Skyrim player noticed that Alva from Morthal is different from all the other vampires in the game – fans found a lore explanation for it
The best way to hide a monster is to not hide it at all. That goes double when every other bloodsucker in the area glows like a busted lantern, while one lone vampire strolls around...
Skyrim fans, 15 years after release, still can't stop admiring the game's atmosphere and art design
Nostalgia is the best retoucher there is. Old games look far better in memory than they ever did, and the brain happily fills in details that were never there. The reverse happens too: a game...
Serana from Skyrim still delights gamers with her habit of resurrecting goats and chickens in battle instead of experienced warriors
A good RPG companion watches your back, carries your loot, and stays out of the way of your sword. Serana from Skyrim watches your back too, just in her own way: mid-fight, with half a...
Player who always wanted photorealism spent 10 hours in Skyrim and regretted years of waiting
Graphics age faster than anything else in games. One day a title wows with its tech, and the next its screenshots draw a condescending smile. Sometimes the opposite happens, though, and a game nearly fifteen...
Skyrim player accidentally got two Dawnbreakers instead of one and learned from veterans that many clone this sword on purpose
Daedric artifacts in Skyrim are meant to be one of a kind. Each one comes at the end of a long quest, and owning one is supposed to make the hero special. Sometimes, though, the...
I've launched Skyrim with the first snow for 15 years in a row – gamers were surprised by a man from the Urals who has snow outside his window in October
Some games get played once. Others come back on a schedule, like a Christmas tree or a bowl of tangerines. The most interesting schedules are set by the weather outside, when the first snowfall matters...
Skyrim player wanted to give the fallen Lydia a "Viking funeral" but instead accidentally launched her half-naked corpse into the stratosphere
No companion in video game history has died as often or as absurdly as the Whiterun housecarl. Over the years, Lydia has been thrown into dragon fire, dropped off cliffs, forgotten in Dwemer ruins, and...
Skyrim player reaches Yngvild's cave for the first time in 14 years and is appalled by the local necromancer's vileness – now he wants more content like this in The Elder Scrolls 6
The scariest stories in RPGs often hide in optional caves that are easy to walk past. World-eaters and Daedric Princes scare with sheer scale. What really makes you recoil from the screen is a small...
A mod with voice acting for all books, notes, and letters has been released for Skyrim
Skyrim has so many books, notes, and journals that reading them all counts as its own quest. Now you don't even have to bother. The Immersively Voiced Books of Skyrim mod gives voices to in-game...
A Skyrim player leveled up to "level" 30 simultaneously in the game and in real life – but still never got to the main quest
The main quest in a big RPG is usually considered the backbone of the game, but that rule doesn't apply to Skyrim. There, the core storyline has turned into an optional formality players can put...
A Skyrim player radically solved the overload problem – he transports extra items in a cart inside an enemy's corpse
Overloaded inventory is one of the oldest and most hated mechanics in role-playing games. Sooner or later every player ends up standing over a pile of loot, agonizing over what to drop. But sometimes, instead...
A Skyrim player shared a clip of a Riften guard flying out of a tavern at cannonball speed
Physics in Bethesda games has followed its own rules for almost a decade and a half, and players have seen pretty much everything by now. Giants send heroes into orbit, baskets turn into invisible helmets,...
Skyrim fans hope that in The Elder Scrolls 6 you'll be able to find the grave of the last Dragonborn
Any Bethesda hero eventually turns into a line in a history book that the next nameless protagonist skims between two dungeon crawls. But sometimes you want something more grounded – like a stone gravestone, for...
Skyrim player realized he was an idiot when he enchanted a helmet with water breathing while playing as an Argonian
Long RPG sessions put the brain on autopilot – hands craft, enchant, and sort loot faster than the mind can ask "why." Usually that ends with three hundred spare arrows lying around. Sometimes, though, it...
It took a Skyrim newcomer 15 hours and a talking dog Barbas to understand why people love the game
A short post from a newcomer describing the moment Skyrim finally "clicked" serves as a good reminder of what makes the game so magical. A player going by SeaInRain spent about fifteen hours in Skyrim,...
Skyrim fans shared the locations where they retire their Dovahkins
Big RPGs have an annoying quirk: they never really end. You kill the main villain, the world cheerfully announces it's been saved, and then invites you to keep collecting butterflies – so you're left to...
Gamer spent three hours in Skyrim's tutorial dungeon to grind hapless Ralof up to level 81
Any RPG with a leveling system eventually runs into a player who finds more joy in breaking the mechanics than following the story. And when the system can be broken without even leaving the tutorial...
Players are unhappy with how Bethesda is handling their beloved The Elder Scrolls franchise – a collaboration with IKEA instead of DLCs and a new game
Brand collaborations in games stopped being a pleasant novelty a long time ago. But there is a difference between a pop star showing up in a shooter and a game about Nordic dragons getting its...
Skyrim fans continue to argue about which playstyle is more effective and spectacular – the stealth archer or the sneaky throat-slitter
Fifteen years after release, Skyrim players are still finding ways to work around the combat system in ways Bethesda probably never intended. The "stealth archer" meme has long been a series trademark, but more and...
Skyrim player pulled dragon armor from a chest at level 24 and was surprised to learn how the Anniversary Edition broke progression
Any RPG runs on a simple rule – first you fight in rags and rusty scraps, and only later do you earn the right to wear something legendary. That formula breaks instantly the moment a...
