Skyrim's Combat May Not Be Good Enough For Today's Standard

The opening moments of Skyrim were leaked today in a video, which was quickly taken down. Without the developers or PR to ensure this was healthy footage, was this raw capture exposing a dated combat system?

[jc48573]

when you do not show enough of something, you know they're hiding something.

[lastdual]

Or they just don't want to spoil the opening?

Will some people complain about the combat? Sure. Guess what? That's fine. It's an RPG, and the last thing we need is another RPG trying to be an action game and appeal more to COD fans than actual RPG fans.

In RPGs you have experience points, and that means your level 1 character can swing his axe right into the face of a level 50 enemy 100 times and still not kill him. That's fine. Experience points may not make for "cinematic action combat", but we don't care. I'll take stats over instant gratification in my RPGs any day.

[da_2pacalypse]

*looks at combat in oblivion, then looks at the total experience in oblivion*

if they have the same game with dragons I'm game!

[papashango]

What? Not enough quick time events for this guy?

[calibann]

There was nothing wrong with Oblivion's combat. I was so afraid they might change the combat in horrific ways to make it more up to date, but i'm glad to hear it's like good old Oblivion

[RedDead]

I thought the combat was average at best. Didn't mind though. Have a look at Dark messiah for example, amazing combat system. But it ain't no open world or nothing so..yeah, I don't mind much, it wasn't too bad, just that it could be alot better if they stole DM's one. I love Elder scrolls for different reasons, any improvement to the combat is just a bonus to me

[calibann]

Ahhh Dark Messiah's combat was excellent. The thing is, although I was satisfied with Oblivion's combat, it does wear thin early on. I was just frightened they were going to modernise the whole thing. Something like Dark Messiah, or even Dead Island's combat system (analogue alternative) Would be great! I love being able to choose to stab or slash, or from which angle I want to slash. This would really bring the immersion to a whole new level. Instead of a canned 'rear stab' animation that happens everytime I sneak up on the enemy, let us CHOOSE to stab him, and at which point on his body. this opens up the possibility of weak spots on armour, again introducing a greater level of immersion.

[Awesome-Xanto]

What the heck was wrong with Oblivion combat system... I thought it was fine and never had an issue with it myself. Lets not judge a game when you only seen a few minutes of combat... from a "leaked" video. When you are actually playing yourself you may feel different... a video can never do a game justice.

[Bigpappy]

Hopefully, the first few hours of combat suck. I want to feel my character fully develop from a weakling into a god. I am sure I will develop into a lethal badass in time.

[AceofStaves]

I'm with you on that. I'm counting the days 'til 'Skyrim.' :)

On-topic: 'Elder Scrolls' has never been about the combat for me. If I want a bleeding-edge combat game experience, I'll play an action game. I'd rather have an RPG that played like an RPG instead of some bastardized hybrid.

[F4sterTh4nFTL]

I cannot imagine having to work hard in every combat situation for 500 hours of Skyrim.

[MasterCornholio]

In the first 20 minutes of the video the player was wielding only one sword. We haven't seen magic or dual wielding yet in that video. Anyways the combat was fine in oblivion and I am pretty sure they improved some aspects in it in skyrim.

XperiaRay

[antihiroprotagonist]

if you want Ninja Gaiden/God of War combat with an open world rpg, then wait for Kingdoms of Amulur Reckoning and shut the hell up

[DARK WITNESS]

It's amazing what people cry about... have they not seen all the other stuff going on in this game?

Give it a break.

[admiralthrawn87]

you know if this game was still an rpg like morrowind i'd give the combat some slack. considering its now a action/rpg hybrid, theres no excuse to have to play with lame combat for 100 hours

Demon's Souls/Dark Souls may have me spoiled on great rpg combat

[geddesmond]

Ya know I'm starting to think gaming journalists don't have a clue what people want and enjoy in video games. Are they even proper gamers or just college graduates who could only land a job doing gaming journalism. It would explain a lot of stuff lately if that was the case.

Know body and I mean Know body buys an Elder scrolls game for just the combat, not that there's anything a wrong with the way the combat is either but seriously gaming journalists need to stop with the over criticism of how they want games to be.

The combat looks fine and Elder scrolls 4 combat was pretty solid if you ask me. So what enemies don't react like they do in Dark Souls and you can't aim at limbs and shit like Dead Island