Bethesda promises to fix Skyrim Special Edition’s audio
When fans finally got their hands on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, they expected everything to be enhanced. However, the audio on the Xbox One and PC versions seems to be even worse than the original.While the PlayStation 4 version of the game has much higher quality than the original release of Skyrim, according to Reddit user LasurArkinshade, the Xbox One and PC aren't as lucky. The two platforms feature audio, "all in (very aggressively compressed) .xwm format, which is a compressed sound format designed for games. This isn't so bad, necessarily - it's possible to compress audio to .xwm without significant quality degradation unless you crank the compression way up to insane levels. What did Bethesda do? They cranked the compression way up to insane levels."
When fans finally got their hands on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, they expected everything to be enhanced. However, the audio on the Xbox One and PC versions seems to be even worse than the original.
While the PlayStation 4 version of the game has much higher quality than the original release of Skyrim, according to Reddit user LasurArkinshade, the Xbox One and PC aren’t as lucky. The two platforms feature audio, “all in (very aggressively compressed) .xwm format, which is a compressed sound format designed for games. This isn’t so bad, necessarily – it’s possible to compress audio to .xwm without significant quality degradation unless you crank the compression way up to insane levels. What did Bethesda do? They cranked the compression way up to insane levels.”
LasurArkinshade even offered up an audio file comparing the two on Soundcloud:
The new version is definitely more muddy compared to the original. Luckily, Bethesda was quick to answer the call of fans, posting on the thread that, “We’re currently testing a fix and hope to have an update out next week.” Whether the audio will be as enhanced as it is on the PS4 is unknown, but at least PC and Xbox One players can hope to see an improvement in the coming days.
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Enhanced Edition is available now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.