Today is the 12th anniversary of the original release of The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim, so perhaps it’s fitting that one player of another Bethesda Game Studios’ game has just discovered a Skyrim image hiding in plain sight in Starfield.
Reddit user @Tyraniczar has shared an image of an in-game poster that appears to simply depict a snowy mountain against a wintry landscape. This is just one of several posters that players can use to decorate the walls of its few obtainable houses and the multiple outposts that Starfield lets you build across most of its more than 1,000 planets and moons.
However, taking a closer look at the image, there is an oddly-shaped black dot just right of center on the poster. After realizing that that image is, in fact, the silhouette of a dragon, the player was able to put two and two together and figure out that the developers at Bethesda were paying homage to one of their earlier (and still highly celebrated) projects with the inclusion of the poster.
And from the looks of things, they’re not the only one who just caught onto the reference despite Starfield having launched on Xbox Series X|S and PC for then two months ago. “Huh I have this picture in a bunch of my builds, and never noticed this,” said one person in a reply to the post. “For real, if you don’t pick out the flying dragon then it just looks like a mountain range,” said another.
It’s Not The First Skyrim Reference
While it may be the most overt reference to Skyrim hidden within Starfield, it may not be the only one. Starfield’s gastronomy perk allows you to create several different dishes with the right ingredients and access to a cooking station, which you can build at any outpost or find in a few different types of ship modules, if you’re into building your own ships. Still, there are other food items you’ll have to find for yourself, and one of those is a plastic container filled by two sweetrolls — an apparrent Skyrim reference, and guards in that game will often taunt you with the saying “Let me guess – someone stole your sweet roll …”
It’s actually a running gag across multiple Bethesda games. In the opening of Fallout 3, when you’re still just a child in Vault 101, Old Lady Palmer will give you a sweet roll as a birthday present, but local bully Butch will demand you give it to him instead.
Starfield is a massive game, and its developers expect gamers to be playing it for a long time, so we’ll have to keep an eye out to see what other Easter eggs are hidden deep within its content.
Starfield
- Released
- September 6, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda