Yes, that's right, it's another slightly different version of the game that point blank refuses to crawl into a corner and die. Rejoice!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition has sneaked its way onto the Switch eShop, giving players the option to purchase a full version or, if you already own Skyrim, a less expensive DLC upgrade alternative. But what in the Todd Howard are we getting for our money this time around?
Well, seeing as the base Switch version of Bethesda's RPG (of which you can read our review for the full lowdown on the non-anniversary content) already includes all three of the game's official add-ons — Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn, which are cheekily highlighted as part of this upgrade in the AE press blurb — alongside a few Zelda-flavoured goodies, and given that this Anniversary Edition doesn't benefit from any graphical/performance enhancements added to other ports, what we're left with here is 74 pieces of Creation Club mod content.
Creation Club mods, those officially sanctioned by the powers that be at Bethesda, were an expensive bunch of add-ons to pick up separately, but here you get them all bundled in and activated for £17.99 if you already own the game. If spending that amount of cash on a bunch of mods seems a bit much to you, well, it's hard to argue with your reasoning but honestly, there’s a lot of quality content to enjoy here with some strong quests packed full of sweet lore and lots of weapons, houses, wild horses, armour and all that good stuff.
We've been blasting back through the game to check out all the new quests. There are some right crackers from the get-go, big meaty chunks of fun to dig into with plenty of new journals and letters to pore over, and some very nice connections back to the likes of Oblivion for you TES buffs out there. You also get fishing, which is...well...it's fishing innit, but it's got its own questline too, and knocking around Skyrim collecting maps for good fishing spots and then ticking off the various types you manage to catch is much more fun than it has any right to be, really. There's also a Survival mode which disables fast travel, increases fatigue, and adds lots of stuff like hunger, disease, and some horrible afflictions — basically turning the game into a sort of 'Living In the United Kingdom 2022' simulator.
Honestly, if you're a fan of Skyrim, we reckon this is an upgrade that's worth grabbing and it's also worth pointing out that, although the full version is expensive, you can frequently catch the standard version of Skyrim on a deep discount during eShop sales and then upgrade that way. If you've never played the game before — and we 100% refuse to believe there's anyone who hasn't — this really is the best, most feature-rich, content-packed version of an RPG that, no matter how much we make fun of it, always completely sucks us right back into its world every single time we boot it up.
Now, when is the 'Anniversary of the Release of the Anniversary Edition' coming out?
Comments 81
Great game, but I sunk such an ungodly amount of hours into it on PS3 when it first came out that I can’t justify ever starting again.
Biggest cash grab series going, $70 on the eshop is disgusting. Costs more in 2022 than it did at launch in 2011 😬
I was hoping for a physical release with the update on cartridge. But that would require the use of a 32GB cartridge, so it'll probably never happen. Unless Limited Run get frisky, as they did with Doom Eternal?
Cash grab? Sure. But if you LOVE the game like I do, it's totally freaking worth it. Bought it the second I saw it on the shop and no regrets.
I've had the regular game forever and uninstalled it to save space on the card. I need to finally start it and actually play. I liked Morrowind and Oblivion enough.
I realize this just dropped yesterday, so perhaps the reviewer didn't have much time to play test on Switch, but I had a pretty poor experience with this content last night, and I believe it introduces performance issues that didn't exist previously. Buyer beware.
I played for roughly 3 hours, and in that 3 hours I noticed new stuttering in busy areas (Riften and Solitude are pretty noticeable) and the worst of it was crashing, which occurred twice (about once per hour).
I think it should be made clear myself and others are reporting low performance/crashing after installing this content.
@Magician What's shocking is that CD Projekt managed to get a massive game like the Witcher 3 optimized and compressed enough to run on Switch at a whopping 32GB on cartridge and sell it with all the DLC's and Expansion content bundled inside no extra fees and yet Bethesda is too complacent to try give Switch owners anything meaningful.
I'm someone who hasn't accessed the Anniversary Edition Creation Club Content in this yet, are there any community made enhanced features like better character creation to make your custom character look more beautiful or is that just only possible with PC mods?
@Astral-Grain I've been playing away on it and haven't had anything more than the usual stutters here and there. Strange.
Do these upgrades ever goes on sale?
Is upgrading a limited offer?
