Skyrim - Dev Diary: Completely Blue Sky and More

Bethsoft has posted a dev diary on the conceptualisation of Skyrim called Completely Blue Sky. Across a 16 minute podcast interview with concept artists Ray Lederer & Adam Adamowicz and game director Todd Howard, they discuss how Todd told them the game would be set in Skyrim and they wanted a "gritter, dirtier" experience and then set them free to experiment:

“It was a reaction to what Oblivion was as a game,” said lead artist Matt Carofano. “Oblivion was a very classic medieval setting, and we felt some of that was a bit generic. We wanted to do something that showed a lot more of the culture of the people who lived there.”

“Skyrim was all about creating a world that seemed believable.”

Finding the perfect tone for the rugged-yet-fantastical province of Skyrim was a challenge initially. Though Skyrim’s Nords share some similarities to real-world Vikings, the likeness is superficial – the Nords have their own distinct cultural history that needed to be detailed from the ground up.

“It was completely blue sky,” relates Adamowicz. “Todd said, ‘Sit down and draw a bunch of cool, weird shit, and we’ll look at it and decide what’s worthwhile and what’s really stupid.’”

Early on, the artists were given freedom to explore radical concepts, with the team leaders only stepping in to provide a general direction. 

There's also a video that compares several conceptual scenes with the in-game result and, finally, a slideshow with 40 pieces of concept art. Well worth a listen and look.

Sticking with Skyrim, IGN has a video of an unboxing of their review copy, which appears to be a retail X360 edition. Interestingly, they only received an X360 copy - no PC or PS3. It appears you also get a (paper) map in the standard edition, which is pretty cool.

Lastly for the moment, GameSpot has a humorous video titled Planet Skyrim that patches together a video tour with a mock Richard Attenborough voiceover.