Mounted Combat Comes To Skyrim

Today, Bethesda have announced another new feature for the latest Elder Scrolls title: mounted combat.  Players will now be able to use both melee and ranged attacks from horseback, meaning you’ll no longer need to jump off your steed to fight every foe you come across. Originally shown of in the Skyrim Game Jam video, this new mechanic is coming to all users for free alongside the 1.6 update, which also offers a variety of bug fixes, as seen below:

1.6 Update (all platforms unless specified)

NEW FEATURES

• Mounted Combat – Skyrim now allows you to do melee and ranged combat while riding a horse

BUG FIXES

• General stability and memory optimizations
• General AI pathfinding optimizations and bug fixes
• Optimizations and crash fixes for data leaks
• Fixed rare crash with lighting
• Fixed crashes related to loading and saving games
• Fixed crash with summoned creatures/NPCs
• Fixed rare issue where saves would be corrupted
• Improved logic for when ranged kill cams are played
• Fixed issue with ranged kill cams while killing a dragon
• Fixed rare issue with certain ranged kill cams not playing properly
• Fixed issue with nirnroot lighting not properly cleaning up
• Fixed issue where bow damage was being calculated incorrectly
• Fixed rare problem with werewolf kill moves would not finish animating properly
• In “The Break of Dawn” fixed rare issue where Meridia’s Beacon would disappear from player’s inventory
• Fixed occasional issue where followers would disappear after player pays off a bounty after committing a crime
• Fixed issue where certain creatures and NPCs would fail to respawn properly
• Fixed rare issue with dialogue subtitles not displaying properly
• Fixed issue with water appearing blurry when loading a saved game after creating a save underwater
• Fixed issue where map cursor would occasionally disappear after closing a message box with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)
• Fixed rare issue with shouts only performing the first level and not other unlocked levels with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)
• Fixed issue where the shout buttons would stop working properly if users mashed LB and RB during cooldown with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)

No release date has been revealed as of yet, but PC users who have signed up for the beta update on Steam will get an early crack at it.  If you want to check out the full announcement, or would like more info on the beta update, head over to the official Bethesda Blog.