Almost 28 years later, the mystery of what’s under women’s skirts in Elder Scrolls spin-off Redguard has finally been solved

“This may be one of the longest running secrets in the history of The Elder Scrolls we are about to reveal,” says the holy repository of knowledge that is the Ultimate Elder Scrolls Portal, “this has seemingly stayed hidden for 28 years from general knowledge.”

In 1998, Bethesda released a third-person action-adventure set in the realm of Hammerfell called The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. It’s a bit Tomb Raider, a bit Sid Meier’s Pirates, and a whole lot janky. With its pre-set fully voiced protagonist, Redguard’s quite different to the Elder Scrolls RPGs, and still quite divisive.

Its got followers though, enough that there’s a Redguard Unity project working to port it to the Unity engine, just like Daggerfall before it. And it’s thanks to the Redguard Unity project that the UESP was able to learn what happens if you try to upskirt an NPC in Redguard using the free camera.

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You see a smiley face. Someone at Bethesda knew we’d try this, and almost 28 years later we got laughed at for trying to see up the dress of a Hammerfell lady trying to go about her Hammerfell business. Frankly, it’s what we deserve.

Redguard Unity aims to make the crash-happy Redguard more stable on modern systems, as well as update it with a more modern control scheme, improved visuals, and mod support. I was never that put off by the control scheme, which was at least a step up from the frankly unforgivable controls the Tomb Raider series suffered with for years, but a version of Redguard that doesn’t crash just because I tried to screenshot a cutscene would be ace.