The Star Wars Easter Egg You May Have Missed In Skyrim
Even though The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has been out since 2011, it's still one of the most beloved games available. More recent developments, like the 2018 port to Amazon's Alexa, or 2020's The Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor expansion, have given players more reasons to keep coming back to Tamriel's northernmost province. But the game's massive open-world map is packed with hundreds of hours of activities, and even longtime players probably haven't seen everything yet.
Like lots of open-world games, Skyrim is full of Easter Eggs. The designers behind Skyrim are clearly big pop culture nerds themselves, and many of their Easter Eggs are references to movies, TV shows, and other video games. There's the wheel of cheese in Endon's house that's carved to look like Pac-Man. There's a pickaxe whose name is a subtle nod to Minecraft. And there's the abandoned house with stacked chairs a la Poltergeist, just to name a few.
But one Easter Egg in particular brings a little Star Wars to the high fantasy setting. Hunting it down should give you something to do while you wait for The Elder Scrolls 6.
How to find Skyrim's The Empire Strikes Back Easter Egg
Head for Bleakcoast Cove, in the northern region southeast of the city of Winterfell. This is also one of the locations on the "Animal Extermination" quest for the Companions faction, which has the Dragonborn eliminating dangerous creatures that menace the people of Skyrim. Here, the target is killing four Frost Trolls. Frost Trolls sort of resemble Wampas, the huge, hairy snow-loving monsters that inhabit the ice planet of Hoth — but that's not all.
Inside the cave, there's a headless human skeleton hanging upside down from the ceiling, trapped to the waist in ice. That's a nod to the opening sequence of The Empire Strikes Back, when a Wampa mauls Luke Skywalker and drags him back to its lair to devour him. But unlike Luke, this poor individual was unable to free themselves and escape the Frost Trolls' bellies. This stands as yet another reminder that telekinetic Jedi powers and a lightsaber really do make everyday life easier.