Mounted Combat Coming to Skyrim

[News Portal]

A forthcoming free update to the smash-hit RPG is set to bring mounted combat into the land of Skyrim. The 1.6 update will bring a slew of bug fixes with it as well, including lighting crashes, loading and saving crashes, and fixes to broken quests. If you can't wait, you can enable the beta version on Steam by following the instructions here on the Bethblog.

Source: Bethblog

Read full article by GON News

[flabcab]

Mount & Blade: Skyrim?

[meji]

People have wanted this in an ES game for a very long time and finally it is arriving and there seems to be a lot less fanfare about it then I thought. Perhaps this feature is a test for the ES MMO?

[Spooler]

Perhaps this feature is a test for the ES MMO?

It's not, different team making the mmo.

It's pretty much just a franchise tie in

[ryceg]

Well this is pretty good news. I remember how much I hated the uselessness of the horses, you had to get off them simply to fight a mudcrab. That was annoying, and really broke the immersion for me. I'm glad to see that they are still pushing out updates, I think Skyrim, as mindless an RPG as it is, will have a pretty good life with the Steam Workshop integration.

[Goshawk]

Tried this with the beta version last night and yeah it's pretty alright. Only played around with it for 5 minutes or so.

[Nekosan]

Probably too late after release for me to really care, would have been a big selling point 6 months ago though.

[Yurtles]

Watched a video of someone shooting arrows on horseback, looks pretty viable. Be good fun fighting a dragon like that.
Not so sure about melee weapons though, unless there's bonus to damage or something. Seems like charging in swinging a sword would just get your horse killed.

[TheOriginalDaniel]

From the gameplay I've watched of it the AI just cannot handle the player strafing back and forth using melee, They don't seem to be able to land a hit

[InAUGral]

Well this is pretty good news. I remember how much I hated the uselessness of the horses, you had to get off them simply to fight a mudcrab. That was annoying, and really broke the immersion for me.

Yeah that would be good but I assume most melee weapons you cannot reach small enemies such as crabs anyway but good for cutting down enemy archers.

[brimlad]

I assume most melee weapons you cannot reach small enemies such as crabs anyway but good for cutting down enemy archers.

you can certainly kill wolves, didn't try it on a mud crab; the animation has the rider sliding down the saddle to be closer to the ground and you can hold your backswing by holding the mouse button and then releasing the swing as you line up your target which quickens the use of a two handed sword.
Dragon battles are much improved as they come to the ground to attack you and the speed of the horse allows you to circle around them to wield your blows and you can get a few in before they take off.
had a battle with 2 mammoths and got a few blows in but they killed my horse pretty quickly as I tried to ride between them.
one bug I did find was with giants, they just ignored me and swinging blows at them didn't activate a battle, they were like ghosts.
good feature mounted combat and when the patch is out of beta will make horses worthy of ownership.

cheers