


It’s a cosmetic change and many of the perks are straight out of Skyrim, but some represent new abilities like being able to shoot fire arrows. But unlike Skyrim’s constellations, here they’re carved into standing stones. At each level, trees of perks are ready to be unlocked. Time to level up with hallucinatory stones.Įxperience points are earned through a traditional system, handed out for completing quests, defeating enemies, crafting new items, and so on rather than Skyrim's “learning by doing”. They’re better motivation to explore than another bloody Nirnroot, but I already want to look around every corner because it's just so pretty. Collectibles like red magic symbols worth experience points and blue Ice Claw mushrooms that give a tiny boost to carrying capacity are scattered about to encourage exploration. Everything's been carefully placed by hand for maximum effect, including the enemies. The landscape has plenty of variety, from fields full of flowers to the desolate Powder Desert, all of which it shows off with vistas where the sun edges around an outcrop of jagged stone or a gigantic statue while butterflies or glowbugs dance past. The opening gives me a backstory and deposits me on the beach, but then it stops and starts a couple more times before letting me really cut loose, which is when Enderal gets good.

It's almost but not quite a whole new game.īut before that I have to go through a long tutorial covering my arrival in Enderal as a Pathless foreigner, the kind of traditional fantasy RPG outsider who needs to have the setting explained to them while being mildly discriminated against.
_Armor_MW.png)
Level scaling is gone so I have to pay attention to the difficulty rating of quests, and fast-travel’s been restricted to signposts that take me from one city district to another, giant flying birds for hire, and teleport scrolls to get me back home. Plus, most of the potions found in dungeons are “rancid” and ineffective. Healing’s not as easy, with health only regenerating out of combat when I eat a hearty meal, and only regenerating in combat when I drink potions. They've also tweaked some of Skyrim’s fundamentals. There are mountains and snow as well but it's more obviously varied than Skyrim, even if the suddenness of its geographical changes can be jarring. While the starting area is a traditional green heartland full of bandits, wolves, rats, and spiders eventually I find a dangerous jungle and stranger locations like a town built on platforms suspended above a water-filled cavern, or the Whisperwood with its glowing trees and crystal formations. German modding team SureAI have made a country almost as big as Skyrim filled with new quests, dungeons, monsters, and fully voiced English-speaking NPCs (some by professional voice actors).
