IGN posted an interview with Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard, asking him a bunch of interesting gameplay and technical questions for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

A lot of what he mentioned is pretty much common knowledge and he was certainly shy on too much information, but the abridged version of what he revealed is that at the moment the team are playing with dragons in the game and when its released encounters (beyond those scripted) could be anywhere between a dozen and "multiples beyond that", he goes on to say that it could, in fact, be "infinite" because they've been added to the world in much the same way animals are. Also, each time you kill one you'll absorb their soul.

In combat you're now able to thrust your shield to "stagger" enemies. You'll also have specific blows capable of doing this too, and the whole system has been completely reworked so that the "meaty gameplay is in the combat". Dual-wielding is also included along with the ability to cast different spells from different hands or even a combination of both. Howard explained that this was basically "an elegant solution to use the controller triggers, or mouse buttons, to act as your hands".

There's also a new magic system in "Dragon Shouts", which are combinations of ancient words you find on the walls of ruins or are taught. You'll need some of these to progress, while others are simply there to "provide you with more power or interesting things to do".

The game will also be roughly the same size as Oblivion, according to Howard, while their mod tools will use the same .nil file system as Oblivion, but everything else has been completely overhauled, from a technical level, like the inclusion of Havok's new animation system, Havok Behavior.

Finally, on the PC, the game will support DX11, but it won't take full advantage of its feature-set, but rather scale to ensure the same visual fidelity cross-platform... take that last bit of information as you will.