The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Creation Kit and High Resolution Texture Pack Released

It appears that the rumors were in fact true, as Bethesda Softworks has just treated us to a High Resolution Texture Pack as free DLC on Steam. It’s a great time to be a PC gamer, as long as you meet the system requirements:

Experience The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as you’ve never seen it before with the Skyrim High-Resolution Texture Pack. Make sure your system requirements exceed Skyrim’s recommended specs before attempting to install, including Windows Vista or 7 operating system, a minimum of 4GB of system RAM and a DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with at least 1 GB of RAM and the latest drivers.

System Requirements
Recommended:
Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
Memory: 4GB System RAM
Video Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher)

And with it comes the Creation Kit!

We’re pleased to announce that the Skyrim Creation Kit is now available. Along with the Creation Kit, we’ve also released the Skyrim High-Resolution Texture Pack as a free download. Both the Creation Kit and High-Resolution Texture Pack are available free via Steam.

With the Creation Kit’s release, fans can now upload, download, and install custom content through the Skyrim Workshop on Steam making sharing mods easier than ever before. You can access the Skyrim Workshop via mods.elderscrolls.com.

Should you be new to modding, Bethesda is also providing a tutorial through their blog:

Ready to begin a whole new adventure? Finding mods for Skyrim is as simple as visiting the Skyrim Workshop in the Steam Community. Here you’re able to browse the most popular, newest or highest-rated mods of all time, as well as searching for specific content via tags such as (Armor), (Quests), (Dungeons), and more.

Once you have found a mod you’d like to play, click the (Subscribe) button. Be sure to check the mod description for any special instructions, such as which NPC starts a quest, or how to acquire new items. The next time you play Skyrim, the launcher will automatically install the latest version of any subscribed mods and configure Skyrim to run them.

Be sure to come back to the Workshop after playing and leave a rating and any comments you have on the mod’s page.

And Valve is providing a don’t-play-it-if-you-care-about-lore mod to celebrate this release:

To celebrate the opening of the Steam Workshop for Skyrim, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring you the Space Sphere mod, which’ll let the aggressively space-centric little robot tag along on your adventures in Tamriel.

Much obliged, Bethesda.  This sort of thing goes a long way.