Bethesda has revealed that the overhauled menu system in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim will draw inspiration from a rather trendy source — Apple’s iTunes. In fact, the studio wants to make Skyrim look like Apple designed a fantasy game … seriously!
“You know in iTunes when you look at all your music you get to flip through it and look at the covers and it becomes tangible? One of our goals was, ‘What if Apple made a fantasy game? How would this look?’ It’s very good at getting through lots of data quickly, which is always a struggle with our stuff,” said Bethesda’s Todd Howard.
The main menu in Skyrim is a compass with four points. The right point leads to your inventory, which contains fully-3D items complete with descriptions. From weapons to flowers, everything can be examined in detail. The left point contains your magic, with up to 85 spells. Pressing up gives you an image of a starry sky, which is related to character development and skills. Down shows the map, which is actually a zoomed out, real-time rendering of the world around you. You’ll be able to play from this perspective, too!
Rather than set limits on mapping skills and items, Skyrim now has a “Favorites” system, where you can bookmark as many things as you like for easy use.
Now I’ll sit here and count the seconds before somebody retorts to this news with “iTunes sucks!”
Inside Skyrim’s Menu System Overhaul [Game Informer]
