Bethesda’s Fantasy Epic Turns Survival Thriller
Priding itself as a total rehash of the 5th Elder Scrolls: The Ultimate Skyrim mod is a major step-up in total immersion. Ultimate Skyrim changes just about everything – from how you’re first dropped into the Nordic homeland, to how you survive in the game’s lush wilderness (which looks even lusher with the addition of the mod’s total graphical overhaul), along with much more – essentially transforming Bethesda’s fantasy epic into a gripping survival thriller. Below is quick guide to the 10 biggest changes Ultimate Skyrim makes to an already epic RPG – just so you don’t get lost.
1. Choose Your Beginnings…
Ultimate Skyrim does away with Skyrim’s original, lengthy intro sequence.
Ultimate Skyrim does away with Skyrim’s ordinary 30 minutes plus intro. Every time you begin a game, it essentially rolls a dice for you – determining which race you are, what appearance you have, and in what situation you find yourself right at the start. A new playthrough could spawn you as a Redguard bandit – for example – with a bounty on your head, awakening in a hideout filled with villains and thieves.
2. Skyrim Turned Survival
Ultimate Skyrim’s combat system is far grittier – a fact largely inhibited by making each playthrough a one-life affair.
The Quicksave button will not help you now. Whereas in the vanilla game: you could instantly revert to a Save after having your head bashed in for the fifth time by a passing Frost Giant, Ultimate Skyrim introduces a strict zero-death policy. Skyrim basically becomes a survival thriller – as well as a fantasy epic – ramping up the stakes of every battle and encounter by potentially making each one your last. You’ll be scrounging to survive the harsh Nordic wastes, like a magical Bear Grylls.
3. It Gets Bigger…
Ultimate Skyrim brings miles of new landscape to scavenge and survive upon.
Ultimate Skyrim remoulds the map, adding entirely new segments of outdoor expanses, along with indoor locations such as stores and dungeons. It should be noted that the great outdoors has been remade, complementing the fact that you’ll have to find shelter and survive Skyrim’s hostile weather and wildlife.
4. A Whole New breed of Faction Warfare
Skyrim’s multi-factional conflict is made much more convincing, with factions seemingly pursuing their own agendas with free will.
Improving the ebb-and-flow of Skyrim’s faction behaviour is yet another way in which Ultimate Skyrim has improved immersion. Now, factions will roam the land – leaving their headquarters and hideouts to embark upon new conquests and achieve their aims. Skyrim’s multi-faction conflict is made much more convincing – as though it were an actual war.
5. Smarter Foes
New AI fight and behave according to their species and number.
Although you were presented with an impressive array of beasts, villains, and baddies in vanilla Skyrim: when it came to combat, each one would predictably drop whatever they were doing and charge you straight up in the same manner (barring mild differences in humanoid and animal NPC attacks). Now, AI behave differently depending on their species, the size of their pack (or whether they’re flying solo), and their faction. Animals will hunt for food – and attack you if threatened – while a squad of Thalmor or Bandits will take up formations, trying to deceive or outflank you, during a fight.
6. Brand New Quests
Belmont Boy's new take on Tamriel is littered with new NPCs, with unique quests and agendas.
Integrating them into your now more-real interactions with the world of Tamriel: a whole new set of quests are littered throughout Ultimate Skyrim. Of course, you’ll only even get a glimpse of them if you’re able to survive your randomly-generated intro encounter. Quests are made all-the-more intense by the added elements of survival.
7. New Skills
Ensuring you’re better geared up for survival, Ultimate Skyrim presents better exploration of various skill-trees with an assortment of brand-new perks.
Belmont Boy’s mod produces brand-new perks for each skill-tree, largely to suit the evolved combat and survival aspects of the overhaul. One new perk is Improved Blocking – which enables you to mitigate more damage to the enemy – while retaining more stamina – when making a successful block with shield.
8. Visual Enhancement…
Ultimate Skyrim decors the game in finer lighting, detail, and sound-effects.
To suit the gritty-realism of Ultimate Skyrim’s new deadly survival landscape, the graphics and lighting have both been altered – giving fine detail to character models, plant-life, gear, and much more. The lighting is also gifted with a more realistic edge – making things much moodier.
9. New Abilities…
One of the new Ultimate Skyrim-unique abilities is the option to identify enemies according to their stats and threat level.
Scaling things to suit the scope of Nirn’s supernatural-side, Ultimate Skyrim introduces a multitude of brand new abilities to be learned. The most noteworthy example being the ability to determine the threat levels and stats of various NPCs by viewing them in colour-code.
10.Economy
Belmont Boy’s mod gives Skyrim a living, breathing economy – with fluctuating prices in accordance with factors in the game world.
Ultimate Skyrim implements a more fluid economic system – completely unlike the static item vendors masquerading as Skyrim’s real economy in the vanilla game. Prices will vary vastly, depending on the location of the store or vendor.
From revamping Skyrim’s static economy entirely, to giving you just one life and an overbearing need to seek shelter and scrounge out a living across a frozen, wild landscape; Belmont Boy’s Ultimate Skyrim transforms the game into an entirely immersive thrilling survival narrative. It essentially revamps the core principles of the game – turning the fifth Elder Scrolls into an entirely unique and new game experience. We recommend that you give it a spin, if you’re stuck for ways in which to experience Skyrim anew.
Ultimate Skyrim - Introduction
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