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Despite being nearly 15 years old, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim remains one of the most popular open-world RPGs of all time. Few games offer a sandbox experience as open and liberating as Bethesda’s iconic title. The developers clearly poured their hearts and souls into the project, and it shows. That said, there were still many ideas that could have made the adventure even more memorable. At least, that’s what Kurt Kuhlmann, co-director of Skyrim, revealed in a recent interview with PC Gamer.
Two Cut Features of Skyrim Revealed
Even without considering the hundreds of thousands of mods available today, the base version of Skyrim already delivered an impressively rich experience, both in terms of activities and the cohesiveness of its open world. However, the game could have felt even more organic if the development team had had more time and resources. According to Kurt Kuhlmann, two particularly ambitious features were ultimately cut for those very reasons.
The first was a “dynamic civil war” system. Throughout Skyrim’s narrative, the ongoing conflict between the Empire and the Stormcloaks is frequently referenced. Yet aside from the Battle of Whiterun, players rarely witness large-scale clashes between the two factions. Kuhlmann explained to PC Gamer that the idea was to feature dynamic, unscripted battles across the world, but the system proved too demanding from a performance standpoint. Fortunately, the modding community later found ways to implement similar concepts, even if they differed from the original vision.
« We were pretty disappointed »
« The production decision was: we cannot make this good and make sure the frame rate is good in all the cities under all circumstances. That’s just too much right now. I mean, it’s still hard for me to believe that the game shipped on the 360. Oblivion and Skyrim, same platform originally, so we were really pushing it on the 360.», Kuhlmann recalled.
The second cut feature involved Skyrim’s now-iconic opening sequence, which originally served as a test for a real-time wagon travel system. Players would have been able to travel Skyrim’s roads by cart, jumping off to defend themselves during ambushes, especially those tied to the dynamic civil war. Once again, technical limitations forced the team to abandon the idea. As Kuhlmann recalled, the system was simply too unstable: the horse pulling the cart could behave unpredictably, and the wagon could even flip over without reason. “We were pretty disappointed that it didn’t ship,” he admitted. Fortunately there are a bunch of civil war mods that have come out over the years, including the famous Skyrim at War.
Source: PC Gamer
