I didn’t think, when I saw the other day that Swedish furniture sellers IKEA had commissioned a group of modders to stick an advert for their wares in Skyrim as an official Bethesda-approved Creation, that I’d now be sitting here noting that I dug said creation’s dungeon designs.
I am, though, because I think that sums up the entire experience of playing through Kallax Storageborn. If all you do is read a headline about it or scan through the premise with a smirk, you might assume it’s just a soulless corporate stunt aiming to play off The Elder Scrolls 5’s well-established viral memeality, but without any depth that makes it worth dedicating the time to check out. That was largely how I felt about it too, up until I learned that highly skilled Fallout 4 Sim Settlements makers Kinggath Creations were the modders behind the free creation, and decided to check their work out for myself.
The secondary motivation I had for doing so was that in-game advertising feels like it’s being floated more often than ever at the moment as a way games might help pay for themselves, as the squeeze is felt across an industry desperate for maximum financial returns. Fantasy RPGs like Skyrim are arguably among the toughest places to naturally fit such ads, especially compared to the likes of sports games or James Bond adventures with special watches.
In terms of how it fits in Tamriel, you’ll probably be glad to learn that outside of loosely meshing with Skyrim’s established mechanics, Kallax Storageborn isn’t trying too hard to pretend that its additions are in any way lore-friendly. The first time you’re overencumbered after grabbing the mod, your character is sent a magical talking telegram informing them that a solution to their storage woes can be found in a dungeon called Storereach. Yep, that’s the tone set then.
Storereach starts off as a regular Skyrim cave, but grows into a well-made Dwarven dungeon assembled mostly from recognisable vanilla building blocks. Things really kick into gear when you reach the second level, Storereach Workshop. Here, the standard swells of Skyrim’s orchestral soundtrack morph into the quiet, but unmistakable jingle of distant elevator music as you wander into a Dwarven department store. In case you’re unsure, an apparition materialises to welcome you. If you’re anything like me, you’re completely distracted by the fact that next to him are specially made Dwarven versions of IKEA’s flatbed shopping trollies.
From there, you negotiate a maze of dioramas showing off Dwarven furnishings for different rooms, some of which have buttons you can press to trigger a short demonstration by ghostly salespeople. You learn about Stenrygg seats, Tavan rugs, and Gruskok kitchen sets. The place isn’t just an empty show hall, though: there’s some unique gear and a couple of secrets that are easily missed if you don’t peek around as many corners as you might in a standard dungeon delve. While some of the gags - such as a shield with a deflection enchantment dubbed the ‘Shield of the Returns Policy’ - are rather groan-worthy, a couple properly tickled me. For instance, I stumbled across a skeleton in the loos, bearing a note indicating they’d died after simply getting lost among the labyrinthine halls of the shop. That’s the sort of joke people make about going to IKEA, rather than one the retailers themselves would necessarily make, since it suggests their signage is a bit crap. It’s the sort of touch that stops the creation feeling too reverent or robotic in its efforts to convince you to buy a flat-pack bookcase called Billy, even when it’s giving you a spell that fires the retailer’s famous Swedish meatballs.
The mod’s main draw and namesake awaits in a chamber behind the store. Armed with a tome perfectly mimicking an IKEA instruction manual, and a staff shaped like an allen key, you assemble Kallax. Once its shelves have been inserted, this unit springs to life and starts speaking in comedian Matt Berry’s dulcet tones. He’s a new follower who’ll scrape along the ground behind you as you adventure and carry all of your burdens, much like a certain base game lady whose name rhymes with an STD. Cool. This is about where I expected the adventure to end, once I’d taken one more wander around Storereach to make sure I’d maxed out a loot haul that’s very potent if you rock up at a low level fresh out of Helgen. I can confirm that because I had to start over to try the IKEA mod, as a result of still not having gotten around to making sure my mod load order’s been updated to match last month’s new patch.
Alas, my adventure with Kallax was only beginning. After I’d crafted him his own version of Skyrim’s iconic iron helmet, he had me off to two more dungeons in search first of heirlooms from his missing master, and then in search of an assistant who might be able to shed light on his reason for existence. Along the way, I grew to love not so much Berry’s array of unique lines responding to places I visited and hijinks I got up to, but the more subtly hilarious touch of his footsteps constantly resembling the low rumble of wooden furniture being dragged along stone roads and through grassy undergrowth.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skyrims-official-ikea-crossover-mod-might-be-the-most-deftly-assembled-elder-scrolls-gag-ever-if-not-an-ad-blueprint-other-corps-should-follow
