Skyrim Might Get Tons of New Gameplay Features via DLC

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has just received the 1.4 patch and a new set of modding tools this week, but fans of the open-world action role-playing game might be soon getting even more content, some of it even weirder than the Portal 2 linked companion.

Todd Howard, who is the design director working on the game at Bethesda, has revealed at the DICE 2012 conference that his team celebrated the fact that the game was content complete in 2011 by taking on a full week during which each developer was free to work on personal projects that could be included in the game.

The idea was to create complex and unexpected ideas that would have not been accepted during the normal development cycle.

The most interesting results include things like: vampire feeding sessions, the ability to adopt children in the game, spell combos, a new goblin race, mounted combat abilities, kill cameras for magic spells, were-bears, enormous mutated mudcrabs and a whole new set of commands for the companions.

It seems that a number of the new ideas might be included in Skyrim at some point in the future via downloadable content packs, although Howard made sure to say that no decision has been taken yet.

Howard has also revealed that the Bethesda team has done little actual crowd testing for the core features of Skyrim and instead focused on creating a complex experience that would satisfy their own interests and sensibilities.

Bethesda made the game playable as early as possible and the entire 100 plus team was able to play it all and offer feedback on their experience, allowing the designers to quickly iterate on their ideas.

This seems very similar to the design process that Apple used when creating the original iPhone design, relying more on their instincts than on what the public stated it wanted.

UPDATE: Added showcase video showing some of the content created by developers during their "GameJam".