The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is Bethesda’s is one of the most popular RPGs for a reason. While the game is more casual compared to past games in the series, Bethesda’s emergent gameplay systems resulted in an absolutely fantastic game that lets you explore the world as you want.
14 years on and players are still stealth archer-ing their way through Skyrim, much to the surprise of its developers. With great combat, some fantastic quests and upgraded Radiant AI from its predecessor, it’s a true diamond in the rough, and players are still finding new secrets years after the game’s release.
Speaking to FRVR on the latest episode of our podcast, out now, Skyrim designer Bruce Nesmith revealed that one of Skyrim’s most beloved features—being able to place a bucket on someone’s head to make you undetectable—was never a planned feature of the RPG. In fact, it wasn’t even tested by the design team while they were working on it.
“That was completely an accident, by the way,” Nesmith told us. “Nobody, I don’t think we even tried to put a bucket on anybody’s head during development. It didn’t come out until the game came out!”
Nesmith explains he knows “exactly why it happens”, but the simple interaction is simply a side product of the effort the Bethesda team put into the mechanics that drive Skyrim’s world. For a game that came out on the then-creaking Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the level of simulation for each character is unparalleled, and that’s what allows the player to pull off such unique tricks.
The Skyrim designer later explains that one of the great things that Elder Scrolls games do is make sure you feel like within the world of Tamriel. “You get a sense of self, you get a sense of freedom, you get to grow your character, but you feel like you’re there,” he said. “’This is me. I am here.’ So you feel like your character.”
It just helps then that a lot of people play Skyrim as a mischief maker (yes, that is a reference to Nesmith’s book), that they role-play a character that puts buckets on heads and robs them blind. While some players criticise Skyrim for its lack of RPG complexity, it’s engine was fine-tuned to allow for deeper role-playing, if that makes sense.
Unfortunately, not every Bethesda Game Studios game has supported the whole bucket stealth that Skyrim made popular. While Starfield does allow you to place buckets on character’s heads, it doesn’t help your stealth, which may be just one extra reason why the game disappointed players.
