You're probably used to seeing disappointing teaser trailers. Brief 30-second snippets that show you a logo, perhaps a little art or a flash of gameplay masked behind a heavy filter or three. Then you wait another bunch of months before you actually get to see what the game looks like. Bethesda Softworks released a new trailer this morning for "The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim."
It doesn't disappoint.
The trailer runs just shy of three minutes and it is almost entirely focused on showing off gameplay. It's flashes of different things rather than the deep-dive look at one feature or another that you would expect from a dev diary. Those flashes show great promise though, which can be encapsulated in one word: dragons.
The scale of the enemies you'll be facing in "Skyrim" has been kicked up several notches from what was on offer in "Oblivion." Dragons are a crucial part of the new game's story, and based on this trailer, they're just as big, menacing and fire-breathing as you'd want them to be. You also get a brief look at Dragon Shouts, how they are obtained after killing one of the great lizards and how they are used against the same.
Throughout the trailer, you can hear Max Von Sydow laying out the basic setup and introducing the hero in "Skyrim," the "dovahkiin," or Dragonborn. If you really want to absorb what he's saying though, close your eyes. Tamriel is as beautiful as ever, and the sweeping looks we get at Skyrim's towns show off the same sense of character that set each locale in previous "Elder Scrolls" game apart from one another.
In short, get excited. There are still months and months to go before the game's 11/11/11 release date for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows platforms, but if Bethesda keeps bringing out delicious goodies like this it is going to be a fun wait indeed.