Skyrim - Glitches Galore

Bethesda have always been know to ship games with strange bugs and glitches. It’s become a common place to almost expect some strange occurrences during the initial release period. Morrowind have a lot of game breakers and the occasional texture, wall, NPC issue but was all in all a very playable game. We remember being able to steal stuff without anyone caring and loved breaking the game by playing two or more of the different houses. Oblivion reduced these issues dramatically but didn’t iron out all the creases. The world was well constructed but you could kill some quest givers, climb on floating paintbrushes and duplicate items out of thin air. That being said we all expect a few minor glitches in Skyrim too but fortunately so far nothing game-breaking has been found.

Shortly after the release of the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim it was reported that some users were having problems with texture loading. The funny thing is that Bethesda issued a note to press alongside the copies of the game and advised that Xbox 360 owners should install the fantasy game onto their hard-drives wherever possible. Obviously this forced further issues for us Xbox gamers as the game then suffers from the texture issues but this did not actually force anyone to stop playing the game itself.

Skyrim makes heavy use of cashing to the hard-drive and the initial load times could increase if the game is not fully cached already, or at least installed to the console. Bethesda have now also advised Xbox 360 players that clearing the game cache may increase save game load times. Caching takes place over the normal course of gameplay but is cleared by playing a different game or by manually clearing this in the Xbox dashboard.

In the wake of the texture issues Bethesda were quick to react by saying that a patch will be uploaded as soon as the problem has been fixed. The issue only seems to manifest if you have the Xbox 360 version of Skyrim installed to the hard drive - a process that is entirely optional. In this case, the highest resolution versions of the textures appear to stall and not load, meaning that you're definitely not seeing the game at its best. If you remove the install, and run the game directly from the DVD, the best quality artwork returns.

There are other small gameplay issues that have been experienced by many players over the passed few days. The first of which is one I have suffered from myself and is an annoyance that once again doesn’t actually stop you from playing on. Following the main quest at an early stage you are quested to leave Dragonstone on an errand with a selection of guards. On my way to the front gate I noticed that all the walls to the city had disappeared and I could now see across the tundra in all directions. The main problem was the fact that the door to the city gates was still in place without any bricks or wood to keep it stood up. Being the curious man that I am I took up my Sword and Shield and went for a wander. The thing that interested me the most was that the walls were actually non-existent; I could run around the lifeless door and even wander (albeit a small distance – I got scared) out of the city itself. After a few moments of panic, thinking that I might be pressing my luck, I ran back inside the city walls and left via the town gate where the world was restored to its carefully crafted glory. I have also seen a moose head hanging on open space in the middle of the wilderness with only a single NPC and a table for company.

The second glitch that I have heard about regularly but however not directly experienced is the strange gravity affecting certain areas. This has happened on several occasions in my friends playthroughs and many videos have cropped up on YouTube too. Basically heavy contract in an upward movement can cause the player or enemies to soar through the sky. One example of this occurred during the first time my flatmate picked up his copy of the game; a head on collision with a giant left his Argonian thief 1000 feet above the ground able to see everything for miles in each direction. When he did finally return to earth it’s suffice to say his spirit didn’t.

Other strange glitches include faceless NPC’s, flying horses and the ability to cover over peoples faces with pots before stealing objects. In fact check these out on YouTube for some hilarity and just so you know I haven’t found one yet with any spoilers but of course be careful.

Any strange or unexplainable mysteries you’ve encountered? – Sound off in the comments below.