Report: Skyrim PS3 patch out in Europe [update: patch notes released]

PS3 users have been reporting severe Skyrim performance issues over the last couple of weeks, and now it appears that Bethesda has released a patch to solve the problems – in Europe at least. According to Bethesda forum members, the 92MB patch has alleviated several issues, improving the frame rate and reducing the number of freezes. Some users, however, are reporting that the patch doesn't fix the problem and a system restart is still required every few hours.

We've contacted Bethesda to find out exactly what the PS3 patch contains. For the moment, the Xbox 360 patch, which is supposed to iron out some texture scaling issues and is also slated for release this week, is not yet available.

Update: Bethesda has released the official patch notes. No release date is given for the North American release of the PS3 patch, though the Bethesda Blog promises an update "as soon as it's up." The patch does indeed address the PS3 performance issues, among other tweaks. The Xbox 360 patch is expected to arrive this Wednesday. It should resolve the texture scaling problem and will also include the same tweaks as the PS3 patch.

Find the full notes after the break.

UPDATE 1.2 NOTES (all platforms unless specified)

• Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)

• Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)

• Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)

• Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away

• Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player's wedding dead

• Dragon corpses now clean up properly

• Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack

• Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug

• Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely

• Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory

• Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor

• Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death

• ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)

• Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues (PC)

• General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)