Like many people had guessed the surprise that was coming with the Creation Kit was indeed a HD resolution texture pack for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. They both came out earlier today and the HD resolution texture pack is free and fairly large in size. I've played the game a little bit since I installed that pack and I haven't noticed any significant graphical differences, yet, but based on the size of the file it must have done quite a bit. Take a look and see if the game looks any different to you. Zoom in on the screenshot by clicking on it to see a more detailed look.



Skyrim was already a great game but with the release of the creation kit they have fortified one of greatest features of most Bethesda Softworks games, modding. With Morrowind and Oblivion Bethesda had also released modding tools and the modding community for both of those games is still significantly large, even so many years after the releases of those games. This is the best modding feature I have ever seen, specifically for one reason; Because of the Steam Workshop and how easy it makes it to use mods. Using modifications on games has always been kind of a hassle, if not a huge a hassle for some games, but many newer games have implemented built in tools to make it easier, like Civilization V's download, rate and play mod browser. The Steam Workshop is so very easy to use and displays mods in very useful ways. You can view it in a browser, or on Steam, and when you find a mod that you want to use you simply press subscribe. Once you subscribe the game will automatically install the mod next time you start the game and it will already be ready to go. I imagine there will still be compatibility problems and such, or mods not working for no apparent reason, but the ease at which you can browse and install mods is wonderful. Take a look at the front page of the workshop.

As you can see you can easily sort through mods by rating, downloads, comments, type and so much more. This was the front page from earlier today and there are already a very large number of mods available. I'm sure all the ones on there today are mods that were previously created and merely transferred to the workshop, but it's still impressive that so many are available within one day. Take a look at the Steam Workshop to see all the modifications. Many of the modifications on the first two page are great, like Alchemy Satchels, which spawns a universal alchemy satchel at every single buyable house in the game, so you may now easily consolidate all of those resources. There is also the Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1, a mod created by Bethesda that brings in the talking Portal 2 Space Core, which is voiced by the overly popular Nolan North. It is merely an item that you can find and play with but still entertaining. Check out this video that shows it off.