Spreadsheets were at one time an absolute necessity for a successful role-playing game experience. With weaponry, item inventory, skill trees, leveling, and tools like maps and quest logs, the sheer amount of information necessary to keep at the players’ fingertips almost demands that at some point, the menu system will have no choice but to become somewhat of a slog.

Apparently, Bethesda wasn’t satisfied with the menu system used for Oblivion, and took the opportunity to change a broken system along with nearly every other aspect of the game. Detail is the name of the game, as the developers are bringing the same tech that will flesh out the game’s environments to the inventory system.

Collecting various potions, items, and plants is always more focused on the object’s effects than its appearance, but Skyrim will give players the ability to examine in three-dimensional space every single item they acquire. Attention to detail is always a plus, and Bethesda hopes that the players will appreciate the game’s story even more when they can see every root on a healing plant.

According to the game’s director Todd Howard, the development team figured out a way to make Skyrim’s various menus and spreadsheets easier to peruse while at the same time making each bit of the game world feel that much more realistic:

With smooth and streamlined access to menus as their guiding light, Bethesda has used the console’s controllers to their full potential. The D-pad will not only grant access to various weapons, but nearly all essential menus. Simply pressing ‘up’ on the pad will bring up the player’s favorites menu, into which they can place any and all items and weapons they’ll frequently be using.

Button presses will be all that’s needed to examine maps, star constellations, and inventory in an effort to make the experience much more immersive than finding your way through endless menus. The game’s new combat system is built entirely around the idea of players being wrapped up in the moment-to-moment experience of the game, so it wouldn’t make sense to leave menus as they were. Especially considering the brand new addition of epic dragon shouts to the gameplay.

The game’s various styles of spell-casting pose one of the greatest challenges, and are perfect examples of the heavy aspects of RPGs that tend to scare off more casual players. Whether or not the skills have been simplified, Game Informer went into detail on how the upgrading and selection will work in Skyrim:

The leveling of Skyrim is sure to be more similar to Fallout 3 than Oblivion, and it already seems that the developers have spent a good amount of time working out the kinks. With the better part of a year remaining until release, Bethesda has more than enough time to achieve their dream of an RPG as slick and approachable as an Apple device.

“Every time players rank up their overall level, they can choose a supplemental perk ability for one of the 18 skills. For instance, if you fight most of your battles with a mace, you may want to choose the perk that allows you to ignore armor while using the weapon. As in Fallout 3, several of the perks have their own leveling system as well, allowing you to choose them multiple times. Once you choose a perk, it lights up the corresponding star in the constellation, making it visible when looking up to the heavens while interacting in the world.”

We’ll find out how close they come when The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on November 11, 2011.

Source: Game Informer