Skyrim Player Escapes Trap Using Only His Shortness

Unexpectedly, a Skyrim player who was dungeon crawling escapes death just by choosing the appropriate Elder Scrolls race.

While hitboxes in Bethesda games have been a source of debate among fans, character height in Skyrim turned out to be the difference between life and death for one of its players. Since the Altmer (or High Elves) are the tallest playable race in The Elder Scrolls series, many speed runners favor creating Altmer characters so that they can take advantage of their faster movement. On the other hand, because Bosmer are typically preferred by people looking to make a stealthy or ranged Dragonborn, their eastern cousins from Valenwood are the shortest playable race.

Players frequently run into a variety of traps as they explore dangerous Skyrim locations like bandit caves, old Nord tombs, and Dwemer ruins. These dangers rarely result in death unless the player is playing on a difficult setting because of the Dragonborn's low damage levels. To increase the thrill factor of spelunking and dungeon exploration, many players search for Skyrim mods that make the traps deadlier.

Although it's unknown if battlemage32 used any gameplay mods in Skyrim that modify traps specifically, the encounter they described on the official Skyrim subreddit amused a number of other players. Battlemage32 can completely avoid the dangers of a fire-trapped chest in Hag's End, a Nord ruin that, among other things, has the word wall for the Slow Time dragon shout in Skyrim. This is possible by playing as a Bosmer woman.

One might argue that Bethesda should have changed the trap to accommodate all playable races, but this is precisely the kind of oversight that can add a lot of charm and unintentional complexity to any game, especially an open world sandbox like Skyrim. Even though Starfield's protagonists are all humans, one can only hope that Bethesda will be inspired by Skyrim's many combat mods to add an even more accurate hitbox system.

Many players are speculating about whether future Bethesda games will emulate Minecraft's model after Skyrim potentially adds a paid marketplace for third party content. Even though this wouldn't be Bethesda's first attempt to monetize user content, the result will probably be the same. Skyrim's existing modding community is too established for such a radical shift, but fans are understandably concerned that Starfield will include a mod market from the start. While it's too soon to tell what sort of third-party content policy Bethesda has in mind for Starfield, it's never too early to assume that the game will include a lot of booby traps in unlikely locations, with even more unlikely ways to trigger them.

The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Chrstian Miller