Skyrim fans realise they've been mining all wrong since 2011

Skyrim players, you’ve been mining ore wrong this entire time. There’s a much quicker way of getting the ore you’re after.

You can do a lot of things in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, see a lot of cool places, and fight a lot of dangerous enemies, so while you’re on your travels, it’s a good idea to have the right tools for the job.

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This means crafting the best weapons and armour available to you, but in order to do that, you need resources.

Luckily, the world of Skyrim has just as many ore pockets as it does secrets, so if you’ve got a pickaxe handy you’ll likely have spent a good while watching your character chip away at rocks with an arduous animation.

Turns out this is the wrong way to mine though, as in a Reddit thread asking players “What is something you didn't know or realise you could do in Skyrim until later in the game?” it was revealed mining can be much easier than we’ve been making it this entire time.

One player replied to the above thread saying, “Mine ore nodes by swinging a pickaxe at them. Life just hasn't been the same since,” and I think a good chunk of the playerbase collectively slapped their own foreheads.

“HOLD UP, you telling me I don't have to sit through that animation?” said one fan.

“My life has been a lie," added another.

It turns out just smacking the ore as if it were an enemy works just fine, and it’s far less time consuming as well.

So it seems you can teach old Skyrim players new tricks after all, just wish the bloody game would have told us this information, as it’s hard to imagine how many players spent ages staring at that long mining animation when a quicker method was hiding right under their noses.