Skyrim On Alexa Is Actually A Real Thing

Last night, Bethesda poked fun at its penchant for porting Skyrim to any platform that will play it by announcing "Skyrim: Very Special Edition" for Alexa. The trailer it debuted featured Keegan-Michael Key as he navigated the frozen tundra that is Skyrim using voice commands, and at the time, everyone seemed to think it was a pretty good spoof announcement. As it turns out, however, it wasn't a spoof, and Skyrim: Very Special Edition is an Alexa game that actually exists.

It's true: earlier this morning, the official E3 Twitter account announced that Echo owners can install the Skyrim: Very Special Edition skill through the Alexa app and take it for a spin themselves. Skyrim: Very Special Edition plays out more like one of those classic text-based adventure games, only with Alexa narrating your story as you make the important decisions.

As far as Skyrim ports go, this one is obviously pretty bare bones – you don't get to select your race like you do in other Skyrim ports, though you do have options when it comes to combat. Skills like Magicka level up as you use their associated abilities, but the game doesn't make a distinction between the different forms of magic like Destruction, Restoration, or Alteration.

Still, it's a nice little time killer and it does offer a fresh spin on seven-year-old game, so if you have an Echo device, it's worth playing around with if you're an Elder Scrolls fan. To start using it, all you need to do is open the menu within the Alexa app, navigate to skills, and then search for Skyrim: Very Special Edition. Enable the skill using the app and then say "Alexa, open Skyrim" to begin playing.

Last night, Bethesda surprised us all by announcing The Elder Scrolls VI at the tail end of its press conference. We don't know where the game is set and don't know when it's launching, but we finally have confirmation that it's in the works. It's probably still years off at this point, but while we wait for more information, at least there's a new version of Skyrim to check out, right?