As QuakeCon kicked off yesterday, I was surprised and delighted to see a familiar name pop up over and over again on Bethesda’s stream. No, not Todd Howard. Not Marty Stratton. Not Doom Guy or John Starfield or Beth Esda (the reclusive and rarely seen 106-year-old owner of Bethesda Game Studios).
It was Kinggath! Kinggath is a modder I associate so strongly with Fallout 4 that, as far as I’m concerned, he invented it. The Sim Settlements and Sim Settlements 2 mods that Kinggath created are so important to Fallout 4 that the game might as well not exist without them. I’m not going to give a 10-paragraph sales pitch now, because I’ve already done that: Here’s why you should never play Fallout 4 without Sim Settlements 2.
The first few minutes of the QuakeCon livestream were packed with Kinggath name-drops, as he is now working on official creations (mods) for Bethesda. The first Kinggath project we saw yesterday is for Skyrim, an expansion to the disappointing Bard’s College from the original game. Yes, Bethesda built a Bard’s College in Skyrim, built a ton of quests for it, and still… didn’t let you become a bard. I agree, it was either an act of insanity or cruelty, like a garbage truck driver playing music from an ice cream vendor only to see the disappointment on the faces of the kids running outside with a few dollars in their hands.
This unforgivable wrong is finally being righted. The Bard’s College expansion adds a “major” storyline to the musical faction, and here’s the thing: it lets you become a real bard. “The mountains come alive when you play your instruments on the open road. Use them to earn money by playing to audiences, or to inspire your allies in battle.”
Of course, you’re not the only bard in Skyrim. “Learn insults and retorts as you battle other bards in word games that can earn you money and prestige.” There’s also a “new type of weapon that lets you combine your screams into a devastating chant,” and you can compose a ballad to sing of your heroic deeds to the world. The Bard’s College expansion isn’t free: it costs 1,000 “Creation Credits,” which is $10 on Steam. Find out more and watch the trailer here:
Watch on
If you’re looking for a Kinggath game to play for free, you’ll have to fire up Starfield and immediately turn it back off, because this creation hasn’t come out yet. It’s a “Doom-inspired miniquest” from Kinggath, and you can get a few quick glimpses of it below. Doom Guy armor: Check. That iconic shotgun? Check. A space station that looks like it orbited Hell? Big check. At Hell’s Gate doesn’t have a release date yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as we have one.
