Nine years post-release, dedicated programmers are still coming out with new mods for the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the most interesting mod in the works for 2020 will immortalize cherished YouTuber Shirley Curry by introducing new quests and a follower directly modeled after "Grandma Shirley" herself. This new addition to Skyrim comes ahead of Bethesda's own efforts to honor this senior gamer, whose face and features have been scanned to be included in the upcoming The Elder Scrolls VI, set to be released after Starfield.
Video game culture and appreciation are rarely seen as a topic of interest people can share with grandparents and other seniors, out of the oft-misguided belief that it's something they don't get. Her open-hearted shattering of this stereotype is a large part of what made Shirley Curry such a beloved fixture in the YouTube community, earning her the nickname "Grandma Shirley" among her fans.
Paraphrasing her own words in the "about" section of her YouTube channel, Shirley Curry is an "83 year old grandmother from Ohio, with 4 sons, 9 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren". She's also an avid gamer who started uploading videos of her Skyrim playthroughs back in 2011, soon after the game's initial release. Within a day, she amassed over 11,000 followers and emails from fans: today, over 15 million followers watch her exploits within the virtual world of Skyrim as she explores the land, builds houses, trade goods, raids barrows, and reads all the books.
An NPC Based on Grandma Shirley To Be In Elder Scrolls VI
After a 2019 fan petition that collected over 45,000 signatures, the developers at Bethesda Softworks collaborated with Shirley to create an NPC for the Elder Scrolls VI based on her, using photogrammetry technology to scan and save her facial features to be used as an NPC model for the next Elder Scrolls sequel. The Elder Scrolls VI is a long way off, though, since development on it won't start until after the release of Bethesda's new Starfield IP. That's where the independent developer of the "Shirley" Skyrim Mod came in.
TES V: Skyrim's Shirley Mod, and What It Will Include
The "About" section of developer Daniel Kemp's YouTube is simple and on point: "I like to tell stories". True to his word, Daniel has been working in close collaboration with Shirley Curry while designing his "Shirley" Mod for Skyrim, recording extensive voice lines, making textures, and programming behavior to make an intricate new Follower character and a new series of quests that homage Shirley's own play-throughs.
Like Shirley's primary Skyrim character, the follower "Shirley" will favor light armor, two-handed weapons, and bows while fighting with main characters during combat. She will have numerous unique lines of dialogue for combat, environments, and interactions with other NPCs. It's also highly likely that personality and back story of "Shirley" will reflect the preferred play style of Shirley Curry in her Skyrim videos – wandering the land as a traveling merchant and reading books in her inventory during her idle animations.
The first version of the "Shirley" Mod is set to come out on the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Mod Nexus sometimes in 2020, with follower-specific quests being added for future updates. The plot of these quests is currently unknown, but the odds are good that their core theme will mirror the real-world journey of "Grandma Shirley": a distinguished elder takes to the road in a world of magic and wonder, defying the expectations of younger naysayers by thriving as a fantasy adventurer.