Skyrim to support Steam Workshop, Creation Kit due January

Bethesda is focussed on ramping up mod support as well as addressing issues with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, including a new patch next week.

An update on the Bethesda Blog reveals the developer is planning to implement full support for Valve's Steam Workshop, which acts as a marketplace for user-generated content.

For those who prefer existing communities, mods will still be available for sharing on indie sites like ModDB.

Facilitating all this, the Creation Kit, Bethesda's latest suite of mod tools which are said to be nearly as robust as those used by the developers themselves, will arrive in January.

Regarding patches, Bethesda also promised a new incremental update next week, following on from 1.2's release on all platforms over the last few days, and to resume releasing regular updates after the holidays.

The developer warned that stand-alone PC and Steam patches will arrive faster than consoles, due to faster certification turn around, and acknowledged problems introduced with past patches.

"We all know this is a huge game, and everyone has a different experience. We’ll continue to do everything we can to make the game better and better for as many people as possible every day," the post commented.

"We’ve also realized that with the millions upon millions of people playing Skyrim, we need to treat our updates with greater care. If we get too aggressive trying to fix a minor issue, we run a risk of breaking something larger in a game like this.

"To be safe, we are prioritizing code side fixes right now over data fixes. Quest and balance issues are usually data, and those will start rolling in a large way with the January updates."

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out now on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.