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

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

Bethesda is making its challenging new survival mode for Skyrim Special Edition free to try 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.

See more

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.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

8 Comments
  • Are we at least going to get an achievement for having to pay for a GAME MODE?
  • If no achievements for this mode, im not gonna buy this. For F4 its free and no achievement, i dont understand, why i must pay for this.
    Upd: Just tested, loke fallout 4 no achievements. Its free in creation club for a while Thx for fix wincen app for win10mob
  • So if you try it before 10/10 you get it free or its only free to play until 10/10?
  • Same question for me. I've seen some posts that say you get it free forever and others say "pay for it after the 10th". Ambiguous information. Seems like a fun mode but I'm not going to start it just to pay for it later.
  • It's free forever until 10/10, so go grab it.
  • You make no sense! Haha. Please read what you've replied again.
  • Sigh... if you get it before the 10/10 then you don't have to pay for it.
  • Lemme get this straight. To play this mode you need to not only having paid for Skyrim SE (which for what I understand is a pretty poor choice if you own the original game) but also PAY to play this mode? Man, gaming companies have a lot of nerve lately. The problem is of course people willing to pay for whatever crazyness they come up with. It's our fault.