10 Hidden Mechanics That Totally Change Video Games

9. An Awesome Mining Hack - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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Bethesda

With Skyrim being the incredibly expansive game that it is, it obviously contains a lot of mechanics that it doesn't really have the time to explain to the player.

One of these mechanics is mining. The game allows the Dragonborn to visit numerous mines in Skyrim to obtain the ores necessary for smithing weapons and armor. If the player doesn't know the full scope of what they can do, the visits to the mines will be a tedious chore as, in order to extract the ore, they need to interact with its deposits and then watch a long, repetitive animation for every single deposit.

What the game doesn't tell you is that there is an alternative to this boring and time-consuming process. Instead of interacting with the deposit, you can instead equip a pickaxe as a weapon and then just attack it. This allows you to quickly and efficiently mine entire ores with just button pushes, but guess what? The fun doesn't stop there.

Now that you know you can attack with pickaxes, how about dual-wielding them to make the process faster? Even better, enchant them to consume less stamina and become a human power drill.

Contributor

Video games enthusiast with a love for bizarre facts about his favorite titles. Really into old-school strategies and RPGs of all shapes and sizes.