Former Skyrim Designer Says Blackreach Was Initially A Side Project That Became A Fan-Favorite

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is one of the best and most expansive fantasy RPGs in existence, rife with unique player experiences and a litany of mods to tailor original gameplay. The fifth installment of Bethesda’s franchise shows no signs of slowing down, which leaves some pretty big boots to fill now that the developer is working on The Elder Scrolls 6.

To give you an idea of the extensive Skyrim mod list, one Twitch streamer recently created a mod that allowed his chat to voice NPCs in real time, which resulted in some comical interactions. The sky’s the limit when it comes to this pioneering videogame entry, and a former designer recently revealed how the popular Blackreach dungeon made it into the final game.

Blackreach Was An Unplanned Location That Soon Became Beloved

In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, former Skyrim and Fallout designer and the creator of The Axis Unseen, Nate Purkeypile, talked extensively about the state of the open-world genre of videogames, shared a few memories working on Skyrim under Bethesda, and touched on why he decided to leave the publisher.

Regarding the overwhelming scale of open-world games that don’t always use players’ time efficiently, Purkeypile thought “a lot of it has to do with the way some open-world games are designed, where it is very much that checklist”. Touching on gamers’ reluctance to scour every objective in these never-ending titles, Purkeypile said “These games can be a lot of fun, and I’ve had fun with them, too, but I have that same fatigue.”

Purkeypile believed “feeling surprised” was the key to open-world exploration and immersion, and thought it was difficult to develop games of that scale with “thousands of people” on board without portioning out checks and balances on the geography. This is coming from the brains behind Skyrim’s popular Blackreach city, and Purkeypile highlighted how a smaller team can lead to magic being brewed.

Touching on his days working on Skyrim, Purkeypile said “We were like 100 people back then, and there were lots of trust in the team, where you could just take something and make it your own.” The designer then brought up his Blackreach creation, saying “That was not on the schedule at all. We did it as a skunkworks project on the side, and people saw it and said ‘Oh, that’s really awesome – I guess we should keep it.’”

Giving designers the freedom to explore their creations, Purkeypile’s Dwemer undercity became a fan favorite. “I have people, to this day, say it’s one of their favorite things because they go into that deep, dark dungeon to find something we never tell you about. It’s like, vaguely hinted at, but it’s a surprise.”

Purkeypile ended up leaving Bethesda “partly because there was less opportunity for such trips into the undergrowth” amid the development of Starfield, but at least the designer could leave the Blackreach nugget of gold in Skyrim for keen explorers to find for years to come.

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