Bethesda announced today that its nearly decade-old open-world RPG hit, Skyrim, is once again being ported to consoles both old and new. This time the publisher is sprucing it up with fan-created content. It’s called Skyrim Anniversary Edition, and it’s coming out on November 11, 2021 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. Switch players, meanwhile, can go kick sand.
Yes, we’ve been buying, playing, rebuying, and replaying Skyrim ports for a decade, so at least Anniversary Edition will be offered to current owners of Skyrim Special Edition for free. Bethesda says this new port includes over 500 pieces of mostly user-made content from the Creation Club, including quests, dungeons, bosses, weapons, spells, and “more.” In Fallout 4 and earlier versions of Skyrim Special Edition, Creation Club content was a mix of small DLC made by Bethesda, other developers, and community members. Normally you have to buy most Creation Club content, so getting a pile of it with this new port should be nice.
Correction: August 20, 11:30 a.m. ET: The Anniversary Edition of the game won’t be offered to current Special Editions owners for free. Instead, a different, next-gen enhanced version of the game will be given to current and future Special Edition owners for free. Meanwhile, folks will be able to pay to upgrade their Special Editions to Anniversary Edition for a price that hasn’t been revealed yet. Is this confusing and weird? Yup!
As you might expect, this new version of Skyrim will include all previously released DLC too, like Dawnguard. That’s a lot of bang for your buck. Real quick, let’s take a look at all the ways you can buy and play Skyrim at this time:
- Xbox 360
- PS3
- PC
- PS4
- PSVR
- Xbox One
- Switch
And soon:
- Xbox Series X/S
- PS5
At this point, I’ve just accepted that I’ll never escape Skyrim or GTA V.
Coincidentally, both new ports of these hugely successful open-world games are coming out on the same day, November 11, later this year. These games have outlasted multiple console generations.
I suspect that in 20 years kids will still be buying ports of GTA V and Skyrim. It’s only a matter of time before phones become powerful enough to easily run them, so expect further proliferation in the not-so-distant future.
When I die, bury me in Skyrim ports. And maybe toss in a copy of Elder Scrolls 6. And GTA 6 as well.
Wait, both of these franchises are stuck at number five, too?! This universe is cruel, but comical.