E3 was on last weekend – one of the biggest gaming events of the year. A Skyrim game was announced for Alexa, and no, it’s not a joke. Via Lifehacker:
Oh Bethesda, you trolls, you. I say that lovingly, as the trailer the company showed off during its E3 press conference Sunday was a nod to its wildly successful Elder Scrolls franchise. The joke, if you didn’t get it, was that Bethesda has dumped Skyrim, the series’ most recent installment, onto nearly every modern platform it can—minus your TI-83 calculator and your car (sort of). So why not have a version of Skyrim for Amazon’s Echo devices, too?
Here’s the fun part, though. You actually can play Skyrim: Very Special Edition on your Echo. And if you don’t own any Amazon devices, that’s fine—you can also play it on any iOS or Android device with a little extra creativity.
If you have any of the devices in Amazon’s Echo family, including its larger flagship speaker, the tinier Dot, or the more-expensive Echo Plus, getting a Skyrim-ish game going is simple.
First, visit the “Skyrim Very Special Edition” skill on Amazon and enable it for your Echo device (assuming you’ve connected your Echo to the Amazon account you’re using when browsing that skill. You have, I’m sure of it, but I just wanted to be thorough.)
Once you’ve done that, wander up to your Echo device and (Dragon) shout “Alexa, Open Skyrim.” The “game” might begin by asking you whether you want to explore an isolated shack or ancient standing stone, for example, and off you’ll go on your adventure. We won’t spoil the rest, including some of the silly Easter eggs you’ll stumble across while exploring, but it’s a pretty fun experience—as if someone was reading a text-based RPG out loud instead of displaying your narration on a monochromatic computer screen.