For many players, Skyrim is an opportunity to use everything at their disposal to unleash godlike power, and one player has been able to create their own ring with stats close to impossible. Bethesda’s 2011 role-playing game was so popular that it’s easy to forget that it’s actually a sequel to the previous Elder Scrolls game. More than a decade after dominating the AAA field, the game’s status remains legendary, largely because there’s so much going on.
Some prefer to be a fighter, while others prefer a more stealthy role, stealing and sneaking into the night. However, Skyrim also gives players the opportunity to become powerful mages through many schools of magic. The ability to summon familiars, destroy enemies with lightning at your fingertips, or create enchanted weapons that deal incredible damage is appealing to many. It’s even possible to take things to the extreme.
In a recent thread on Reddit, user Kitsmeralda posted a screenshot of their son playing Skyrim, showing the stats of a very particular ring. It’s obviously a really powerful item, and it’s capable of regenerating Magicka, equivalent to Elder Scrolls mana, 1,187,512,320% faster, which is ridiculous. However, as noted in the comments, it also seems to reduce the carrying capacity by -1,864,499,200. For anyone curious, user Sir_FrancisHaddock explains that this is just an “integer overflow” that confuses Skyrim’s programming with a higher number than it can handle. Look carefully at the bottom of the screenshot. Although the ring shows a negative value, the player’s carrying capacity has indeed increased a lot.
It’s just one of the reasons why the game is still going strong after all these years. Players have found a way to craft some very powerful items in Skyrim by using exploits. According to several users in the Kitsmeralda post, examples like the aforementioned ring are the result of using “recovery loops,” which make it possible to create items with amazing stats. As another user concluded : ‘Magic is better with alchemy and alchemy is better with enchantment. repeat. ‘
The idea of leveraging Skyrim’s programming and mechanics is nothing new. Fans have been doing it since day one. While some will consider the many glitches the game contains to be a problem, there are clearly plenty of people in the community who enjoy using them to their advantage, which only seems to add to the game’s charm.
Skyrim is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.