Skyrim has been ported to Unreal Engine 5, and it’s stunningly beautiful
Remember all those years ago when we first got a glimpse of Skyrim? My word, but it was gorgeous. Jaw-dropping vistas of the colder parts of Tamriel were something to behold. Fast-forward some 13 years later and vanilla TES5 has certainly aged to some extent. But there’s still life in the ol’ girl, yet.
As noted by DSO Gaming, someone has created a version of Skyrim with a graphical kiss of life, so to speak. Specifically, someone has ported the game over to Unreal Engine 5, and you can now play the demo of this fan project.
The video above gives a taste of how much it’s improved the overall look of Bethesda’s aging RPG. The person responsible for the port – one Greg Coulthard – says they wrote their own C++ plugin, which allows it to read the ESM files of Skyrim, which also automates “landscape generation and object placement” within UE5. You can download the demo from Discord here. Just look for the link pinned to the top of the “bethesda_unreal” channel.
Just a lovely stroll through the world
A couple of things to note: first, Coulthard says their version uses the vanilla assets of Skyrim, so it will still look very close to the 2011 release, just with much better visuals. Second, DSO notes that the demo only contains the world, so there’s no gameplay or RPG mechanics to speak of.
Basically, if you just want to have a leisurely walk through Skyrim‘s land, wondering what could have been had Bethesda built the game in Unreal Engine, this is your chance. As for when we will have a full release of the project, it’s hard to say at this stage. For all we know, it may never emerge.
Essentially, go into this with an understanding that it’s more of a proof of concept than an example of things to come. But, hey, it’s at least another way for Skyrim to retain some degree of relevance while we wait ever longer for updates on The Elder Scrolls 6.
