Story highlights
"Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" coming to the Kinect system
Combat and casting magic will still be done through the handheld Xbox 360 controller
The English version is expected to be released during the week of April 23
Kinect lets players use voice commands to arm weapons and activate spells
Game developer Bethesda Softworks is ready to take role playing to the next level by adding voice commands via the Kinect controller to its wildly popular video game, “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”.
Skyrim, the second highest grossing game of 2011, takes players on an epic campaign as a warrior born with the blood and soul of a dragon. The game offers many adventures and quests, and players are free to roam and accept challenges as they wish.
The Kinect functionality in Skyrim will be available in five languages – English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. The English version is expected to be released during the week of April 23 with the other versions following close behind.
Called “Project Adam,” Bethesda began formulating the idea of merging Kinect’s voice capabilities to “Skyrim” shortly after the game’s release in November.
Pete Hines, vice president of marketing and public relations for Bethesda, told CNN.com in an exclusive interview before the official announcement that the developer wanted to add functionality that didn’t exist in the original release.
“When you do things, like when you are on the map, you uncover a lot of map markers and quests to go to a particular place. [With Kineck] you can use voice commands to do things very easily, to jump to different cities on the map,” Hines said. “Even doing things in inventory like sorting by weight, by value – that functionality doesn’t exist in ‘Skyrim’ as it is. With Kinect, it unlocks a lot of new options.”
Hines said the development team also wanted to enhance gameplay. Voice control naturally leant itself to “Shouts,” special vocal powers that the players have access to in the game.
“You have your full arsenal of Shouts available using Kinect without having to stop, go to a menu, pick the one you want to use, and go back in the game and use it,” he said. “You just say the Shout, and as long as you have the ability, your character will just use it on the fly.”
Kinect will also let players use voice commands to arm weapons, activate spells and tell your companions what to do. The commands are designed to be intuitive, and Matt Barlow, general manager of Xbox Marketing, said Kinect support will add more than 200 voice commands to the