I've never played Skyrim. I don't even own it. I do own Morrowind, though, but I haven't played that one, either. Skyrim is so ubiquitous I almost feel like I did play it, but I never actually have. Well, I did try it in VR for about 5 minutes at a friend's house, but I'm not counting that.
Cons: No proper physical edition available.
@PJOReilly Hmm, that is interesting. Are you playing with survival mode enabled? Also, did you start a new save or an old one?
I noticed the stutters with Survival mode enabled and disabled, but the crashes only happened when Survival was enabled and perhaps that's the culprit. I should also mention the crashing occurred when using existing saves that have explored the map a bit already, I didn't start a fresh save.
@Astral-Grain New save without survival. I'll investigate a little further with survival switched on and see if I spot anything!
@PJOReilly My base version Skyrim did crash on occasion too, so not sure if that's a particularly new problem, although if it's more frequent that's not great.
@PJOReilly I appreciate you.
Be sure to grab plenty of cooked meat!
Please god make it stop!
@PJOReilly I hear you, I've been gaming on Steam Deck a bit recently so I figured the stuttering was just me getting used to the Switch again and I ignored it, but the crashing is another story.
It certainly isn't the first time Skyrim has crashed on Switch, but the frequency used to be maybe once every 3-4 hours and this happened once every hour so it stuck out to me as unusual. It could be I was just very unlucky last night, but it left a pretty bad lasting impression.
I’ve been waiting on this one. I like to use the switch version as my vanilla play through because my mod situation on PC is too much work to re tinker with.
@Astral-Grain 🍖🍖😂
WHY THE F*** IS IT SEVENTY EURO!? ITS A DECADE OLD.
For how many memes have been made about it, I've never actually played Skyrim myself and was thinking about using this version as a springboard but that pricetag is an absolute no-go for me. Why are you like this Bethesda.
@nimnio If I may, you have options that avoid the tinkering.
I've been modding Skyrim since it launched, and I think playing for the first time should always be done without mods. That way, you have a baseline for what the vanilla game offers, which is actually quite a lot. If you already own it on PC, I suggest giving it another crack without mods.
Then, once you're ready to mod, you can still avoid tinkering by using pre-made mod lists made by others. The benefit being other people spent hours and hours crafting and testing it so you don't have to. Also, modding on Xbox is fairly easy compared to PC if that's an option for you, but you still have to deal with managing load orders and you can still get mods that cause issues.
Anyway, I hope you get to experience the game fully one day, it's really fantastic, even 11 years later.
So, they didn't even make this dlc themselves, they're just selling it for an 11 years old game they're still selling at full price? I mean, I may have gotten a bit TOO used to paying inder 5€ for really decent to absolutely great games (if there is such a thing as getting TOO used to that), but even if I'm starting a new campaign in Skyrim in the future, there's enough I haven't done yet in there, and a bit extra that was created for free by the fans is not going to get me too pay Bethesda for it. It's a fantastic game, and I already paid for it, but this is just an unfair business model. It's like paying taxes to the state for clean streets while they get volunteers to clean the streets for free, or force people through "community service" for the "crime" of avoiding taxes or whatever. It just makes so much NO sense at all and is so clearly corrupt business...
Unless of course I'm mistaken, which is perfectly possible, but won't change the fact that I'm not buying it. As a free update it would have been awesome though.
$70 is a big no no. This game should be $40 max.
still waiting bethesda port Evil Within not skyrim + +
@russell-marlow The original Switch release of Skyrim is at least with the DLC included.
@Astral-Grain Yo, are there any unique features in the Creation Club like any newer character customization options to make them look nicer or prettier and I'm not talking about armor, I'm talking about general enhancements to their faces and or body textures?
70$/€ price tag and more performance problems?... For a decade old game!... For SKYRIM! Hell no! That's lazy, stupid, and greedy! Even Makoto Kedōin with his first(remake) Corpse Party game's numerous remakes and enhanced ports is not so lazy and greedy like Todd Howard! Oh, and if you don't know who Makoto Kedōin is... Well... Let's call him as "Japanese Todd Howard", due to a quite big amount of rereleases(remakes and enhanced ports) of his one game - Corpse Party: NewChapter... There is 5 remakes/enhanced ports of this game... So, that's the reason why I'm call Makoto as "Japanese Todd Howard" and why I'm compare Corpse Party to Skyrim...
