Bethesda Peddles Upcoming Skyrim Creation Kit and Steam Workshop

After basking in the aftermath of Skyrim’s fan-tacular release for several weeks, Bethesda is back at their desks preparing some new features in the form of mod kits, a subsequent distribution system via Steam, updates and bug fixes for things like that trolling moonwalk dragon.

Their creation kit will be available for PC modders by January, with a wiki and tutorial videos to follow. In a collaboration with Valve, Steam Workshop will also work as a real-time distribution system where mods can be loaded, rated, and flagged from any internet device, making access hopefully more efficient and selective of quality. External mod sites will still be viable for use, so no worries if you’re not ready to enlist in the Steam Workshop.

Although update 1.2 rolled out this week, they expect several other updates in the future, which will come sooner and more often via the PC and Steam platforms because Bethesda can bypass console certification processes. This does not mean they aim to be the annoying, intrusive peddler of minute incremental updates:

We’ve also realized that with the millions upon millions of people playing Skyrim, we need to treat our updates with greater care. If we get too aggressive trying to fix a minor issue, we run a risk of breaking something larger in a game like this. To be safe, we are prioritizing code side fixes right now over data fixes. Quest and balance issues are usually data, and those will start rolling in a large way with the January updates.