Skyrim gets new difficulty mode and Legendary skills in new patch

It looks like Bethesda's ever popular open-world RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is getting a second wind after more than a year after its original release. The company has released a new patch for the PC version of the game that adds a couple of new features to the game alongside the usual bug fixes. The patch has been rolled out to Steam and will be released on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 later this month.

The new features include a new Legendary difficulty level and Legendary skills. The company hasn't revealed any details about what the new difficulty changes to make the game more difficult, and considering how new the patch is, it will probably take a couple of more days for modders to figure it out too.

The Legendary skills system works like Prestige Mode from Call of Duty's multiplayer. When you hit the level cap on a skill, you have the option to turn it into a Legendary skill. Doing so returns all the perks you had spent in that specific skill tree and turns it down to level 15. This is essentially meant to be a way to completely remove the level cap from the game and give players an incentive to play further.

Legendary skills are meant to be like the Prestige Mode from Call of Duty

Back in February, Bethesda had finally gotten around to releasing the Heathfire DLC for Skyrim players on the PlayStation 3. This came as a breath of fresh air for PS3 gamers as before this, Bethesda had been unable to port its DLCs to the console. January saw the first instance of the PS3 getting Skyrim DLC through Dragonborn, and it looks like the developers have finally figured the porting out. It won’t be long before we can see simultaneous release for the DLC on all platforms.

Hearthfire was originally released back in October. It allows you to purchase land and build your own house from the ground up – from a simple one-room cottage to a sprawling compound complete with armoury, alchemy laboratory, stable, garden and more. The DLC introduces new tools such as a drafting table and a carpenter’s workbench to transform stone, clay and logs into structures and furnishings. The new DLC also allows you to adopt children.

Skyrim has been a massive success for Bethesda, proving that big budget games without multiplayer can be successful. The Creation Kit for the game was released earlier this year in February. Within weeks, the Creation Kit had clocked in over two million downloads. This is a testament to the dedication of PC gamers and the popularity of Skyrim, the only other game on Steam that went toe-to-toe with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 last November. Bethesda had also announced that an average PC player of Skyrim has clocked nearly 75 hours in the game.