A patch for Skyrim will launch the week beginning Monday November 28th, Bethesda has announced.

The update is for all three versions of the game. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 updates are currently in certification with Sony and Microsoft.

Bethesda PR boss Pete Hines said the patch will improve performance for "long-term play on PS3". This relates to a bug currently making the PS3 version unplayable for some. The bug occurs when save files exceed a certain size. After that point, the PS3 version suffers from lag and, according to some players, eventually becomes unplayable.

Skyrim on Xbox 360 suffers from a curious texture problem that sees performance drop when the game is installed to the hard drive.

The issue only seems to occur if you have the Xbox 360 version of Skyrim installed to the hard drive - a process that is entirely optional. In this case, the highest resolution versions of the textures appear to stall and not load, meaning you're not seeing the game at its best. If you remove the install, and run the game directly from the DVD, the best quality artwork returns to the game.

Hines reassured gamers that the update will not reset your characters or save games.