A Skyrim player has shared a clip of them landing an absurd cross-map crossbow kill on an unsuspecting guard, when they had no idea there was even an NPC to be hit. Since its release, there have been plenty of Skyrim trick shot kills shared by the community, but this might be the best of the lot.
In the Skyrim combat triangle, ranged weapons are often considered to be part of the meta. Skyrim stealth archers are practically undefeatable if built correctly, allowing players to tear through any enemy in the game completely undetected. At this point, it's so easy to build an overpowered stealth archer that players are having to turn to absurd cross-map kills just to keep it challenging for themselves.
This clip by Redditor PlantLimp4094 shows the player firing in the general direction of a distant castle. Hitting anything seems like a total pipe dream, and for the first few shots, it is. However, on the final shot, one of Skyrim's cinematic kill cams activates, signaling that the arrow is about to hit an enemy. And hit it does, flying across the map to hit a poor unsuspecting guard, killing him immediately. The user in the thread justified it to themself, claiming there was a "50/50 chance that soldier was an Imperial spy." However, another user speculated even further claiming that "the other 50 is that he had kids to feed and he hated his job as he had to take his cousin's job as guard duty." It's clear that there could be more to this situation than meets the eye when really thought about.
According to the player, they were only firing at the castle to see the velocity and drop on the bolt, using it as a reference point. Worse still, the player claims to be a Stormcloak, meaning this Skyrim player has just murdered an ally and a friend. Luckily, players can't actually get kicked out of the Stormcloaks as they can with other factions in the game, so it seems their place among them is safe even after this unfortunate incident.
One of the most exciting things about the potential of The Elder Scrolls 6's combat system is seeing what is possible in terms of impressive kills. Even to this day, there's something thrilling about watching a Skyrim player defeat an enemy using the most bizarre methods possible, and there's no reason why that same satisfaction won't carry over into the sequel. With Starfield almost released, hopefully gamers will soon get a closer look at what The Elder Scrolls 6's combat will feature.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Anniversary Edition is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
