I don't know whether to describe this as an act [[link]] of herculean heroism [[link]] or sisyphean torment, but someone has beaten Skyrim. No, really beaten it. Wrung every last drop of adventure out of it in a trial that left them with every spell, item, and perk in the game at level—wait for it—1,337, entirely without mods or cheats. Why? My friends, why climb the highest mountain? Why fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? Not because they are easy, but because you can brag about it online.
Spotted by GamesRadar, the player in question goes by the name pawelos4 and boasts 1,800 hours total of Skyrim playtime between its standard and special editions. They boast that they have done "everything that can be done in Skyrim" in pursuit of "the most legendary character ever." Pawelos4 has form for this kind of thing: three years ago they did a similar thing, publishing a video of their many-hour attempt to create a 100% complete Skyrim save file for onlookers to gawk at, but that's old news.
"[My previous 100% Skyrim attempt] has nothing on THIS save," writes pawelos4, "This time I REALLY made sure to get every single legitimately obtainable item in the game… this is EVERYTHING THIS GAME HAS TO OFFER complete save." That means their resulting save has every skill maxed out, every perk, every item, all locations unlocked, every house, every "hidden or less known quest" completed, every… look, it has every everything, OK? We are witnessing the ultimate triumph of the human spirit here.
If you're curious why pawelos4 settled on level 1,337 as their final levelling goal, then you're clearly one of those gen Z/A [[link]] kids I keep reading about who doesn't remember when the internet used to be good. Pawelos4 opted for the most elite number out there because, well, they'd hit level 1,000 and level 1,111 before. 1,337 is the next cool number on the docket, and so became our hero's north star.
It also means they're practically unkillable. Marvel as they survive a thousand-foot plummet:
perks of being level 1337 from r/skyrim
The process of reaching level 1,337 took a long time, and required tens of hours of repeatedly doing things like casting the same useless Illusion spell on random NPCs in order to grind up the corresponding skill rank. Would you like to see that? Of course you would. Here's an 11-hour video of our stakhanovite hero climbing laboriously to level 1,337 (from level 116). It's 11 hours because he had to set it to 4x its actual speed because otherwise it'd be too long for YouTube. Set it to 0.25x speed to experience the true 43-hour experience as pawelos4 did. I'll expect your report about it on my desk by morning.
Fear not, pawelos4 says they took breaks, and the whole effort took place over about 80 separate play sessions. Plus, they didn't just sit staring at the screen while casting Illusion spells to climb from 116 to 1,337. They say they usually had YouTube or Netflix going at the same time. Almost defeats the mystique a bit, if you ask me.
This is, I don't know, beautiful? It's beautiful. Never before in history has something so inessential been pursued with such hard-headed dedication, and it's my pleasure and privilege to see pawelos4 hit their ultimate goal. If you want to see the ultra-100%, level-1,337 character they made for yourself, you can download the save file over at Nexus Mods. Be warned, though: there's not much left to do on it.