Former Doom: The Dark Ages producer Andrew Willis has shared tuppence on the state of the blockbuster videogame trade, arguing that the biggest companies and most popular series are going through a familiar "cycle" whereby the moneyfolk finally displace the creatives, and start messing games up in the name of short-term returns. He reckons that the likes of Halo are well on their way to becoming "a dried husk of a product that everyone just now associates with like, slop".

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Skyblivion, that massive Oblivion remake mod which was originally set to release last year, finally seems to be on the verge of arrival. While they've still yet to put a full release date on it, the mod's creators have announced that they're looking for voluteers to join their comms team and contribute to a final push to get the word out about their creation.

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I didn’t think, when I saw the other day that Swedish furniture sellers IKEA had commissioned a group of modders to stick an advert for their wares in Skyrim as an official Bethesda-approved Creation, that I’d now be sitting here noting that I dug said creation’s dungeon designs.

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In my experience, the few minutes a live band take between songs to recover a bit before plunging into the next riff are generally quite uneventful. At the most, you might get an amusing story about what they've been up to in your city prior to getting on stage, chatter about the song they're about to play, or some light comedy night-esque crowd work. Or, if you attended a recent gig American rockers Breaking Benjamin played in Holmdel, New Jersey, a four minute promo segment for a Fallout 4 mod made by a lead singer who's been left frustrated by some modding community drama.

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What came first, the chicken or the egg? I know, it's a tough one. I'll put it another way. What came first, Todd Howard's lone desire to make a space RPG or what the devs working under him had initially anticipated they'd be working on once Fallout 4 shipped? Well, according to a fresh account given by long-time Bethesda developer and Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann, those among the latter who'd mentally prepped to be making The Elder Scrolls 6 right away were rather whisked along on an interstellar journey Todd seemingly charted a course for without much of a heads up.

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The latest beefy expansion mod to hit Skyrim is an adventure to the Argonian homeland of Black Marsh, complete with hist trees and humid swamps. Though, its creator seems to be hoping the trip to the southern tip of the mysterious province will do more that just entertain, serving as a reminder that it's still possible for solo modders to make ambitious works happen for free without resorting to using generative AI.

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Unionised Bethesda Games Studios staff embroiled in Microsoft's latest round of mass layoffs have expressed further doubts about the company's ability to create games at the "quality level" of the very bestest Elder Scrolls and Fallout projects, as they continue to haggle with Microsoft over severance terms.

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Skyblivion won't be following the lead of Bethesda's Oblivion Remastered with a sudden shadow drop of its own, the folks behind the massive Oblivion remake mod have confirmed. Instead, they've plans to reveal a new release date for the mod, which was previously being aimed to arrive late last year, when they're ready.

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Tamriel Rebuilt, the Morrowind modding project gradually adding the province's mainland to The Elder Scrolls 3's Vvardenfell-centric map, has gotten a fresh expansion over the weekend. Dubbed Poison Song, it's the long-teased update which lets you join House Indoril, the great Dunmer house the Neravarine's namesake Indoril Nevevar belonged to belonged. It'll also let you join the Temple Ordinators, Morrowind's golden-masked lawkeepers, and explore a new region full of "lush gardens and bountiful fields".

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It appears that August is the month for having thoughts on the success of immersive sims! Earlier this month, one of the original designers behind Thief: The Dark Project shared his feelings on developing imsims at triple-A scale, coming to the conclusion it doesn't really work. Just yesterday, Arkane veteran and Dishonored director Harvey Smith revealed his new studio that's entirely dedicated to the genre. And now, Smith, alongside fellow leads at the new studio Ben Horne and Ricardo Bare, answers the evergreen question: are imsims dead?

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Right, just a couple more location overhauls and there we go. A fresh Skyrim load order created for my first modded toe-dip into Tamriel for quite a while, outside of grabbing the odd article image. Phew, now to relax and sink another 50 hou-wait. Fallout 4 and Skyrim updates are inbound, say Bethesda? Well, that would be my luck, wouldn't it?

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It's probably a weird day to be working at Bethesda's Rockville headquarters. In a week's time, on August 18th, the Communications Workers of America have organised numerous rallies across the US and Canada in support of Xbox workers, 1600 of which may lose their jobs over the next year, on top of the 1600 who have already been laid off. Today, as shared by Game Developer's Chris Kerr, CWA union members have already initiated a protest outside Bethesda HQ in the form of a giant inflatable rat, and a huge number of planted red flags, each one representing a laid off worker, as Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reportedly.

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I’ve been scrolling through Nexus Mods near enough every weekday morning for three or four years now. On a good day, I might spot a couple of new mods potentially worth writing news about and a couple, usually Skyrim player homes, I might fancy checking out in my free time.

Historically, browsing for mods was largely just a matter of gauging which looked complex or unique enough to be worth investigating further, and making sure nothing about them appeared offensive or otherwise dodgy. Usually, new quests, new mechanics, or substantial overhauls which can turn a game on its head got the nod. Then, a few years ago, AI-generated voices started popping up in the former. Skyrim, being the most actively modded game, was ground zero.

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Yep, it really was that long ago. Classic FPS Quake turned 30 years old as of late June and to mark the occasion its 2021 enhanced version has gotten a free expansion dubbed Dawn of the Machine. Developed by both Id Software and MachineGames, it's all about hunting down a Nightmare Machine across new levels stocked with fresh enemies and weapons.

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DLC-sized Fallout: New Vegas mod Fallout: New California's now available via GOG, offering an easy way to give it a go if it's long sat on your lost of mods to try at some point before the universe dies.

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