment, announcements, panels and parties.

Bethesda has slapped some release dates on their 2011 releases. Splash Damage’s Brink will be released in the US on May 17th and in Europe on May 20th. Hunted will be released in the US on June 1sy and in Europe on June 3rd. RAGE will be released in the US on September 13th in Europe September 16th. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be released on November 11th worldwide, but we already knew that thanks to the announcement trailer confirming it.

“We are thrilled to offer our fans such a strong roster of games,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “We are excited to present such a diverse line-up of high quality titles. 2011 will be a great year for gamers.”

The Interplay vs. Bethesda legal battle continues to rage on today, with Interplay coming out saying that the IP sale could be cancelled if they are blocked from making Fallout Online. Interplay president Eric Caen said: “We sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda in exchange for a certain amount of cash and the right to do the Fallout MMO. If they refuse to let us do the game, then the sale of the IP is terminated, and they will be allowed to do only one more Fallout, 5”.

The actual deal was that Interplay had to start work on the Fallout MMO by a certain time period, which Bethesda feels they didn’t. Interplay only started work on the MMO after Fallout 3 became a success and they wanted to cash in on that. Caen considers Fallout: New Vegas as the fourth game in the series.

“The original licensing deal was for three games and their DLC,” Caen went on to say. “So they already did Fallout 3, then Fallout: New Vegas, and they can only do one more Fallout, 5, if the sale of the IP is cancelled by the court. We will love if we have to do Fallout 6 and sequels. But we will see what happens in court. It can be this year or later… We have the back-up of our shareholders to fund this fight.”

Bethesda brought the rights to the Fallout franchise from Interplay in 2004 for $5.75 million. It licensed the online rights back to the publisher before starting development on Fallout 3. Today’s argument started after Bethesda’s VP or PR Pete Hines claimed that “We own the rights to the MMO. We own the rights to everything Fallout. The licence is ours. Fallout belongs to us.”

Going by the deal outlined above, he’s absolutely right and Interplay’s meddling is a result of them trying to cash in on the series’ newfound success. However, it appears that the contract could’ve been poorly worded and therefore interpreted differently by the different parties. Regardless, this is getting petty already and the real legal mud-slinging hasn’t even begun yet. We’re surprised Bethesda’s owners (ZeniMax Media) haven’t just waded in and brought Interplay. They have enough money in the bank, and it would be an effective way to stop this PR nightmare.

The hard-working folks at NeoGAF have got their hands on a copy of the latest Game Informer and have thankfully shared a load of new info from the article about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The craziest new thing is that the game will have a perks system, similar to that in Fallout 3/New Vegas. You will be able to gain a new perk, as well as pick boosts for your stamina, health and magic every time you level up. Moreover, there will no longer be a class selection system at the start of the game. Instead, every skill you level contributes to your overall level. The level cap is now at 50. From then on, you will just advance slowly.

On the skill side, Mysticism is now gone. There are now 18 skills, which is down from 21 on Oblivion and 27 on Morrowind. Players that want to do certain professions will have that freedom, but there is a lot of room for players to try a bit of everything.

Story-wise, the game is set 200 years after Oblivion in Skyrim. It’s a region north of the Imperial City, where the Nords live. The dragons are returning and you are tasked with stopping the dragon god before things get a bit wobbly. You will be playing as a dragon hunter (dragonborn). Amongst all this, there is a civil war going on thanks to the king choosing an inopportune moment to die. Expect enemies to include yetis, spiders, dragons and other nasties. There will be five massive cities and more variations in caves and underground passages.

Combat seems to have changed too, with dual-wielding now included. You can do it Bioshock 2 style with magic and a weapon or 2 weapons. You can also assign a weapon and a shield to your hands too. Sprinting has also been implemented, which uses up stamina. Moreover, the third person view has been improved.

On the quest front, they appear to be more dynamic now. They can change depending on how you build your character apparently. Bethesda provided an example of this: if you’re a magic user, some mage may approach you that wouldn’t have if you were just a melee character. Additionally, the quests can be modified by how you have played. For example, the location of a rescue mission can be changed by which locations you have already visited. The game will try to give you a dungeon you haven’t been to.

Other new pieces include the option for no HUD. Conversations aren’t a zoomed in static shot anymore, with people now reacting much more realistically. They will go about their business whilst looking at you occasionally when they talk to you now. You can also create some weapons out of hot metal at a forge too. Also, you can duel any NPC on the streets in a western style. If you kill a shopkeeper, their family will inherit the shop and will react angrily to you.

id Software has reminded us that their first ever game is now 20 years old. That title was the good old-school side-scroller Commander Keen. It was released on 14th December 1990, a whole two months before id Software was officially founded.

“My childhood was pretty much made up of Mario games on the console, and Commander Keen on the PC,” said id Software’s Mike Rubits.

“I was only three years old when the game was originally released, but I still must have played the first level in each game hundreds of times, not being talented enough to get much further. I didn’t even realise until well after DOOM that the same people were responsible for both games; I just knew that I spent far too much time on both.”

id’s Shawn Casey contributed: “I remember always being jealous of the NES crowd because they had a cool platformer, and it wasn’t until Commander Keen came out that I could finally enjoy my own platformer on the PC. Playing it with the Gravis gamepad was a blast, even with a snapped off stick.”

Bethesda has announced that Quake Arena Arcade will be released on the Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday (15th December). Expect HD and Widescreen support, a new Single Player campaign, thirty classic maps and twelve Xbox-exclusive maps. You will be able to take on fifteen of your friends in six modes over Live, including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Harvester.