There’s no disputing that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a massive hit. Those of us that played it when it originally released can swap stories about quests, random NPC stupidity or the odd dragon crash landing on you out of nowhere in the middle of the mountains. The game was epic, the world amazingly realized and the gameplay was just absurdly fun. With Bethesda bringing the game back to the fore of our minds with the release of Skyrim Special Edition for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, I thought it was time to see how the new version stacked up against the original in one very important regard: modding.

Modding is a huge part of PC gaming in general, and Skyrim in particular. Don’t believe me? Thats my current list of mods, and there are at least 40 more I’m still trying to find Special Edition compatible versions of.

While there are a few mods that don’t work right now, I have faith that they will be updated soon. But, some of you may be confused. So, for the uninitiated, lets talk Skyrim mods, shall we?

Many of the most popular mods for the game are centered on improving the graphics. Adding dynamic lighting, dust effects, depth of field, lens flare, more grass, better trees, insanely high resolution textures. You name it, and you can add it to Skyrim. As an example, lets take a look at these two screenshots. 

The shot on the left is from the vanilla remastered version, running with no mods. The one on the right is running a variety of graphics enhancing mods. Of course, upping the texture resolution isn’t the only thing you can do. Lighting also plays a huge part in making a game more immersive, as seen below.

Again, the shot on the left is from the vanilla version. Among the other mods that are quite popular are weather mods that improve fog and weather effects, more realistic water and enhanced blood textures. Just in case the gore was too unrealistic for you…

And of course, lets not forget about the plethora of other mods, most of which I won’t post shots of here. There’s the mod that turns all of the dragons into the engines from Thomas The Tank Engine. There’s the giant rabbit mod, the skimpy anime style battle armor mod. There are mods that put in more realistic armor, add helpful roadsigns to the main routes in Skyrim. There’s even a mod that adds BIRDS to the game, just for the sake of immersion. Basically, if you can dream it, theres probably a mod for it. On PC at least.

Having tested the in game mod manager that Bethesda has bundled with the game, I have to say it’s pretty anemic. The interface is fiddly, obtuse and generally an utter pain in the ass to use. In fact, it reminds me strongly of the menus system in the game and in Fallout 4. Someone should really fire whatever alien makes the GUI on Bethesda games and hire a real human. Or at least do some focus testing. (Hint: When the test subjects gouge out their own eyes, it’s a bad design.) But I digress. The in game system is serviceable at best. If you want to add a few mods here and there just to try out, it will get the job done. Just don’t expect navigating to the mods you want, downloading and then activating them to be a pleasant or hassle free process.

The PC on the other hand, has multiple ways to install and use mods. Most people will opt for the Nexus Mod Manager, at least until someone updates the Skyrim Script Extender to be compatible with the Special Edition of the game. Until then, NMM works just fine, allowing you to download, install and activate or deactivate mods in a simple window, as seen at the top of this article. And while the process may be frustrating sometimes, at least console owners finally have access to mods. And there are a lot of them in the Bethesda curated offerings. Still, the only way to get some of the more interesting ones remains the PC. 

Whatever your platform of choice though, MOD AWAY! Oh…and just because it’s remastered, doesn’t mean the bugs have been totally squashed…

No Man’s Sky did not have a great reception on launch. It has fans who love the game, but the criticism against it has been loud and actually pretty on point. I’m of the opinion that the game was never going to live up to the hype but that’s just me, I’ve learned to wait and see and not expect too much.

Anyway, after launch the developers Hello Games have been very quiet – so quiet in fact a lot of people weren’t very happy. In fact, the only bit of communication from the ‘developers’ was the time Hello Games’ Twitter was hacked to say that NMS was a ‘mistake’ so it doesn’t really count. However, Hello Games have now broken their silence with a blog post, in which they explain why they’ve been so quiet. Basically, they’ve been working on a new update for the game which will be released soon.

The Foundation Update will be adding the groundwork for the base building which is expected to arrive in a later update. Detailed patch notes aren’t out yet, but surely improvements to the game are a good thing right?

During the ‘quiet’ period Hello Games say that they’ve been working hard on the update, as well as testing it and certification for the patch. This will also signal the start of the ongoing support many people have been asking for and worried that Hello wouldn’t be providing due to their silence and the game’s lackluster reception.

Speaking about the criticism leveled against the game, Hello Games wrote: “The discussion around No Man’s Sky since release has been intense and dramatic. We have been quiet, but we are listening and focusing on improving the game that our team loves and feels so passionately about. Positive or negative feedback, you have been heard and that will truly help to make this a better game for everyone. This update will be the first small step in a longer journey. We hope you can join us.”

Once more details on the Foundation Update are released we will update you.

