I'm in awe of this Skyrim trick shot compilation
Fus... ta-dah!
It's hard to believe that later this year we'll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a number that's making me feel rather old. But it seems some players have put those years to good use by religiously practicing the game's archery, resulting in combinations so ridiculous they've left me scratching my head.
A compilation shared on Reddit by user "Walter Fring" has attracted a fair bit of attention for the absurdity of some of the shots, all neatly edited into a video with jaunty Zelda music in the background. Walter Fring uses shouts like Unrelenting Force to create some mid-air snipes, at one point making a man levitate only to be shot and frozen on the way down. It feels very anime.
Destroying 6 POI In One Shot from r/FortNiteBR
The shots only seem to get more outrageous as the video goes on: Walter Fring interrupts a wedding to take out the bride and groom with aerial shots, and in a later trick, five enemies are downed in a row with arrows from above. Walter Fring also falls down a cliff to shoot and then stab an enemy, just for good measure.
Walter Fring said it took "lots and lots of practice" to land these shots, but also some careful preparation: the cultist kills required Fring to aim at where the enemies would be after fast travelling, with carefully-paced shots - and apparently Fring couldn't even see the targets as they were so distant. Fring also has a YouTube channel with further examples of the sort of silly battles you can create in Skyrim, if you're on the hunt for more.
Trick shots aren't a new thing in the Skyrim community, of course: all the way back in 2011 some players were using fast-travel to show off long-distance shots, or finding ways to arch arrows into the sky for them to arrive with comedic timing from above. But Walter Fring's methods do seem particularly technical and creative - maybe one day I'll give them a shot myself.