Skyrim Xbox One X Update: What You Need to Know

Like Fallout 4, Skyrim Special Edition will receive an update that enhances the game on the Xbox One X and today we want to highlight everything we currently know about Bethesda’s plans.

As we push into the year we’re starting to see game developers release detailed plans for Microsoft’s brand new console. Bethesda, the company behind games like Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Wolfenstein, recently outlined its plans for the Xbox One X.

Bethesda recently pushed out an Xbox One X update for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus bringing 4K support, HDR support, and additional enhancements to the highly rated game. It’s not stopping there.

The company has plans to release several more Xbox One X updates including one for Fallout 4 and one for Skyrim Special Edition.

Bethesda’s provided a brief list of features and it also offered a vague release window. While we wait for the rest of the information we’ll walk you through what we currently know about the Skyrim Xbox One X update. We’ll also take you through a few things we expect.

Skyrim Xbox One X Update Release Date

If you own an Xbox One X and a copy of Skyrim Special Edition you’re probably wondering when Bethesda plans to release its support update.

We don’t have an official date to share with you but Skyrim’s “Xbox One X Enhanced” update, which Bethesda and Microsoft both say is still in development, could arrive before the end of the year if we’re lucky.

Bethesda says it plans to “provide new information about our Xbox One X (and the PS4 Pro) support as new title updates are deployed this quarter and next year.” This doesn’t confirm a release in 2017, but it certainly leaves the door open.

Skyrim Special Edition updates typically go through a beta before they’re released, but we don’t expect the company to put the Skyrim Xbox One X update into public testing ahead of its release date.

Bethesda typically doesn’t provide early release date information so expect the Skyrim Special Edition Xbox One X patch to push out without warning.

Skyrim Xbox One X Features

Bethesda’s Skyrim Xbox One X patch will deliver support for 4K resolution. We expect it to run at 30FPS. The update includes dynamic resolution.

Unfortunately, the list of upgrades is much shorter than the lists for games like Fallout 4 and Dishonored 2. To give you an idea, Bethesda’s update for Dishonored 2 includes:

• Supports 4K Resolution
• Enhanced features include:
  • Dynamic Resolution
  • Improved framerate stability
  • 4K textures
  • Improved geometry/draw distances
  • Improved anti-aliasing
  • Improved shadows quality

That said, if you want the best looking version of Skyrim Special Edition with the best overall performance, you’ll need to play it on Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, or a Windows PC.

As of right now it’s unclear if these changes will roll out alongside additional features.

The Skyrim Creation Club content market has been deal for several weeks and the base game and its DLC content are still plagued with various bugs.

The latest Skyrim Special Edition patch, version 1.5.16, included a fix for the rate of critters respawning in world, a fix for a crash related to changing profiles (Xbox One only), a fix for issues with screenshots displaying incorrectly in Creation Club/Mods, and minor bug fixes to Bethesda.net.

A Quality Map

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One of our favorite Skyrim mods for PC is now available for console.  A Quality World Map by IcePenguin is an essential mod for PC. And now that it's available for console, it's an essential mod for Xbox One. (It's not available for PS4 yet.) Bethesda's vanilla Skyrim map is decent enough but this mod takes it to the next level with improved textures and detailed roads. The developer has literally drawn out every single road in the game and needless to say, it's impressive. And useful.  For more info, take a look at the video below. Trust us, this one is very, very good. Give it a try today.

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