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This all seems mighty familiar. The sun splits the trees to my right while long sprawling shadows are cast over the lake; fireflies flutter overhead, close enough to be plucked out of the air; a nearby waterfall cascades from a river hundreds of feet above. An arrow suddenly splits the air, a disgruntled hunter crying obscenities from across the pond as an impatient orchestral melody lets me know - as if it weren't clear already - that I've been spotted. Worse still, the commotion has stirred a bruting troll-like Mud Elemental who's now hot on my heels and, bloody hell, I best hightail it if I want to avoid being slaughtered for the third time in a row. I've been here before, but I haven't. I recognise it, but I don't. It's Skyrim, but it's not.
What it is is Enderal: The Shards of Order - a game-sized total conversion mod for Bethesda's fifth Elder Scrolls main series instalment, and the work of German hobbyist modders SureAI, the same team who crafted 2010's impressive Oblivion overhaul Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. Five years in the making, it now has an English language version that welcomes players to a new but wholly familiar world, which is in itself a surreal experience, mostly because the landscape of open world games has shifted quite considerably in the intervening period.
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