Skyrim's 'greatest secret' is still surprising players: 'I was today years old'

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is almost 14 years old now, and yet some players have only just discovered one of its silliest secrets.

Bethesda put a lot of dumb little easter eggs and exploits in Skyrim, so stuff like this pops up online all the time.

There’s the leap of faith Assassin’s Creed reference in Bard’s Leap, the Horse Armor joke that’s included in the Anniversary Edition of the game, and that weird, seemingly intentional exploit that lets you negate all fall damage, but today’s example has to be one of the game’s most ridiculous.

As one user over on the r/skyrim subreddit recently discovered, there’s a rather funny way you can dispatch the Forsworn Briarheart enemies in the game… by literally wrenching out their hearts.

This one kind of surprised me when I found out too, because you have to have a pretty high stealth level to even get the drop on these dudes. But if you do manage it, you can creep up right behind them and literally wrench out their hearts.

“Sneaky pickpocketing a briar heart after completing the Markarth Forsworn quest was how I managed to complete the radiant kill-the-bandit-leader quest at the cave where they all ended up moving after escaping Cidhna mine, without p**sing of all my new buddies,” commented user UnderstandingFar6471.

“Though I had to laugh that some random briar heart was considered the leader of that outfit.”

“I discovered this by accident after pickpocketing everyone in a cave with the friendly Forsworn faction you meet in the Cidhna Mine quest,” replied user Yrouel86.

“It went from "oh cool ingredients" to "OH S**T" after the guy dropped dead just like that. Fortunately I have the habit of quicksaving just before attempting to pickpocket so I just reloaded and left the briarheart with its owner…”

I think the funniest thing about this little easter egg is the bug that’s associated with it.

It was a while back now, so I hope it’s not been patched out, but I distinctly remember seeing a thread online where someone had Hired Thugs sent after them for the crime of stealing a Briarheart’s heart.

Bugs really are the best part of Bethesda games, huh?