Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remastered trick makes lockpicking so much easier

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim players who are making their way through Bethesda’s Oblivion Remastered for the first time are running into a bit of trouble with the lockpicking minigame, but one player thinks they’ve discovered a perfect trick to help trivialise things.

Lockpicking in Skyrim is relatively easy, all things considered. Move the lockpick around until the lock can fully twist, and boom: you’re in.

Lockpicking in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered isn’t quite as straightforward however, and it seems that players who are jumping into the game for the first time are breaking dozens of lockpicks just to get into Novice-level chests.

Personally, I’ve found myself struggling with it a little too, but for the opposite reason. Because the sound effects for the lockpicking have changed, the way the satisfying little “tink” sound has changed is really throwing me off every time I try to open a chest.

A user over on the r/ElderScrolls subreddit seems to have found a pretty simple way to make things easy though, and I can’t believe I never thought to do this myself.

“When you get a slow pin, bounce it back up before it hits the bottom and you will preserve the slow speed of it, allowing for easy lockpicking. If you let it go all the way back down again it'll reset to a random other speed,” writes user Taveenheed.

“After accidentally figuring this out it has been consistent for me and my friends. I haven't seen this anywhere else so far and my friend who actually played the original hadn't heard of it so it may just be a quirk/bug/new design with the remaster.”

Alternatively, you could just head to the Shrine of Nocturnal and complete the quest that gives you the unbreakable Skeleton Key lockpick so you can auto-complete every lock in the game and bypass the minigame entirely, but… hey, where’s the fun in that?