Somehow, Skyrim returned.
Yes, the rumours are true, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition is back (again), as a free Switch 2 upgrade. Making the most of the hardware’s updated specs, the new release bundles in a whole host of fancy features, like enhanced performance and resolution, better load times, and Mouse Mode, and it gives us yet another chance to replay the iconic 2011 RPG in all of its fus ro dah-ing glory.
Keen to learn more about this new release, we were recently lucky enough to sit down with Bethesda Creative Director Matt Carofano (who was Lead Artist on the original game) to talk all things Skyrim. We chatted about Matt’s favourite Skyrim moments, the game’s mind-blowing Switch 1 reveal, the re-release process, and, of course, the team’s plans for the future.
We began, however, right back at the start of his Skyrim journey. So, don your fanciest armour set, grab a tankard of Velvet LeChance, and prepare for a walk down memory lane.
Nintendo Life (Jim Norman): Let’s start back at the beginning. What’s your earliest memory of working on Skyrim?
Matt Carofano (Creative Director): I remember Todd Howard and I were talking about where we should set this, and we both naturally coalesced around the realm of Skyrim — ‘Let’s go to that province, it’ll be great!’
A lot of that was a reaction to the previous games we had done. The theme of Morrowind was ‘stranger in a strange land,’ so very weird, alien, and unusual, with high-fantasy elements. For Oblivion, we wanted to do more of a traditional European fantasy game. So there was a tonal shift between those games. When we got to Skyrim, we wanted to take a little bit of the strangeness, deeper culture, and more interesting things, but not too alien as we did in Morrowind. The home of the Nords, Skyrim, fit that really well, so we were excited about that province and wanted to work there.
Some of the earliest things I did were making the map and planning out what the world was. So I was looking for references around the world — the real world — of dramatic places that we could put together into a game. For us, the world is the main character and the foundation of the game. It’s also inspirational for the team. So if you have this backdrop of frozen lands, a beautiful tundra, this forest in the south, the canyon off to the west, it’s inspirational for the designers to write stories. Otherwise, you come at a game, and it’s sort of a blank canvas; it’s a bit like, ‘Oh, what do we do? Who are the people who survive here?’ It informs the characters and the quests. So for us, making the world is the first step in pretty much every game we do.
At what point did you know that you were onto a winner?
It’s hard to explain, because I was a fan of the Elder Scrolls before I started working here, and when I was working on Morrowind, I was like, ‘This is the greatest thing ever!’ I’m obsessive about the games we make, so are the people here. It’s always on your mind; you’re always thinking, ‘What can I add to the game? How can I make it better?’ I don’t know if that’s healthy or not, but that’s just the way it works!
We knew Skyrim was something special throughout the development cycle, but really that last period where it all started coming together, and we were playing it and play testing, and you see all the systems layer together, and it’s working as a game, I knew we had something good. The team felt it.
Did we know it was going to become what Skyrim became? No, absolutely not. I think it’s still a shock to everyone here that Skyrim has been such a popular game, that we have such amazing fans who have played it for over a decade. That’s pretty incredible. So none of us take that for granted, and we’re really honoured and privileged to have this franchise that people love so much.
You can see Skyrim in a lot of different games and properties that have come out since. What is it about this game that makes it so appealing?
Our motto is, “let you be who you want and play how you want.” You can make incredibly varied characters in this game — how they look, their race, all that, but also how they play, the skills you want to get into. So we’re very freeing and open-ended.
Additionally, you take that kind of character, and you put them in the world and say, ‘We’re not going to railroad you to the main story. In fact, we encourage you to ignore it and do whatever you want.’ So we write stories that we’re really excited about. We think they’re good, and we want people to play them, but the true story of the game is what the player does. It might be, ‘I made my character and just wandered off in this direction, got into trouble, and it was really fun.’ That was different from a lot of other games in the industry.
So there’s something exciting about the freedom we allow to go anywhere, play how you want, and tell your own story in this world we made. It’s really the ultimate kind of sandbox role-playing game.
I have a very distinct memory of accidentally using a spell in a town and turning the entire place against me. Do you have one of those defining Skyrim memories from your first time playing through it?
Yes, but I’ll add on to yours. We made NPCs overreact to what you did. Everyone attacks the chicken in Riverwood, which is the very first town you come to, and then you’re wanted. Like there’s no getting around it. We talk about that moment a lot, because it’s fun and funny, but it just presented itself because we made it a crime to attack the chicken, and the chicken is in the same faction as the town, so the people of the town will defend the chicken. It was initially unintentional and became a bit funny, but it might be a bit punitive. So we discussed how much we wanted to let you get away with playing around in the world without getting into too much trouble, and how quickly we can reset things.