Also... Corpse Party: NewChapter is a remake itself. It is a enhanced remake of the original CORPSE-PARTY for NEC PC-9801...
Original CORPSE-PARTY for NEC PC-9801...
Corpse Party: NewChapter - 1st (enhanced) remake... Exclusive to mobile phones. The game is unfinished(discontinued). Only 4 chapters out of 5 main chapters released.
Corpse Party: BloodCovered - enhanced port of discontinued mobile game. Available only on PC. 2nd "remake"/pseudo-remake.
Corpse party: BloodCovered: ...Repeated Fear - 3rd remake. It is enhanced remake of PC game. Available only on PSP and iOS.
Corpse Party Blood covered: ...Repeated fear. - 4th remake. It is enhanced remake of PSP/iOS game. Available only on Nintendo 3DS.
Corpse Party Blood covered: ...Repeated fear. (2021) - 5th "remake"/pseudo-remake. It is enhanced port of Nintendo 3DS game... Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One...
Phew!... Finally...
As it is written nowhere: is the 20€ Upgrade working with the physical edition? I think so as there is a new update of several GB 😳 but I‘m not sure
@russell-marlow It has nothing like that. It's basically just items and cosmetic stuff that can make the game fun to play in new ways.
To simplify the list of content, it has:
1. New Armor: New sets of armor for almost all materials (iron, steel, etc.) and new unique armor.
2. New Accessories: New items like Backpacks that let you carry more stuff
3. New Generic Weapons: New magic-infused arrows, crossbows, and gauntlets that make it viable to play with fists only
4. New Unique Artifacts: Several artifacts from previous games such as Cowl of Nocturnal and Staff of Sheogorath with unique enchantments
5. New quests: These quests are typically how to access the unique content, but they're all driven by notes and letters, nothing is voiced and it's pretty generic
6.New Player Homes: There are a few, but these too feel pretty generic
7. Fishing Mini game: Pretty cool in my opinion, but since you could just grab fish from the water or even shout at them, it's nothing special
8. New creatures: Some can be pets, some are new enemies
9. Survival Mode: Overhauls the entire game so each area has a temperature and you need to maintain sleep, hunger, and warmth. This also modifies clothing to have a "warmth" rating and food to have a "hunger" rating.
I may have missed some stuff like new dungeons, but I think those are the most notable pieces included.
I read that fishing is a free update, no need to pay for the mods
With the release of Skyrim Anniversary Edition, all owners of Skyrim on Nintendo Switch are getting an additional update adding four creations at no additional charge, including Saints & Seducers, Survival Mode and even Fishing!* If you already own The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for Nintendo Switch, not only will you also be eligible for this free content, you can buy additional add-on content through the Creation Club following this update.
Additionally, owners of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for Nintendo Switch can purchase the Anniversary Edition Upgrade, adding all the content from the Anniversary Edition to their game, including dozens of creations adding hundreds of quests, weapons, armor. locations, mounts and much more.
I copied/pasted this from the switch channel news
I feel like if I'm going to play Skyrim with extras I'm going to do it on PC. I really hope that the stability is better on the anniversary edition. I was struggling with so many crashes on the standard version.
@Moonlessky Thank you for mentioning this, I wasn't aware. All these items costed money initially, so it's cool they added the most popular ones as a free update.
That being said, it's also being reported the free content update is causing crashes, as evidenced here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/xqyk56/switch_anniversary_edition_is_out_on_switch/
This furthers my suspicion Survival Mode is the cause of performance issues and crashing, which is a shame because some people will experience this without buying the Anniversary Edition, they just update their game, see the issues, and there's nothing they can do about it.
Anyone that downloads the free update won't be able to roll back to the previous version that didn't have performance issues. This would be pretty frustrating if it was my only way to play the game.
I'm okay with the one we got at launch.
@Astral-Grain I had no idea about performance problems in this update, I updated it last night 😅
@Moonlessky Yeah, I saw some of it myself last night, but others seem to be reporting even worse experiences.
Multiple people report starting a new save with survival mode enabled and then going to Black Falls Barrow will get consistent crashes. Some report just standing in front of Bleak Falls Barrow for more than a minute will crash the game for them.
Either the game is borked on Switch forever or Bethesda will clean up their mess eventually. Fingers crossed they do something about this soon.
Nice review! It’s amazing how hard it’s been to find out just exactly what they added, so this is helpful.
