As many ambitious mods as we’ve seen for TES5 over the years, Beyond Skyrim remains the most improbably large – a massive expansion that would bring every nation of Tamriel to life. But even more improbable is the fact that development on the mod is continuing at a pace which suggests it might actually get finished someday. A new development diary – the first in a series – offers updates on the progress of all the pieces that make up this giant project.
The island of Roscrea is just about finished, and that team will soon move to refining the landscapes and honing in on the quests that will populate the isle. Cyrodiil isn’t quite so far along – it’s a much bigger region, after all – but the team is expanding and making progress with the help of assets from projects like Skyblivion and Enderal.
Iliac Bay – which contains Hammerfell and High Rock – now has three hours of original music, and other parts of the team are concepting and building new creatures and enemies for the region. Exteriors are mostly complete, and interior development is starting to begin. Atmora, the ancient Nord land to the north of Skyrim, has a handful of fully complete locations, and major quests have been implemented. This wasteland also has a custom weather system that’ll be showcased in the future.
The Khajiit homeland of Elsweyr is very early in development, but the first bits of the region’s steppes have been implemented, though with placeholder assets for now. Black Marsh is even earlier, as the Argonian lands currently exist only as a series of concept drawings.
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For most Elder Scrolls fans, the most exciting addition is Morrowind, and the landscapes of the mainland a progressing impressively. Writers are building a new set of quests to populate the area. Some sort of major new announcement on this part of the project will come early in the new year.
You can see the state of all these new additions for yourself in the video above, as brought to our attention by PC Gamer. More of these diaries are set to come in the future, and the insight they’re providing on the development of Beyond Skyrim is much appreciated.
