After a believable leak surfaced online claiming Skyrim Special Edition was coming to the PlayStation 5, a closer look revealed the leak to be a fake. The initial leak was a mock screenshot of a Skyrim Special Edition for PS5 page on Amazon France, but skeptical internet users quickly revealed the leak to be fake by zooming in on the image of the game's case.
With the PS5 releasing in a few months games for the system are being teased, announced, and leaked almost every day. Games such as Far Cry 6 have been leaked by the PlayStation Store which was then corroborated by Ubisoft shortly after. The Skyrim Special Edition leak was originally posted to Reddit as a screenshot with no link to the game's page on Amazon France. At first, the leak looked like a realistic Amazon listing with a release date and price, as well as details about the game and additional screenshots, but was debunked shortly after being posted.
The leak was posted to the BethesdaSoftworks subreddit by user mothpapa. A few hours later, user SpatzOr posted a link to imgur under the original post showing proof that the screenshot was a fake. The imgur post was a series of close-up screenshots showing that the Skyrim Special Edition cover art had been poorly photoshopped on top of the Spiderman: Miles Morales PS5 cover. In the middle of the case on the far right-hand side, the original poster had forgotten to remove a portion of the web from the Miles Morales cover.
Before the leak was proven to be a fake, fans of the series were not happy with some of the details depicted by the screenshot, namely the game's price. A recent announcement of NBA 2K21 showed that next-gen games would receive a price hike, and the fake leak depicted the price of Skyrim Special Edition to cost 70 € ($79.09 USD). While some gamers are coming to terms with having to pay such a high price for new releases, the internet was not happy with Skyrim potentially being re-released for almost $80. Being the third generation of consoles to possibly receive Skyrim, it would be expected for the game's price to be cut in half. But the most recent edition of Skyrim for the Switch still maintains a $60 price tag even nine years after the game's initial release.
Regardless, the leak has been proven to be fake, but that does not mean that Skyrim won't make its way to the next generation of consoles. Much like GTA 5, which was announced for next-gen consoles earlier this year, Skyrim has maintained a loyal player base. While GTA V was initially released a couple of years after Skyrim in 2013, it will be coming to PS5 and will be free for console owners. Skyrim is not off completely off the table for next-gen consoles, but for now, it remains a no-show for next-gen.