Might not buy the add-on anytime soon, but if I ever feel like more Skyrim, it’s nice to know this is out there.
With regards to crashes, I've been hearing that a fresh install solves the issues and crashes are happening on old versions that were already installed and then updated with Anniversary. Can't verify this at all rn and I've had no issues with the game so far, although mine was a completely fresh install.
@PJOReilly I know I'm probably bugging you at this point, but I have to share I did a fresh install just to play this content yesterday and it didn't make a difference.
I purchased the Anniversary Edition add-on, then re-installed Skyrim from the store page and it downloaded everything, including the new content. The only additional thing I did was re-download my cloud saves. Installed it fresh and I still got crashes and performance issues.
Have you tried going to Bleak Falls Barrow with a new character with survival mode enabled? Multiple people report this is a common area of crashes since the update on Switch.
Edit: This will be my final update, becoming chilly seems to cause the crashes about 1/2 the time, and this is only possible when survival mode is enabled. Getting chilly doesn't always cause crashes, but becoming freezing has a 100% rate of crash in my testing.
If you use a carriage to fast travel to a city in a cold area, such as Windhelm or Winterhold, it is very likely crash before the location even loads on screen because fast travel adds hours of time you were exposed to the cold and puts you in "freezing" status instantly.
TL;DR: If you freeze in the game, you freeze in real life.
Now a Neverending Story game would be cool!
Fishing and survival mode are the most interesting things to me so I’m happy they’re both free.
$70 for an 11 year old game. No thanks.
@Astral-Grain noticed my frame rate tanked when I was in Solitude. Using a save I already had. Hopefully we'll get a performance patch soon.
@Arkay I tell you what, I'll pray at your shrine and we'll see what happens.
The switch bugs aside, is this game getting worse or why is it not worth 60/70€? You get houndreds of hours of great content so I think the price for this is much more worth it than every years fifa, cod or other low quality with high visual content stuff.
I understand that some don’t want to pay the normal price for an older game. And because it’s not Nintendo it’s often on sale, so should not be that much of a problem.
@Gitface absolutely this — Skyrim on PS3 and Fallout 4 on PS4 double-handedly broke me of ever wanting to go near a Bethesda game for the rest of time.
No enhancements whatsoever?? No lighting improvements, nothing. Just a straight port of a PS3/360 game for $70. That's a no for me. I've waited all this time to play Skyrim finally, so I can wait a bit longer on a sale. Even $50 seems more palatable.
With the amount of eshop gold coins I had saved up, I got the update for near free.
But with the frame rate more noticeably tanking, I do hope for a free performance update in the future, but that’s wishful thinking from Bethesda/MS.
@Astral-Grain If this video is anything to go by, they've completely messed the game up. No offence to the staff here but surely a review should check this.
https://youtu.be/m5ayoxEMISw
Not really sure what the point is of having this on Switch over the past version. I mean it made sense to me on Xbox, because it was enhanced, but this pretty much the same game we already had.
@Astral-Grain yeah, i deleted the game and redownloaded the game without the AE dlc and it run great again. hope they patch the game fast. what a waste of $20.
I think I'll stick with the regular version for now...considering I still haven't played it lol.
The thing is fishing and survival mode were a free update on the other platforms, so I'm guessing that's not the case here? I mean if Switch is your only means of playing this then maybe there's some value, though that price is ludicrous. I'm playing it on PC where I can install much better mods for nothing so haven't upgraded
@Moonlessky so Switch is getting the free update then, that makes this review even stranger given his main positives were for content you don't need the paid upgrade for
It's a nice touch that you can upgrade from the standard version. I mean, it's the way these things should go, but they usually don't.
@Astral-Grain while playing the base version on Switch you must choose to turn on the survival version or play without it. Can be later turned on. I have played Skyrim on switch since first released (on switch) (copied to a 1 TB card (1/2 filled) and have only had 1 mini crash since playing daily. I suspect the crashes have more to do with XCSD card quality/# of games/ hacking etc... than normal gameplay or content. This suspicion does not address/include the bought or free DL/paid DLC.
@carlos82 the fishing and Survival are free after original purchase updates, regardless of when purchased, but you must initiate the survival to use the fishing, which I feel sucks. I want fishing without the survival mode; which due to crashes I may not use...