Arcade modes have recently been introduced into the game of Overwatch, along with the new character of Sombra who after the long hunt and trail many players were finally glad to actually see arrive. One of the new Arcade modes is the Duel Arcade mode where players go 1v1 against each other in match-ups. For reasons of interesting play, Mercy and Lucio are excluded from this mode… but it seems so was another character much to Blizzard’s dismay.

Game director Jeff Kaplan was explaining why Mercy and Lucio weren’t in the Duel Arcade mode when he let slip that Ana was also not in the rotation, due to a bug.

“Also, we just discovered a bug that causes Ana to almost never show up in a 1v1 match (well, she has shown up twice since we patched). That bug will be fixed soon so you’ll be seeing more of Ana.”

Lucio and Mercy are currently out because of their healing skills, with Kaplan noting: “We removed Lucio because the battles (if played a certain way) would always end in a draw. Also, when we buffed Mercy, she ran into a similar situation.”

The good news is that Kaplan said that they “have some other ideas” to solve these problems, so hopefully in future we can see all the characters in Duel Arcade. At least for now all the invitations that were sent for the party have been received properly.

At the moment eSports are becoming a very big industry, with a lot of money being exchanged and made through tournaments watched by eyes from all around the world. That being said, in some ways major eSports is still a fairly young industry and now a story has emerged from a South Korean team, alleging that the coaching staff of the team badly mistreated the actual pro players.

Mighty Storm is one of the top Overwatch Korean teams has provided a statement to an eSports site in the country describing the conditions they say they were forced to endure. They’ve said that among other things that practice times extended from noon to 4-5am, with only one or two meals a day of ‘2-3 quail eggs and pre-made kimchi and kongjaban’ (a sweet and salty bean paste) and while they could get more meals it was at the player’s expense to do so. What’s more, they claim to have been made to sleep in a single bedroom with 10 people in the room or a living room with 4 people to the room.

There are also claims of not having been paid for events they’ve already competed in, and detailed incidents that occurred during some of those events. Before the final match the team played against Lunactic-Hai, a very strong Overwatch team who took them out of that tournament on November 16th, they claim to have been told by coaches that ‘you guys will probably lose 3-0 today’ and weren’t provided any strategic advice. Upon being knocked out, they were told that they ‘did not deserve to eat’ and the players were given no more meals for the day. A prior loss on October 19th saw the players being screamed at to leave the vehicle home and forced them to walk 40 minutes back to the team house, only to be greeted with a statement that ‘you aren’t even worth the effort to teach’.

One player, Gang ‘SIP’ Jun Hyeong, expressed a desire to leave the team but was told by management that if he did he’d be in breach of contract. He was then told that if the management reported him to KeSPA (Korean eSports Association) for this breach, he would never be able to play Overwatch professionally again.

On the other side, the management and coaching staff dispute all this. They claim that the captain of the team, Jun Hyeong, has not fulfilled obligations in his one-year contract and so therefore they had not released the funds to him until these things were done. They also say that no underfeeding of players ever happened and that the coaches told the players that “if you continue to practice this way, you will lose 3-0” rather than outright calling them useless.

KeSPA has stepped in to mediate the dispute, with the Mighty Storm players being given legal support according to the chairman Byung-Hun Jun.

“We have received extensive reports of this unfortunate happening over the last month,” Jun said. “eSports has multiple teams across numerous games, but we are aware that not all players are guaranteed the proper rights that a professional gamer deserves. The fact that pro gamers are often young further exacerbates problems when it comes to gaining the required resources and support of a properly constructed contract.”

Dishonored 2 released at last, after a long journey of teasers and trailers that all started with its premature announcement by accident on a livestream the day before it was due to be announced publicly. Unfortunately, quite a few people have found that the game has some major performance issues. Our station manager Digmbot did, and identified why as well – a CPU priority issue that couldn’t be changed.

Arkane did their best to help people get past these issues, but this still left a lot of people unable to play because all the suggested fixes weren’t relevant to them or they had tried them already. Fortunately, it seems Bethesda and Arkane are going to give the game a performance patch this week and finally free gamers to enjoy their time in Dunwall.

Speaking via the Bethesda news wire, Arkane Studios wrote: “We have been monitoring the PC forums and social channels and while we’re excited to hear that many of you are enjoying the game, we are disheartened that some of you are experiencing PC performance issues on some systems. We are actively working to provide an update to address your concerns. The patch and its release notes will be available in the coming days.”

The problem have mainly been reported in mid-range systems, although some higher-range systems (like our own Digm’s) are also finding themselves missing a lot of frames. Some console gamers have also been having problems. Hopefully we should have some word on the patch and when it’ll be available soon for those of you holding off until you can play with the amount of frames you expected from the new game.

Until then, some kind souls over on the Steam community forums are busy putting together a set of tips in how you can eke as many frames out of the unpatched version as possible. Give it a check if you’re up for giving the game another chance before Arkane patch it and (hopefully) solve a great deal of these problems.