Becoming a werewolf in Skyrim is a highly empowering experience, and one of the reasons is a simple camera trick that makes it feel like you're charging around faster than you really are.
In a developer interview celebrating 10 years since Skyrim's launch, character artist Dennis Mejillones explained how the game essentially fools you into thinking you're a more ferocious werewolf than you really are.
"I love the whole power fantasy thing, so I was like, 'I want to make this werewolf a big-time power fantasy," Mejillones said. "The fear was that it would break a lot of shit, and it did break some stuff. But we wanted this thing to just run like a beast. And I remember even the running, it was like, 'no you can't do the run you'll outrun the loader!'
We had to basically do a trick - [animator Jeremy Bryant] came up with it - this trick where he did something with the zoom, he pulled out the camera, and you'll see it to this day, the camera pulls out in a certain way that makes it look like you're running faster than you actually are."
Despite the ruse, the werewolf in Skyrim is a genuine badass. Mejillones goes on to explain that the designers "pushed the limit on, I think, close to horse speed, as far as [how fast] the werewolf could run to make you feel like this galloping beast." And don't forget, werewolves can also backhand giants into the air and descale dragons with their claws. Seriously, if you haven't tried being a werewolf in Skyrim you're missing out.
