Skyrim Players Dazzled by Open-World Dragon Secret, Game's Still Full of Surprises

Even 14 years after its original release date, players are still discovering secrets in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, buried within the base game.

Considering how densely packed its map is, it’s no surprise that even some of the most die-hard The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim fans have yet to personally discover all of the unique secrets that the game has to hide.

One of the biggest barriers to discovering certain secrets is an over-reliance on fast travel, as dozens of the best easter eggs that Bethesda hid in the game can only usually be encountered by walking through specific areas at specific times of the day.

For instance, one of my favourite secrets is the Headless Horseman, who randomly spawns at some point between 10 pm and 4 am, and then casually saunters towards Hamvir's Rest. If you aren’t out wandering around the map in this little six-hour window, you’ll likely never run into him during the course of your playthrough.

One such secret that’s recently surprised some players over on the r/skyrim subreddit is tied to the ancient dragon burial sites known as the Dragon Mounds.

Image of a Dragon Mound taken from the UESP website, Bethesda

“I’ve been running Survival Mode lately, and honestly, if it weren’t for Survival I probably never would’ve seen this. Normally I’d just fast travel and move on,” writers user LucasisAlone.

“Instead, I’d just stepped out of Goldenhills Plantation after making some food for the trip to Riften, spotted a dragon in the distance, and thought, “yeah, I need to get in on this.” Had absolutely no idea it was FREAKIN ALDUIN until I got closer and watched him resurrect a dragon at a burial site that isn’t Kynesgrove, in real time.”

If you've completed Skyrim's main story, you'll probably remember that Aludin shows up during the quest A Blade in the Dark to resurrect the dragon Sahloknir during its conclusion.

As it turns out, completing this quest is actually a trigger for the Dragon Mounds. After dispatching of Sahloknir, Aludin will show up at three different Dragon Mounds and personally resurrect the dragons buried there, too.

If you’re keen to try this out for yourself, check out the UESP’s Dragon Mound page for all of the locations where Aludin can be encountered.

Stuff like this makes me wonder if Bethesda is taking so long making The Elder Scrolls VI because they’re busy packing the map full of even more secrets than Skyrim.

Here’s hoping we find out if that’s actually the case in the next year.