If you liked stalking the hills of Skyrim as a werewolf, I’ve got some good news: Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Online Studios are working on the next Elder Scrolls game, and the playable werewolves are even more elaborate than Skyrim’s lycanthropes. The Elder Scrolls Online is a MMORPG set in the continent of Tamriel, a millennium before the events of Skyrim. The game is currently in closed beta, but in the months leading up to the game’s release, Bethesda is sharing a lot of material about the game’s planning and development, and one of the latest news posts gives us “a peek at the creation of the player version of the werewolf”.
The werewolf’s model and combat animations need to convey a sense of unrestrained savagery. Werewolves use their incredible strength to leap through the air towards their unfortunate targets; they devour them with fervor. They often hunt in packs, destroying everything they can hunt down. We used references like video of hyenas gorging on a zebra to get the feel just right, adding touches like bloodstains on the muzzle after a good feast.
I’m not the biggest fan of digitigrade legs or oversized tails, but overall I really like the character design! He looks nasty in all the ways a werewolf ought to be nasty.
For more details, including the effort that went into making the werewolves’ sound design appropriately bestial, check out the news post on the game’s official site. The Elder Scrolls Online comes out in Spring 2014, and will be available for Windows, OS X, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.