Today a highly anticipated feature was folded into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  Now players can participate in mounted combat, as long as you own a horse, of course of course.  A lot of players have been asking for this, especially considering how often you get attacked while on horseback.  No doubt this will help greatly with the slaying of dragons, or at the very least those annoying wolf packs.

If you play Skyrim on the PC Update 1.6 is available today.  Hit the jump for complete patch notes as well as instructions for accepting (or denying) the update.  For those that play on console, information will come out soon about when you can expect the update to hit your version of the game.  I also included a video from the DICE conference where Todd Howard previews mounted combat, so be sure to check that out.

1.6 Update (all platforms unless specified)

NEW FEATURES

• Mounted Combat
• Skyrim now allows you to do melee and ranged combat while riding a horse

BUG FIXES

• General stability and memory optimizations
• General AI pathfinding optimizations and bug fixes
• Optimizations and crash fixes for data leaks
• Fixed rare crash with lighting
• Fixed crashes related to loading and saving games
• Fixed crash with summoned creatures/NPCs
• Fixed rare issue where saves would be corrupted
• Improved logic for when ranged kill cams are played
• Fixed issue with ranged kill cams while killing a dragon
• Fixed rare issue with certain ranged kill cams not playing properly
• Fixed issue with nirnroot lighting not properly cleaning up
• Fixed issue where bow damage was being calculated incorrectly
• Fixed rare problem with werewolf kill moves would not finish animating properly
• In “The Break of Dawn” fixed rare issue where Meridia’s Beacon would disappear from player’s inventory
• Fixed occasional issue where followers would disappear after player pays off a county after committing a crime
• Fixed issue where certain creatures and NPCs would fail to respawn properly
• Fixed rare issue with dialogue subtitles not displaying properly
• Fixed issue with water appearing blurry when loading a saved game after creating a save underwater
• Fixed issue where map cursor would occasionally disappear after closing a message box with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)
• Fixed rare issue with shouts only performing the first level and not other unlocked levels with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)
• Fixed issue where the shout buttons would stop working properly if users mashed LB and RB during cooldown with Kinect enabled  (Xbox 360)

DOWNLOADING THE BETA UPDATE ON STEAM

If you’d like to download the 1.6 Beta Update on Steam, you’ll need to follow these steps:

1. Log into Steam
2. Click on Steam in the upper menu
3. Select Settings
4. Under the Account tab, go to the Beta Participation section and select Change.
5. A drop down menu will appear. Select Skyrim Beta.
6. Select OK.
7. Steam will now restart. After Steam restarts, Skyrim will be updated to the Beta version currently available.

If you opt into the Beta, be sure to back up your saved games or simply be careful not to overwrite your existing saves. If you decide to opt out of the beta program, your old saves will still work with the current release of Skyrim on Steam (v 1.5).

If you decide you don’t want to run the Beta anymore, redo steps 1 – 4. At the drop down, select NONE – Opt out of all beta programs. Let Steam restart, and Skyrim will automatically update itself back to the latest released version.