I wonder if you need to choose survival (mode) to use the paid DLC/new items or can you use it without the survival mode... also same for fishing?
people are bitching about paying this full price for an 11-year-old game, but they'll REpay higher prices for Nintendo games that are older than that by far... -logic lost!... buy more picross!
So correct me if I'm wrong.
They're charging full price for the same game again but with added content they didn't even make themselves.
15 hours into my Anniversary Edition playthrough and I've loved it so far. I've played through Skyrim twice, but Survival Mode (which is apparently free) coupled with some new questions, a few new properties to own, and all of the other extra items, weapons and pack animals to potentially own have, thus far, imo, been worth the small price of admission.
I like any excuse I can get for another playthrough. The game is flawed but the vibe to it is also very beautiful, imo.
@Astral-Grain Thanks, I'll probably stick to the Steam version for now with it's unlimited mod support.
@HeeHo If you already purchased the game, you only have to pay for the DLC, which is I think $15? I can't remember exactly, but it wasn't that expensive. In terms of quality and depth of upgrades, I've certainly paid more for less.
@russell-marlow it's funny how people always have to mention CDPR when talking about Skyrim. It's cool they were able to compress their game. Most people don't care about that or physical copies of games. If they did, the market would adjust.
I know Skyrim has some issues but it's nowhere close to Cyberpunk or The Witcher in terms of bugs and lack of content. Imagine if Bethesda had locked guard behavior behind a paid dlc instead of just fixing it.
I'll take Bethesda over CDPR any day.
@Andy_Witmyer So the performance hasn't been an issue? I noticed how they made it an update for my old physical edition at a rather hefty 7+gb, and the anniversary content is a DLC pack.
I'm not sure it's all related, but since the update I've had arrows and ice spears not disappearing, drift only with Skyrim that stops if I'm over encumberred, a crash and freezing (especially when I try assigning points in my trees). That's all just since the free update that I didn't even know about until it was already downloaded on my Switch. I'm in no hurry to spend $20 on the upgrade if I can't even play the regular game now without all of these issues.
Still no update or even mention that this content causes performance issues?
This isn't just a handful of people complaining, I've seen at least 5 threads about it on Reddit alone with loads of comments agreeing, this is really something that needs to be mentioned in the review.
I'll just leave this here: https://help.bethesda.net/#en/answer/57181
@Astral-Grain Just for balance, I've been playing it for a large number of hours at this point and have not noticed anything at all in the way of newly-introduced performance issues, so I'd suggest it's either subjective or not unilateral.
@russell-marlow Have you played the extra content?
@Moonlessky You get 4 pieces of extra content for free.
@HeeHo If you already own it you can pick up the extra content for about 17 English pounds, so...
@Phon Good for you, you're one of the lucky ones.
There are, however, many many others who are actually affected:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/xsebhw/dont_buy_skyrim_anniversary_edition_on_switch/
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/xt05hb/skyrim_anniversary_switch_performance_test/
https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/xqyk56/switch_anniversary_edition_is_out_on_switch/
It's clear to me no one wants to acknowledge this issue so I'll just stop trying. If @PJOReilly can't be bothered to add a simple warning in this review that people are at least reporting issues, there's no reason for me to continue trying to help warn people.
Cash grab for shure.
@Astral-Grain You can always re-install the game without the new patch, using the L button when you start the download
@Astral-Grain Ok.
Bethesda already patched it and all performance issues has been resolved, why no one mentioned it???
@Astral-Grain Bethesda patched it and all performance issues has been resolved... but no news about this... neh
@Zanzox That's good to know, I appreciate you sharing!
Honestly, I wouldn't have checked this article again if it weren't for the author saying he would follow up and report his findings but then he never actually did anything from what I can tell.
Genuine question @PJOReilly - is there anything more people like myself could have done to bring this issue to your attention where it would actually result in a change to the article to include a disclaimer?
honestly, bethesda should create accesible mods server for nintendo switch version, i also have the modded switch then found the structure and how the game recognize that we have mods are similar to PC version (bla bla bla disable achievement, as we know that the switch didnt have achievement or such a thing).
the anniversary is cool , finally i have farm that give me more money, additional quest, additional cool item etc but the price is big NO, whoaa im not gonna pay anymore for free mods
Fishing and Survival are added free of charge for the Switch version of the base game with the latest patch, I believe. At least I have them now for some reason, without ever buying the AE upgrade from the eShop.
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