Skyrim’s Starting Village Looks Amazing in Unreal Engine 5

Christian Gomm, an environment artist with Myrkur Games, has made an amazing mock-up of some early locations from Skyrim rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

The quality of lighting, models and materials truly makes Riverwood pop the way it did when I first saw the village 11 years ago. Gomm has also remade the Western Watchtower, where Skyrim’s first dragon fight takes place, as well as the Oblivion gate outside of Kvatch from The Elder Scrolls 4. Graphics aren’t everything, but there’s something amazing about seeing these regular scenes rendered with such high fidelity.

Bethesda remains committed to its own in-house tech for the foreseeable future, with its upcoming space RPG Starfield being built on the same foundations as prior Fallout and Elder Scrolls projects. Another developer behind big open-world RPGs, CD Project Red, recently revealed they would be switching to Unreal Engine 5 for the untitled Witcher 4, despite having built an outstanding reputation with its RedEngine.