For me, it’s the surprise of going somewhere, and the systems of the game overlapping and something unexpected happening. Whether it’s a giant is hurting something, then monsters attack, and then a dragon shows up, and you’re like, ‘This is not what we planned for,’ but it turns out to be really fun.
What’s the re-release process like for you? How do you approach returning to a game again after working on it for over a decade now?
It’s really easy. We’re huge fans of Nintendo, love working with them and getting our games to their consoles. And because there’s a new console, it’s ‘Hey, let’s bring back one of our most beloved games to the Switch 2 and see how we can improve it and make it the best experience for that console’. Some old fans will keep playing and want to play that version, and then there’s a whole new generation who might be getting a Switch 2 for the first time, and that’s the first time they’ve ever played Skyrim. So that’s really it.
It’s a bit of a joke at this point how often we release Skyrim, but it’s a great game. We want everyone to be able to play it in the best way possible.
What was the process like of developing it for the Switch 2? How does it match up against consoles you developed for in the past?
We had previously done the version for the Switch, so this was going back to that and making improvements on it. So it was really an easy development process and actually pretty quick in terms of our timelines. Making the game takes years and years and years, but bringing it to this new console was a much, much faster process.
A lot of it was really just focusing on taking advantage of the new hardware. We can use DLSS now and get better resolution, better performance, and the game loads faster. Switch 2 has the Joy-Con 2 controllers that let you use mouse controls, so we added that. A lot of it is really just, ‘How do we take advantage of the Switch 2? What can it do? And [how can we] give players the best version of Skyrim for that console?’
What feature are you most pleased to see implemented this time?
There are a couple of things. Overall, it’s just general performance. The game performs better, runs smoother, and loads faster. So it’s just a better play experience on the Switch 2.
Several years after we released Skyrim, we did a remastering process. We spent over a year on that project — I worked on that quite a bit — and we improved the lighting, graphics features, and things like that. That came to the Switch version, but there are some subtleties we can turn up and make better [on Switch 2], particularly the volumetric lighting is nicer on Switch 2. That’s something I was personally very excited about, having tweaked all the numbers for the different weathers, fog, and clouds for months and months and months. Getting the best version of that on the Switch 2 is really important to me.
Seeing Skyrim on Switch 1 was such a monumental part of that console’s early life. What was it like working with Nintendo on that version?
It was exciting to put one of our modern games on a Nintendo console, and the Switch was super exciting to everybody when it came out. I’m a big Nintendo fan. I have the Switch, I have the Switch 2. I played a lot at home with my family. But seeing it on a portable device was just really cool. And the thought of being able to sit on your couch or go anywhere with this and play a full, deep game like Skyrim that lasts for hundreds of hours was really awesome.
Then it was the fun stuff of getting the sword swing to work with the Joy-Con, or one of our artists here, Christiane Meister, made Zelda assets that we put on that version. As a fan of Zelda, having a Nintendo as a kid, and playing the original Zelda, and then, in a roundabout way, getting some Zelda in a game that I made was really cool.
Were there any other Nintendo franchises that ever crossed your mind as a Skyrim crossover?
It was always Zelda. A fun fact: the [former] voice of Mario [Charles Martinet] is Paarthurnax in Skyrim. So that was pretty cool too. But no, because Zelda is one of the first open-world RPGs, it was pretty awesome to have that connection there.
Skyrim has defined over a decade of your working life now. What other games have really stood out to you in that time and inspired your work?
The one that immediately jumps to my mind is Red Dead Redemption 2. It took me a little while to get, but once it hooks you, I felt like I was an outlaw at the end of the Wild West, and the experience of living in that world. It’s truly a masterpiece of a game.
I love the subtle moments in gaming where you’re just riding your horse, appreciating the view, and then some birds fly by. It’s things that we love putting into our games to make you feel like you are truly living another life in another world. A lot of games are focused on action and combat. But when you can take a moment and breathe and really experience something else, I think that’s some of the best that gaming has to offer. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an amazing, amazing game.
With Skyrim now making the jump, are there any other Bethesda games that we will see come to Switch 2 in the future?
Well, we did just announce that Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition is coming to Switch 2, so that’s really exciting. That’s coming next year. Past that, nothing else to say! Whether we can do another game or not, I don’t know. But it’s cool to see. We’ve come back to Skyrim, and now a Fallout game is going to make that jump, too. We’re really excited about that.
As a gamer, what do you make of the Switch 2 so far?
I have a different perspective on Skyrim because I’ve probably played it more than almost anyone on Earth. I tested and played it for years while we were making it, and then I come back to it every so often when we’re making our current games — that can be a Fallout, that can be Starfield. I revisit our games and see what was special about them, what are the things we want to bring forward? Are there things we want to change or do differently? A lot of us do that here, but I take the time to go back and play our old games and see how that can inform or inspire what we’re doing currently.
