The developers of an acclaimed Skyrim mod just made it to the big leagues

[Karlston]

The developers of an acclaimed Skyrim mod just made it to the big leagues

“A new, commercial project which will hopefully be announced this year” 

 

In 2016, a team of modders released a game they developed a game in their spare time to nigh-universal acclaim — a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that they called Enderal, with its own 30+ hour quest with gobs of original dialogue and professional voice acting. “[It’s the most fun I’ve had in an Elder Scrolls game in years,” wrote our sister site Polygon. It’s the top-rated Skyrim mod of all time at ModDB, has nearly 500,000 downloads at NexusMods and its own Steam page filled with glowing reviews.

 

Now, its developers are setting off to build a game of their own. On Sunday, the team at SureAI released its final patch for Enderal, explaining that they no longer had as much free time to keep up development — because they’re working on “a new, commercial project which will hopefully be announced this year.”

 

They didn’t leave so much as a hint about what kind of game it might be — we checked the team’s social media accounts, Discord, and more — but it’d be surprising if it weren’t based in swords and sorcery seeing how they’ve been modding since Morrowind.

Whether you’re a fan or not (I’ll admit I’ve never played), it’s always refreshing to see talented game developers hit the big time. As you’re probably aware, some of the world’s most popular games started as mods: Counter-Strike, DOTA and PUBG began as overhauls for Half-Life, WarCraft III and Arma 2 respectively, as did the likes of Dear Esther, DayZ and The Stanley Parable. Developers of popular mods like the Darthmod for Total War have also made it into the industry.

 

These moves don’t always work out as everyone might hope, though: the developers of Battlefield 1942 bought the team behind the Desert Combat mod (my personal favorite) back in 2004 to help work on the thematically similar Battlefield 2, only to shut them down right before the game shipped and refuse to pay $200,000 it owed.

 

 

The developers of an acclaimed Skyrim mod just made it to the big leagues

[mood]

One of Skyrim's best modding teams is working on a standalone game

To be announced this year

 

 

Something to look forward to: The Elder Scrolls series has one of the most active modding communities of any franchise, period. One particularly passionate team of modders even developed a separate, standalone-game-quality addition to Skyrim called "Enderal." Now, that same team is using its modding experience to create its own original IP.

 

First, a bit of background. If you haven't heard of Enderal before, it is a total conversion mod for TES V: Skyrim. If the mod didn't require Skyrim to run, it could easily be billed as its own separate game.

 

It has an entirely unique world handcrafted by developer SureAI, as well as professional-quality voice acting and a 30-hour (give or take) main questline.

 

I've played Enderal a bit myself, but I never got the opportunity to finish it due to a few odd performance issues. However, others seem to love it, judging by the overwhelmingly-positive reviews it has on Steam.

 

Over the weekend, this talented team of modders revealed that Enderal had received its final patch: the mod won't be updated anymore moving forward. Why?

 

 

Because the team is working on a "new, commercial project" which they aim to announce this year. For a team behind two of the biggest and most ambitious mods in Elder Scrolls history (Enderal and its Oblivion predecessor Nehrim), that's huge news.

 

Unfortunately, that's about all we have to go off of for now. SureAI has remained pretty silent on what the project might be. However, given their years-long experience modding the Elder Scrolls games, we'd be surprised if it isn't an RPG of some kind.

 

At any rate, we wish the team all the best, and we look forward to seeing what they have up their sleeve.

 

 

Source: One of Skyrim's best modding teams is working on a standalone game