Skyrim Special Edition's survival mode available for free for a limited time

Skyrim developer Bethesda has launched its new Creation Club for Skyrim Special Edition on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. While the curated marketplace for add-on content has caused some backlash in the community, Bethesda is at least attempting to smooth things over for the launch by letting players try its new survival mode add-on for Skyrim Special Edition for free for a limited time.

As Bethesda describes, the new difficulty mode takes the challenge of Skyrim's gameplay and greatly multiplies it by adding elements from the survival genre. When playing in survival mode, you'll have to closely manage your hunger, fatigue, temperature, and more to avoid succumbing to the elements. Fast travel is also disabled, making moving from place to place more of a much greater challenge. Other tweaks, like a significant reduction in carry weight, along with diseases and afflictions, only increase the challenge further. survival mode definitely isn't for the light of heart.

There have been mods that add elements of survival games to Skyrim for some time, but Bethesda is hoping fans will be tempted by its official offering. Survival mode will remain free to try through October 10, after which it will be available as premium Creation Club content. Bethesda hasn't yet stated how much survival mode will cost after October 10.

• See at Microsoft
• See at Steam