COLUMBUS, Ohio – Any Ohio State student who has ever ventured onto North Campus is surely familiar with the 75-ft Tom W. Davis Clock Tower, which features a nearly 40-ft tall LED video display. It’s a common sight to see Computer Science students and enthusiasts playing giant rounds of Tetris on the Clock Tower’s enormous screen; other activities have included checking out Tinder profiles, as well as stationary games of Pokemon Go. But thanks to an unlikely partnership between the university and Bethesda Game Studios, the Clock Tower will soon be put to another use.

Nearly 11 years after its initial release, Bethesda has announced that they are developing a new version of Skyrim for Davis Clock Tower. Over the past decade the fantasy RPG has already been re-released on devices such as the Samsung Smart Fridge and the Amazon Echo, but Bethesda’s director Todd Howard told the Sundial that “…we’ve received thousands of requests to port Skyrim to the Clock Tower, far more than for any other device.”

We asked Mr. Howard how this project came about, and he said, “Well, none of this would have been possible without the support of your university’s incredible president. When we reached out to Ms. Johnson, she was immediately on board; she confessed that she was about to start her fiftieth Skyrim playthrough, and that she often plays the game in her office when everyone thinks she’s working.”

Mr. Howard went on to explain some of the changes that had to be made in this version of the game. “Ms. Johnson was concerned that Skyrim is too violent to be shown in the Clock Tower’s very public location,” he elaborated. “So we decided to remove the character Nazeem. Our testers have found this reduces violence levels significantly.”

The developers also decided to change how the game would be played, in lieu of the traditional mouse-and-keyboard setup. “Not many people know this,” Mr. Howard said. “But the Clock Tower’s display is actually touch-screen enabled. We’ll be providing a set of ladders so students can make use of this functionality.”

Finally, we asked if this version of Skyrim would bring anything new to the table. “Oh, definitely,” he said. “The undead Draugr all wear Michigan jerseys now; the giant rodents have been replaced with food robots; and we’ve decided to replace the main antagonist, Alduin, with Brutus Buckeye.”

Skyrim: Clock Tower Edition will be available to play on North Campus early next semester.

Written by Wally Green, Contributor