Skyrim players get to know the game pretty well. It's not as though there's much else for them to do, with rumours of The Elder Scrolls 6 slowing to a crawl. Still, there are levels to this sort of thing. From modders bringing in Game of Thrones dragons and Star Wars lightsabers into the game to marvelling over an Unreal Engine 5 recreation of Dawnstar and getting real-life Amulet of Mara tattoos, this community has done a fantastic job of keeping their love of this decade-old game thriving in 2022.
Every new playthrough has to start somewhere, though. Unless you're a speedrunning master, that's likely to be Bleak Falls Barrow.
Skyrim players have begun to notice this, though, and over on the r/Skyrim subreddit, there's a nostalgia-fuelled discussion on just how simple the task is for these ridiculously-experienced players.
I guess I'm going back in there…
Whether you played it once back in 2011 and don't know your Dwemer from your Dunmer, or are a seasoned Skyrim professional with an encyclopedic knowledge of the province and a map of the mountains imprinted in your retinas, you'll have spent some time in Bleak Falls Barrow.
It's one of the first places you go in Skyrim after escaping from Alduin's attack on Helgen, arriving in Whiterun to warn the Jarl of the impending dragon threat. The most condescending man in Tamriel then forces you to go cave-diving for the Dragonstone. Inside Bleak Falls Barrow, you come up against a giant spider, a thief, tons of bandits and draugr, and finally, a bit of simple puzzling before you can get your hands on the Dragonstone and get out of there.
It's far from the deepest quest in all of Skyrim, but fans have had to go through it so many times it's become second nature. The post's author kaneplay4 says: "For me, I think it’s gotten to the point where I could literally do it with my eyes closed," whilst Creative-Eggplant143 showed off their knowledge, stating: "So many times that I know that you have to turn each ... ring ... thing ... two times for the right claw combination xD."
Some players try to make things a bit more interesting (and murderous) than they otherwise would be, with Rizenstrom advising: "At some point I stopped letting the bandit fall for the trap and started killing him myself just to make that bit a little less monotonous."
The actual dungeon is at least second-nature to a lot of players. Zebkleh said: "I know the layout of that dungeon better than I do my own home," which has me worried that they live in some kind of spider-infested monster house filled with bandits and undead soldiers.
However many times you've gone through Bleak Falls Barrow, make sure you keep an eye out for more content on Skyrim, including our best mods of the month, as well as a bit of discussion on the potential for an Elder Scrolls TV series.