So getting a chance to play Skyrim again on the Switch 2 was like, ‘What was fun about this? How did some of the game systems work here?’ It’s always a thought on our minds, as we’re replaying old stuff.
Are you ever able to just enjoy Skyrim, or is there always a little bit of dev brain going on?
There’s always a little bit of dev brain going on, and it even affects gaming in general. I’m currently replaying the Silent Hill 2 remaster, but in every game I’ve ever played, I start the game, I stop, I look at the textures, and I spend time thinking about the technology they’re using. I try to turn that off and just enjoy it, but that happens in every game. There are moments, though, even playing Skyrim, where I just get lost in a dungeon, and I’m once again a stealth archer sneaking around killing everybody. It’s great.
So, stealth archer is your preferred play style?
It is, and I will stake a claim to being an OG stealth archer because I always play that way. I enjoy the magic system, too, but yes, I played that way internally with the game before it became a meme, but that’s okay. I tend to enjoy stealth games in general, so it’s fun.
What other assets from the game’s early days do you still think hold up today?
At the very beginning of this project, I started building Riverwood. That was our testing ground for the game systems and how the game worked and felt. Every time we started a new game internally, while we were making it, you started in Riverwood, and that was the test. So I built the farm houses there, the stone walls, and the wooden walkways. I was just setting up that location. I did a lot of world art on Skyrim, as well as the art direction. So that’s what comes to mind when I think of Skyrim. We had an internal testing loop of starting at Riverwood, then going up to the first dungeon of Bleak Falls Barrow. That was our early, early loop of the game, and later it branched out to a bunch of things. We had a full team working on stuff.
At that point, I jumped over and worked on the College of Winterhold with our designer, Brian Chapin, who was the lead designer of the Mages Guild. So I made that tower in the interior. That was fun to work on for a while, but at that point, there’s a huge team going, and I’m more managing the work than building the assets.
It must be interesting to still see your fingerprints on those locations, after all this time.
A little bit for sure. But also, at that point, it was more working with concept artists, art directing, having input on everybody’s work, and just guiding people. That’s really what it’s about. My job is mostly helping everyone’s ideas come to fruition in the game and making sure they all gel and work together in a good way.
Was there any inciting inspiration that spawned those towns for you?
It’s a mix of things. As I said before, I’d start with a map, design the world, and we would lay out where the towns would go. A lot of that I was doing myself early on. Then I’d work with design on what would work for those locations.
If I jump back to Oblivion, we had a map made, and I drew maps and layouts of all the towns to get ready for the team to work on. Some of that just comes from liking worldbuilding and trying to think of what these things could be. It’s almost like being a dungeon master from when you played D&D as a kid, but in a professional setting.
With Skyrim, we have awesome concept artists who start painting and drawing, and then the team starts to build it. It becomes a much more collaborative effort. It starts with a few small seeds of things, some ideas, and then we’re working with a big team to make it all happen.
And are those ideas still spawning? What else would you like to do in this world in the future?
Ha ha, trick question! There’s a lot. All I can say is, yeah, we’re working on new things, very, very excited about it, but unfortunately, can’t talk about any of that just yet.
But I will say this, I described how we make games as an obsession which never turns off. It seeps into everything. You’re out in the world, and you see something cool, it’s like, ‘Hey, this view, these trees look really amazing. Let’s make a mental note, we should recreate that.’ It’s a weird obsession with getting into the details of life and then how you can bring that to a game and make something interesting.
I did a lot of photogrammetry scanning of rocks and dirt for Starfield — I mean, hundreds of pieces of rock and dirt. I did some travelling and went to Hawaii, and scanned volcanic rock and stuff. But I think it comes from a fundamental excitement of how everything can be interesting if you really pay attention to it and think about how that works, and then recreating that in a virtual world. I think it brings something to it. Everyone here becomes little dungeon masters over our worlds. You research how smithing works or how people fish in real life, so you’re making these observations, condensing them, and recreating them into a fantastical setting.
It really just comes from a fascination with life and trying to make something that other people are going to enjoy from that.
That is a very wholesome and somewhat poetic way of dodging the initial question! [laughs]
Oh yes, and we may be doing that again on a future project. There’s your answer, right? [laughs]
Our thanks to Matt for taking the time to talk to us, and to Samuel at Heaven Media for setting the discussion up.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition is now available on Switch 2 for £52.99 (or your regional equivalent). Those with the Anniversary Edition already installed on Switch 1 can upgrade to the S2 version for free, or you can upgrade from the base game to the Anniversary Edition for £17.99.
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