When Dragon Age 2 came out I went to my local Gamestop where I had it pre-ordered for the Midnight Release. I bought my game and eagerly went home to play it. Sadly, when I got home and installed my brand new game that I had already paid for in full, I couldn't play it!!! Why?!?!?! Because I live in Florida and the Midnight Timezone in which the game "unlocked" (even though I had the physical disk) was another 3 hours behind me. Not only did I have to stay up until Midnight so I could buy my game "early" but I had to wait yet another 3 hours until 3 A.M. so I could Actually Play the game I bought. I went to the official forums for the game and not surprisingly there were TONS of people complaining about there being No Point in even having a Midnight Release if they couldn't play the games they bought until practically the next day anyway. What I'm wondering is how will the midnight release for Skyrim go? Will those of us in timezones other than that of the companie's headquarters be able to play Skyrim at midnight Our Time? Or midnight Your Time?

My copy of Skyrim for the PC is already paid for in full and my local Gamestop is indeed having a midnight release. I would LOVE to go get my game at midnight and be home happily playing it by 12:30, BUT, if it's going to be another one of these "wait for 3 hours AFTER midnight before I can play my game" Fiasco's then I will Not bother going to the midnight release. Is there any official word on exactly what time and in what timezone the game will be playable? Will it have a certain time it "unlocks" in Eastern U.S. timezones? Thanks in advanced for the info and I apologize if I missed this posted somewhere else.

They have adjusted the timezones to be as close to midnight, could be before or a little after, for every timezone.

1. Login to Steam (you HAVE to be logged in)
2. Go to Skyrim in Steam store
3. Check countdown and calculate your unlock time
4. Be at ease

I don't think that's the case... isn't steam unlocking all regions at 12 midnight eastern? (could be wrong).

Unlocks midnight, CST. (what steams telling me)

02:00 CET here... Damn brits and their fancy midnight release. One unlock time for the whole of europe and they pick the one island with the odd time

Steam's telling me it's midnight EST (and I'm in PST, so I get to play at 9 ).

As to what's "a fiasco" and what isn't... unlocking at a different time for every timezone just doesn't make sense, since a) Steam doesn't necessarily know what timezone you're in, and do you really think it's fair that people who HAPPEN to live in New Zealand are playing earlier than you?

Whether it's released by clock time or real time, it's gonna be an inconvenient time for somebody on the map.

They have broken it up into zones, so North America, Australia, Europe, etc etc. Then they picked the earliest time zone in each zone that hits 12 first. So in north America they pick est, so everyone unlocks at the same time, though west coast actually gets the game on Thursday.

Awesome, means we'll have it here at 9PM pst on the west coast. Whoohoo!

Right now Steam is telling me the game unlocks in approximately 2 days and 3 hours. Granted, I didn't buy mine on Steam so I can see why it isn't giving me an exact hour count-down. My part of Florida is in the EST timezone. 2 days and 3 hours from now is midnight on Thursday, or Friday morning at 12 A.M.. If it unlocks at midnight CST then Steam is lying to someone or it's unlocking at midnight for each individual timezone (which would be awesome).

I don't think "fairness" of who's playing first really comes into it at all. Example, the new movie "Immortals" starts playing here at midnight on Thursday for the earliest showing. If I choose to go see it at midnight instead of going and picking up my game, I'll have the chance to see the movie 3 hours before anyone in the midwest and 4 hours before anyone in California. Fair? Not really. However, everyone in what-ever timezone they live in has the chance to see the movie at midnight, their time, not Californian time, which is where Hollywood is.

I've done programming before and worked in the tech industry on and off most of my life. I know it's not some kind of advanced rocket science to make sure the game is playable at midnight for the customer on their time schedule no matter what timezone they live in. Why is it so difficult for game companies to pull this off?

THAT'S what got you mad about Dragon Age 2? lolzzzzzz

that game = major fail

And I fell for that stupid "PC Gamer: Editor's Choice" sticker on the dang box

On topic: should unlock at 12 am EST for the USA.

It looks like it's going live at 12am 11/11/11 for each time zone as I'm East Coast Australia and it says Skyrim will be released in 1 day and 11 hours. It's currently 1pm 9th November here.

Okay...this isn't a thread for console gamers...is it?

LoL oh no, THAT isn't what aggravated me the most about DA2. What aggravated me the most about DA2 was the fact that it svckED compared to the first one. The combat was better, but every other single aspect was arguably worse.

Staying on topic how-ever, I'm now torn whether or not I should go pick up my copy of Skyrim at midnight on Thursday or if I should go see Immortals at midnight and let Skyrim wait until Friday morning when Gamestop opens. At least if I see the movie instead I know I won't have to sit here for hours waiting on something I already paid for to be usable.

All of Florida is in the eastern timezone .


On topic, one of the Bethesda people said somewhere that the game will unlock at 12 EST time, so don't worry.


P.S. I'm also from Florida.

Cool I'm from florida and its nice to not have to wait 3 hours more ..!

I apologize for stirring the pot, but isn't steam known for being late with their unlocks/patches especially with 3rd party software?


My only recent experience is with Portal 2(which if I recall correctly was released a lot earlier via steam than via retailer), and Shogun 2(which Gamestop didn't have a midnight release for, so I had to wait until the next day anyways)

Not All of Florida is in the EST timezone, brother. The most North-Western tip of the state that borders on Alabama is on CST. I'm glad it's unlocking at midnight EST though. Thanks for clearing that up. You wouldn't happen to have a link to the post would you? I believe you, no worries, it's just nice to see official posts and stuff as I could find out more information I didn't know.

Nice to see some other Floridians here btw


Hell yeah!

My Steam unlock is right at midnight for me, which is CST. I don't know if thats the unlock timezone for everyone in North America, though I imagine it isn't. If they were to pick one time zone for us all, it would be EST or PST, not CST, so that leads me to believe it is actually midnight for your own timezone.

Sorry, but three hours isn't a terribly long time. For a game on the scale of Skyrim, I wouldn't dream of whining about three precious hours. I'm just happy the game is out at all.

Us Floridians are the best

Just really hoping that Amazon comes through and gets me the game in time.

UPS just played a cruel trick on me, stopping by only to hand me a return sticker for something......

hehehehe...I get midnight release in the UK

No. Neither will be the next month thread about the first good mods released.

EST is only 1 hour ahead of the Midwest or CST and 3 ahead of PST. not sure where you are getting 3 and 4 hours ahead.

As of this writing Skyrim will unlock in 1 day 11 hours or 11pm CST thursday evening. I am sure they do it this way because it is much easier than having to try to unlock the game for each region when it is midnight their time. Saves them a lot of needless work

Touche