Skyrim Unreal Engine 5 Update Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary
It's safe to say, gaming graphics have come a long way in the past 10 years. There's a lot of love for the low-res graphics of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but with so many mods and upgrades out there, we doubt many of you are playing the fantasy favourite like it was originally intended.
Dragging Skyrim kicking and screaming into the next generation of gaming, someone has given the 2011 title a 2021 makeover with Unreal Engine 5. If you want to know what a Skyrim Unreal Engine 5 update looks like, it's a thing of beauty.
What Does The Skyrim Unreal Engine 5 Update Look Like?
The Skyrim Unreal Engine 5 update has been a labour of love from artist Chris. G, who has a penchant for recreating older Bethesda games for modern audiences. He's also done a pretty good job of making Fallout: New Vegas and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion look completely different in Unreal Engine 5.
On his Art Station, Chris. G wrote: "This is just a test I made over the last few days using some of my preexisting materials to see how well they would work with Unreal Engine 5 using nanite. All the assets were made very simply by creating primitives and using displacement maps to add the details. Most of the assets are a million plus tris and the tower itself is around 11 million.
"Having said that, the entire scene never went over 2 million tris in view at a time according to the nanite stats. The only assets not made by me are the landscape material used in the distance and the pine trees. Using DLSS quality mode I was able to get a solid 70ish fps with a few dips into the low 60s mainly when looking at the trees."
The Western Watchtower is only a minuscule part of Skyrim's seemingly never-ending world, so don't expect Chris. G to roll out a working demo of Blackreach or Sovngarde in the near future.
Is Skyrim Getting An Official Upgrade?
A glossy revamp that makes Skyrim Unreal Engine 5 a reality is all well and good, but what are the chances Bethesda will actually deliver one? We'd guess, not very bloody likely. Skyrim celebrates its milestone 10-year anniversary on November 11, but instead of a new-gen upgrade, we're getting the pretty lacklustre Skyrim Anniversary Edition.
Remasters are all the rage right now, and while Rockstar is doing what it can with the graphics of the GTA Trilogy, Bethesda is simply dishing out another collection that bumps up the price a bit. Yes, the Anniversary Edition will include missions relating to Morrowind and Oblivion, but at the end of the day, you're paying more to go fishing.
In terms of Skyrim coming to Unreal Engine 5, Bethesda has already confirmed the long-awaited Elder Scrolls 6 won't be using Epic's creation tool. Instead, the next chapter will follow in the footsteps of Starfield and use the Creation Engine 2. From what we've seen, it's a pretty souped-up looking piece of kit, so even though we probably won't be seeing Skyrim Unreal Engine 5, there's every chance the inevitable 20th-anniversary release will look suitably impressive.
