Thu, Jul 14, 2011 | 12:07 BST

Bethesda: No Skyrim demo before release

Bethesda’s confirmed that it won’t release a demo of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim before the game’s November release.

“No, we won’t be doing a demo,” said producer Craig Lafferty, speaking to Gameplanet.

“For a game of this size and complexity it’s really hard to do a demo the represents the game truly. And it would have to be a gigantic demo. So we won’t be doing a demo.”

So there. Keep counting the days until November 11. Read our impressions of the RPG from E3 and Bethesda’s pre-show event in Utah here and here.

Thanks, EG.

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17 comments

Moonwalker1982
14/07/11, 12:44 pm

I really wasn’t expecting a demo neither. I mean…a demo of a TES game? Nah, i just don’t see that working.

StolenGlory
14/07/11, 12:50 pm

Precisely.

Also, there is no precedent for this at all. Not a single one of Bethesda’s recent open world games had a demo, so I can’t say I know why the question was asked in the first place.

Perhaps when the guy was drafting out his questions beforehand he simply ran out of things to put down

nobruc
14/07/11, 2:11 pm

a demo of skyrim would be just like a normal game with 9 hours

freedoms_stain
14/07/11, 2:20 pm

Normally I’m very pro-demo, but yeah, I don’t think this game strictly needs one.

silentbob
14/07/11, 2:26 pm

Demos serve a purpose for PC gamers, purely from a ‘can my rig run this shit’ PoV.

Mind you, given the godawful state of the Dragon Age 2 demo on PC ..

Erthazus
14/07/11, 2:31 pm

Dragon Age 2 demo was shit only if you wanted to run it in direct X11. In the end it was not worth it.

silentbob
14/07/11, 2:41 pm

Yes, but they left the ‘enable’ button in. The silly nonces.

Moonwalker1982
14/07/11, 4:02 pm

I gotta wonder what kind of nitwit interviewer even asks this kind of shit. Since when has there ever been a demo of a Bethesda RPG? sigh.

IL DUCE
14/07/11, 4:34 pm

@8 yeah or any Bethesda game whatsoever…the only one they have had in the past 5 years or more was WET…

#10

silentbob
14/07/11, 4:55 pm

Pretty sure I remember playing a Morrowind demo back in the day Moonwalker.

It’s not beyond the realms of possibilities to give people a taste of a world, even one as vast as Skyrim’s.

Still having issues with the name. Surely it’s not possible that no-one responsible for would have understood the connotations. Or perhaps market research led them to believe it’d appeal to western RPGers.

#11

OrbitMonkey
14/07/11, 5:23 pm

@10 eh? Connotations? You mean the “rim” part of Skyrim? That’s gotta be the most left-field bit of pre-release nit picking i’ve read so far o_O

#12

DSB
14/07/11, 6:30 pm

Daaamn! That would be some seriously repressed homosexuality right there. Have you met Erthazus?

#13

DaMan
14/07/11, 6:51 pm

Morrowind definetely had a demo as far as I recall.

#14

Joe_Gamer
14/07/11, 7:06 pm

Oh there will be a “demo”, it just won’t be released by Bethesda.

#15

Moonwalker1982
14/07/11, 8:13 pm

Were there demos in the Xbox era? Or do you mean PC only?

Also Rogue Warrior

#16

Maximum Payne
14/07/11, 8:19 pm

@14 I see what you did there

#17

tythemetalguy
15/07/11, 7:26 pm

Couldn’t they just release a dungeon as a demo. I mean, I don’t have much of a problem waiting – it’ll make the release of the game even better, but releasing a single dungeon would be nice.