Bethesda have announced that in update 1.6 for Skyrim they will be introducing mounted combat following its teasing in the Skyrim Game Jam video shown off earlier this year at DICE 2012. This is a free title update for all platforms and will see players now able to use melee and ranged weapons, thus making horses more useful. Now we just need to see Bethesda implementing horses for companions so we don’t have to wait for them to constantly catch up as we ride into the sunset.
PC users are able to try out the highly requested mounted combat now by opting into the Steam Beta Update via the settings menu in Steam, while news on the Xbox 360 and PS3 release dates are yet to be announced. Check out the full patch notes after the break.
1.6 Update (all platforms unless specified)
New Features
- Mounted Combat – Skyrim now allows you to do melee and ranged combat while riding a horse
Bug Fixes
- General stability and memory optimizations
- General AI pathfinding optimizations and bug fixes
- Optimizations and crash fixes for data leaks
- Fixed rare crash with lighting
- Fixed crashes related to loading and saving games
- Fixed crash with summoned creatures/NPCs
- Fixed rare issue where saves would be corrupted
- Improved logic for when ranged kill cams are played
- Fixed issue with ranged kill cams while killing a dragon
- Fixed rare issue with certain ranged kill cams not playing properly
- Fixed issue with nirnroot lighting not properly cleaning up
- Fixed issue where bow damage was being calculated incorrectly
- Fixed rare problem with werewolf kill moves would not finish animating properly
- In “The Break of Dawn” fixed rare issue where Meridia’s Beacon would disappear from player’s inventory
- Fixed occasional issue where followers would disappear after player pays off a bounty after committing a crime
- Fixed issue where certain creatures and NPCs would fail to respawn properly
- Fixed rare issue with dialogue subtitles not displaying properly
- Fixed issue with water appearing blurry when loading a saved game after creating a save underwater
- Fixed issue where map cursor would occasionally disappear after closing a message box with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)
- Fixed rare issue with shouts only performing the first level and not other unlocked levels with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)
- Fixed issue where the shout buttons would stop working properly if users mashed LB and RB during cooldown with Kinect enabled (Xbox 360)
See the original post on the Bethesda Softworks blog here.
Alexander “AJ” Bridgwood
Gaming and Tech Network 