The release of the Creation Kit is just another feather in Skyrim‘s leather helmet.
In case you were under a mountain for the last four months, Skyrim is kind of a big deal. The Escapist named it our 2011 Game of the Year, and countless other outlets have praised the open-world mechanics and the feeling of adventure Skyrim offers. Part of the appeal, at least for PC gamers like me, is the ability to mod the game’s code to suit our specific tastes and Bethesda made that even easier with the recent release of the Creation Kit. In the first three days after Bethesda released the CK on February 7th, the Maryland developer reported more than 2 million downloads of 2,500+ mods through the Steam Workshop. Add those numbers to the fabulous sales Skyrim continues to see, and the devotion of its fans is undeniable.
“Data from Steam, the digital download service, reveal that the average number of hours that a gamer plays Skyrim exceeds 75 hours,” the announcement from Bethesda read. “The PC version of Skyrim in North America outsold all other PC games by a factor of over three to one in the month of its release, and Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam’s history.”
Given how many people play Skyrim via Steam, an average playtime of 75 freaking hours is a pretty amazing statistic.
A few years from now, when we look back at 2011, Skyrim might be seen as a watershed moment for gaming. It is not a perfect game – I don’t think a game exists that pleases everyone – but it satisfies so many clusters of neurons in gamers’ brains that it may just end up on the FDA restricted list. “But it just feels so good.”
And now with the ability to further mod the game to meet any need, and tell any story, the drug of Skyrim just got so much more potent.
