"One of the longest running secrets in the history of The Elder Scrolls": Redguard fans discover the 28-year-old game has a special way of protecting women from creeps

The Elder Scrolls fans believe they may have just uncovered one of the best-kept secrets in the franchise after 28 years, and all it took was giving into their inner pervert. Thanks to their sacrifices, we now know that anyone who tries stealing a glance up a lady's skirt in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard will be immediately thunderstruck by developer Bethesda's all-knowing smiley face.

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) encyclopedia shares the discovery on its Twitter in an April 16 post. It begins, I imagine, with a trembling whisper, "This may be one of the longest running secrets in the history of The Elder Scrolls we are about to reveal, this has seemingly stayed hidden for 28 years from general knowledge."

"Thanks to the ongoing work on the Redguard Unity project," the site continues, with a nod to the open-source project attempting to bring 1998 game Redguard to modern engine Unity, "we have learned that if you were to try to look up the skirt of a female character in that game, you will find a smiley face emoji."

UESP shares proof in the form of a knee-high creepshot angled up toward a Redguard character's crotch. Except, instead of human anatomy, the photo reveals a black abyss starting at the woman's thighs. In between her legs, there's a yellow smiley face whose square eyes feel reproachful in their largeness, as if they can look into your heart and see whatever it is that makes you want to witness 32-bit underwear.

I'm impressed – Bethesda was installing anti-creep guardrails in 1998 while other developers, even now, sometimes encourage the behavior with upskirt achievements. At least these achievements are often paired with justified retaliation from the character they're associated with. I appreciate that despite Nier: Automata's What Are You Doing? achievement for its protagonist 2B, unlocking her collaboration outfit in Stellar Blade causes her to kick you in the face with an unforgiving high heel.

But because upskirts have now spent decades as a gross, alienating video game convention, I'm also certain UESP isn't the first to discover The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard secret smiley. It might be the only one willing to admit it – for the sake of its archeological efforts, you know – but I've seen too many unholy 4chan threads to think no one else has tried it.

Then we come back to the question – why does anyone want to see 32-bit underwear? To answer this, I travel through horny human history, and I doth quote Shakespeare: "Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese."

Resident Evil director's new AAA studio is "joining forces" with Stellar Blade developer Shift Up "to create a masterpiece of a game" – and no, this isn't an April Fool's joke.