Few games can claim to be as influential as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which has shaped open-world games for the past decade. Bethesda's ambitious fantasy project is iconic for its worldbuilding, memorable lines, and even its jankiness. It's a beloved title, even all these years after its release, and fans will recognize its influence everywhere.

Being such a staple of the video game genre, it's no wonder so many developers give nods to Skyrim in their own projects. These range from simple quotes to cheeky references to entire characters based on the fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls series. Of all the references to Skyrim across different franchises, these ten best sum up how the gaming industry pays tribute to this fantasy classic.

10 Borderlands 3 Lifts Skyrim's Starting Line

Hey You, You're Finally Awake

The Borderlands franchise often references Bethesda titles, Skyrim included. In this case, Borderlands 3 used a line that has become synonymous with Skyrim's opening scene, where the player character awakes in a prison cart to be greeted by a captured soldier. The line "Hey you, you're finally awake" may not sound especially unique, but it has become a popular internet joke, repeated at the beginning of each new playthrough to the point that most Elder Scrolls fans know the dialogue by heart.

Borderlands includes the line as potential respawn dialogue, uttered by the New-U station as the player returns to the game. Although it only happens every once in a while, unlike in Skyrim, it's a nod that's easy to appreciate. The New-U stations' dialogue is typically pretty self-aware, so this reference feels right at home.

9 Cookie Clicker Includes A Referential Achievement

Let Me Guess, Someone Stole Your...

Of all the games to reference Skyrim, Cookie Clicker does seem like an odd choice. It's an idle game where, as the title would suggest, the goal is to repeatedly click a cookie to gain points. It has little in common with Skyrim, other than perhaps a strange fascination with sweets, but that sets up a perfect Easter Egg opportunity. A popular voice line from Skyrim, spoken by town and city guards, centers around a particular dessert item: the sweet roll.

The sweet roll is a long-time Bethesda inclusion, and it even shows up as a food item in multiple Fallout titles.

While standing near a guard, players may hear them say "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll" in a sarcastic tone. This line would not be nearly as iconic were it not repeated constantly by every guard throughout the game. That's part of what makes Skyrim's dialogue so recognizable, after all: its repetition, while a little janky, is part of the game's identity. Cookie Clicker includes an achievement called "The elder scrolls" with the description "Let me guess, someone stole your cookie," a reward for having 777 grandmas and cursors at once.

8 Runescape Features Some Questionable Reading Material

The Dusty Asgarnian Maid

The Lusty Argonian Maid books form one of the weirder recurring jokes in Skyrim, a series of spicy plays written in volumes and found all across the map. They first appeared in Morrowind, and showed up in Oblivion as well, but they are everywhere in The Elder Scrolls V, and the writing is full of innuendos and steamy undertones. It's made even stranger by the fact that Argonians are lizard people, and their specific naming conventions led the protagonist of these plays to have a rather on-the-nose name: Lifts-Her-Tail.

Runescape, another fantasy game, chose to reference this specific part of Skyrim's lore with an in-game book: The Dusty Asgarnian Maid. Found in the Varrock Palace library, it's an unmistakable reference. While The Dustsy Asgarnian Maid is unfortunately unreadable, one can imagine its contents would match up with the erotic Argonian tales common in Tamriel.

7 Minecraft Gets Meta With Its Reference

From A Skill, To A Joke, To An Achievement

Minecraft is another game that has had a profound impact on the video game genre since its release in the 2010s, and it's another title that has seen its eccentricities live on in the form of internet jokes. Skyrim and Minecraft are similar in the way that some lines and moments from them are more popular for their referential use online than from their use in the games themselves. Minecraft took advantage of that aspect of Skyrim and included an Easter egg that itself is a play on online humor.

Skyrim's skill trees are often used in jokes, with phrases like "Speech 100" being shorthand for someone either incredibly good or laughably bad at something. Within Minecraft, an achievement called "Sneak 100" is awarded to players who can get up close to a skulk sensor without it noticing. It's an impressive feat and a fun reference that calls back to both the original game and its impact on internet humor since its release.

