I still remember the day I played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. After picking it up at a midnight release, I was off to the races to slowly discover all the hidden secrets and questlines it had to offer.
But this Reddit tip really has me wishing I had learned one particular secret sooner. It’s a classic tip that will change how you play through Skyrim from here on out.
Skyrim Players Have Been Lockpicking All Wrong
Try It Next Time You Play
In any given Bethesda game, you can expect some form of hacking or lockpicking to enter the picture, depending on the setting. It can be a rite of passage in some ways for newer open-world genre fans, but the finite materials required can make these minigames feel tedious and unrewarding, especially if you don’t know how they work.
Normally, when rotating the left stick of your controller, you’ll rotate your pick around the lock and hear specific “click” sound effects. You can try to rotate the lock and open it when you hear this click, but choosing the wrong angle will break your lockpicks, which are finite in Skyrim (and tough to get early on if you’re going in blind).
In the case of Skyrim, this tip is going to be doing a lot of heavy-lifting in the future, if you weren’t using it already: “If you pay attention to the clicks of a lock you’re picking you can figure out the “sweet spot” to unlock it. The vibration of the sweet spot “click” is discernibly different from the others. On novice locks there are less “clicks” and the sweet spot vibration is easily detected. As locks become more difficult the number of “clicks” increases and the discernibility of the vibration decreases but one can still tell the difference even on master locks.”
In short, you want to take your time with each lock, and wait for the right sound cue. If you do that, even on tougher expert- and master-level locks, you’ll be able to solve them much quicker.
I Wish I’d Known This Trick Sooner
Like, Day One
When I first jump into any of the Elder Scrolls-related worlds, I tend to go in blind. It’s a rush to play them that way and discover everything organically, but it can also lead to a lot of frustration, especially when it comes to knowing where to find and hoard consumables. As you level up and gain more knowledge of the game, things get easier, but it can be tough to navigate at first.
In that sense, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is unparalleled in the depth of its community knowledge base. So many people have played it that we’ve hit a critical mass of tips and guides, and using everything, including this lock-picking strategy, will help on future playthroughs.
- Released
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November 11, 2011
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol
- Developer(s)
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Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
- Engine
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Creation Engine
