A resurfaced clip from Bethesda's 2011 E3 demo of "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" has fans amused to discover that the character Todd Howard played was far more powerful than his shabby starting gear suggested. The 21-minute demo, best remembered for Howard's "see that mountain?" line, has been re-examined 14 years on, with players noticing that his supposedly ordinary Nord was secretly a near-maxed-out battlemage, a detail some are calling "diabolical."

Around four and a half minutes into the demo, Howard briefly opens his character's skill menu, revealing a near-maxed Destruction skill alongside strong Illusion and Sneak abilities, despite appearing dressed in poor armour with weak melee weapons. He goes on to obliterate a tough dragon priest boss in under 30 seconds, sneak past a mammoth undetected, and kill dragons almost instantly, feats normally reserved for high-level players. Fans on forums have reacted with amusement rather than anger, joking that Howard was disguised as "unnamed bandit #3" and noting that the iron armour prominently shown in marketing is actually some of the weakest gear in the game.