A gamer revealed that his late grandfather left behind an official Skyrim guidebook, sparking an existential crisis among fans of the series

A gamer recently shared photos online of an official Skyrim guide found among the belongings of their recently deceased grandfather, calling the book "old merch."

That phrase hit the audience harder than the story itself – and it reminded everyone how long waiting for certain game sequels really is, so long that some fans are literally dying of old age before they arrive.

The math here is genuinely depressing. Skyrim came out on November 11, 2011, and it's only three months away from its fifteenth anniversary. People who played it as teenagers now have families, careers, or are just trying to survive in this chaotic world while hoping to live long enough to see the sixth entry in the RPG series.

The person who posted the photo turned out to be an eighteen-year-old, and their grandfather, according to them, was somewhere in his seventies or eighties. That means the poster was only 3 years old when the game launched.

That realization shook the community so much that some people refused to accept how much time has actually passed. While plenty of skeptics doubt that fans of The Elder Scrolls could really be old enough to be dying of old age, there's no shortage of examples proving otherwise.

The thread included a fifty-nine-year-old grandfather of four who still boots up Skyrim and Oblivion, a seventy-two-year-old player whose favorite game remains Quake, and a sixty-four-year-old Switch owner who admitted feeling shy about pulling out her console on a plane. Another commenter shared that their sixty-nine-year-old father bought The Elder Scrolls: Arena back in 1994 and is now playing through Skyrim on PS5.

People also brought up Shirley Curry, known as the Skyrim grandma, who recently celebrated her ninetieth birthday. So jokes about nursing homes prescribing Skyrim as therapy aren't quite as absurd as they sound.

As for The Elder Scrolls VI, the game remains in active development, but everything points to a release no earlier than 2028.