clare siobhan

Turning games into live action mini-movies seems to be all the rage at the moment, from the incredible fan-made Operation Kingfish to PlayStation’s “Michael“. Now Bethesda Software have released their own for the upcoming RPG epic, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

I’ve played a few RPGs before, but never the ‘The Elder Scrolls’ series, mainly because RPGs have the tendency of sucking away too many hours of one’s life. However, a certain HBO title may have changed that for me, and perhaps many others too.

November’s Edge issue made a very valid point in their Skyrim feature; HBO’s Game of Thrones has opened up the mythical world of fantasy to a much larger audience. ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ may have once been the ‘geek bible’, but now that the action packed, sexy HBO adaptation has burst onto our screens, the book series has been catapulted on to the best selling charts. As a result, fantasy has become more socially acceptable, from the violent, horrible White Walkers, to birth of fire-breathing dragons and the brave Sers that fight them.

So a game like Skyrim gives players the chance to experience a whole new level of these fantasy worlds usually confined to books and TV shows, allowing them to living their very own fantasy story. The Bethesda stands at both Gamescom and Paris Games Show seemed full of gamers doing just that, but how about the more casual gamers, not shelling out to attend games shows?

I suppose only the sales figures will tell, but they certainly have one customer right here, eagarly awaiting the release thanks to the hunger for adventure that the talented George R. R Martin has created.