One Skyrim player has taken the real life, three hour walk from Riften to Solitude by hooking up step tracking technology to the game.
YouTuber ShakeMistake uploads videos which combine fitness and gaming and through the Stepl app was (eventually) able to enjoy a nature walk through the world of Skyrim.
ShakeMistake first took off from Riften's north gate but, not knowing the landscape particularly well, took many wrong turns and didn't get very far. He had god mode enabled and enemy detection turned off, meaning nothing would interrupt the run, but there were still challenges.
He then used the Clairvoyance spell to navigate his way through Skyrim but it took him to the College of Winterhold instead, even after setting his map marker and quest location to Solitude. Not even an automatic direction mod took him there, and each attempt added up to several thousands of steps already.
After several tries, however, ShakeMistake chose the traditional route of reaching Solitude via Skyrim's street signs, and after a few practice runs, eventually arrived at the city on-stream. It took more than 14,000 steps in total, and nearly three hours.
With The Elder Scrolls 6 is still several years away, Skyrim players are having to keep themselves entertained in wild and wacky ways like this. New technology is certainly a popular way of doing so, with one player creating a mod which lets their Twitch chat voice NPCs and another adding haptic feedback suits to an already $15,000 set up, letting them feel real pain when hurt in game.
Speedruns are another popular method of keeping Skyrim interesting, and one player recently set a new world record by reaching Level 80 and defeating the infamous Ebony Warrior in under 10 minutes.
The most sentimental of fans, meanwhile, booted up their old Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s to "retire" their original characters, showing how much Skyrim has remained in player consciousness in its more than a decade on the market.
In our 9/10 review of the beloved RPG, IGN said: "Skyrim is a rare kind of intensely personal, deeply rewarding experience, and one of the best role-playing games yet produced."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