6 Getting Déjà Vu In Fallout 76

An All-Too Familiar Cart Scene

Fallout is another Bethesda franchise, and it loves to include subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the developer's other projects. Within Fallout 76, for instance, there is a pretty direct homage to the opening cart ride of Skyrim that will leave many players feeling a sense of déjà vu. West of Vault 96, a tractor can be found which seems to have been hauling a cart full of people, now dead and decomposing.

It's a reference to how the player starts a game in Skyrim, tied up in a prison cart alongside three others and pulled along by horse and carriage. As if that wasn't reference enough, Fallout 76 players can actually "wake up" in this cart. Drinking Nukashine can cause the player to black out and wake up somewhere new, and one possible location for this is in the cart beside the dead bodies. It's a pretty clever homage to the developer's previous game that plays around with Fallout's dark comedy.

5 Lego Fortnite Quotes The Sykrim Bandits

Never Should Have Come Here

Lego Fortnite is another game that many may not expect to reference Skyrim. But much like many other games made in the years following The Elder Scrolls V's release, it pays homage in the form of quoting its popular lines. In this case, it's the line "Never should have come here," which is often spouted off by bandits before they are promptly eliminated.

The line is used in Lego Fortnite on an elimination screen, potentially a reference to how Skyrim bandits may occasionally drop dialogue after the player is already dead. And it's not the first time Fortnite has referenced Skyrim, either; in a much more direct instance, the game included purchasable Elder Scrolls skins for players to use in the shop. This dialogue reference is little more on the subtle side, and doesn't require players to pay to access it.

4 Goat Simulator Lets Players Use The Power Of The Voice

Fus Roh Baaah

Goat Simulator referenced one of Skyrim's most iconic abilities: shouting, where the Dragonborn uses the power of voice to affect the world around them. While Skyrim includes a ton of different shouts that the player can find and learn, including fire breath, causing fear, and slowing time, Goat Simulator only cares about the most famous shout: Unrelenting Force.

This shout is the first that most players will learn, and allows them to stagger and even push back enemies with a loud "Fus Ro Dah." Goat Simulator's developers chose to give this power to the player with the custom option "goatborn," which lets the goat throw around objects and people with the power of its voice. There was also a helmet in Goat Simulator 3, called the Dovahkiid, which referenced the power of the voice in its flavor text.

3 Stray Includes A Memorable Merchant Line

Some May Call This Junk...

Stray sees players in the role of a cat separated from its friends, trying to navigate its way to the surface out of an underground area full of robots and mutants. Along the way, some NPCs drop lines that directly reference Skyrim's characters, including one that is repeated by many a merchant throughout Tamriel.

Several shopkeepers in Skyrim will preface their interactions with the line "Some may call this junk. Me, I call them treasures." It's a stock line that becomes hilarious when the merchant is selling truly great gear that nobody in their right mind would call junk. In Stray, this line can be heard from a robot named Jenkins, who is outside sorting through scrap. It's a fun way to add some levity to the world and call back to another oft-repeated bit of dialogue.

2 The Adoring Fan Returns In Starfield

An Elder Scrolls Staple Goes To Space

Unlike the rest of the items on this list, the Adoring Fan is technically not in Skyrim. He's an Elder Scrolls character who appears in Oblivion, and while several books in the Elder Scrolls 5 reference him, he does not actually show up in person without mods. Where he does show up is in Starfield, a game set within an entirely different universe and genre of video game.

It seems this groupie made it to space somehow and found a new hero to idolize, to the joy and chagrin of players. Fans are pretty divided on this guy, with some hating his every breath and others appreciating the help he can offer as a follower. Whatever the case, it seems this NPC is here to stay.

1 For Honor Makes Use Of Skyrim's Most Famous Line

An Arrow To The Knee Is Apparently A Common Injury

More than any other Skyrim line, "I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee," shows up constantly in other media. It's permeated pop culture in a way that some people who have never even played Skyrim have probably heard this reference. The line is virtually everywhere, including in another game, For Honor.

This is hardly the only example of this line showing up in gaming, and it has actually appeared in multiple other games on this list. But the For Honor version of the line is fairly funny, occurring in story mode when a certain NPC takes a shot to the leg. He complains loudly about his injury, and hopes it won't put an end to his adventuring career. This iconic The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim line is so often used in the last tense, and it's funny to see it happen in real time.

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