In the eight short months following the release of Skyrim, the latest instalment of Bethesda’s well-known The Elder Scrolls franchise, several welcome updates have been released. Over time, extra features have also been introduced, such as “kill-cams” and horse-mounted combat.

Today Bethesda continues that trend, releasing a beta version of the upcoming The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 1.7 update for Steam users who have opted-in to receive beta updates. If you’re not sure how to do that, but want to take advantage of a few important bug fixes, stick around after the jump  for instructions.

The 1.7 update contains the following bug fixes:

  • General memory and stability optimizations Fixed crash related to new water shaders Fixed rare crash related to dragon landings Fixed logic error with loading screens from add-ons (Xbox 360) Using vampiric grip and swimming no longer prevents swimming animation from playing afterwards Improved recognition with Kinect voice commands (Xbox 360) Kinect-enabled dragon language shouts for French, German, Italian and Spanish work properly (Xbox 360) Fixed issue with Dawnguard Kinect-enabled dragon shouts for French, German, Italian and Spanish (Xbox 360)

As far as any new features or functionality go, no official release information has been given aside from the aforementioned bug fixes, which are primarily for Skyrim’s Dawnguard DLC and Kinect-related issues. Another recent hotfix for Dawnguard involved patching a “nudity bug,” which had NPCs spawning out of thin air wearing nothing but their undergarments to protect them from the elements.

While this update beta is specific to Steam users only, the final update roll-out will also apply to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 releases of Skyrim (on PS3, update 1.7 will include features from update 1.6, including mounted combat). For users who have already opted-in to Steam’s beta update functionality, the update should be made available to you when you next log into Steam. If you haven’t, though, you can follow Bethesda’s official instructions here.

Ranters, are you curious to sink your teeth into this beta update and offer feedback to Bethesda, or do you prefer to wait until a fully stable release makes its way online?

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Source: Bethesda Blog