Only days removed from Bethesda’s blog post announcing that the publisher would no longer send out review copies to outlets ahead of a game’s release, and Skyrim Special Edition is experiencing major problems at launch.
The game has received mixed reviews on Steam as a result of the many problems that have plagued its launch, with players experiencing significant frame rate drops, bugs and random crashes. Despite its PC recommended settings listing an NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB or equivalent, many have reported that the game has struggled when played with a GTX 1070 or even a GTX 1080, which rank among the most powerful graphics processors currently on the market. Some have even claimed that the game struggles to maintain a steady frame rate even on the character creation screen.
Then there are a few problems that have been noted with the game itself, with many complaining that it doesn’t look noticeably different from the original Skyrim. While its lighting and texture improvements have been praised, many have pointed out that for PC players, similar changes could have been implemented by way of mods. One Steam reviewer wrote: “If you got it for free, play the original. If you haven’t, don’t buy it. Not only are all the glitches from the original still there, new glitches are now in the game.”
Foliage and lighting has been improved, but some players are reporting that Skyrim Special Edition isn’t too noticeably different from the original game.
It doesn’t seem like these problems are currently affecting the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, and people appear to be having disparate experiences with it depending on their setup. For instance, PC Gamer is reporting that thus far they haven’t experienced frame rate issues, though have complained that the bugs that were so prevalent in the original game were apparent in Skyrim Special Edition, too.
That Skyrim Special Edition‘s mixed reception has come so soon after Bethesda’s decision to refuse the press with review copies is eyebrow-raising. Although the publisher is known for releasing games that attract overwhelmingly positive critical receptions, the decision to refrain from allowing the press to review the studio’s games ahead of their launches led to many questioning the quality of its future line-up. With Skyrim Special Edition receiving more than a few thumbs down from buyers, all eyes now inevitably turn to the heavily anticipated Dishonored 2. Hopefully it won’t stand to justify our belief that Bethesda has some very shady reasoning behind the controversial changes to its review policy.
