Over the years, more immersion-breaking bugs have revealed themselves and taken players out of Skyrim’s dragon-slaying experience, but many find themselves return every now and then regardless. Despite any shortcomings, Skyrim remains an impressive feat of game development, and players can still learn to have fun with the occasional bug that rears its scaly head.
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User precnn on the r/skyrim subreddit shows off one strange bug which occurs after killing a dragon on the roadside. As the once-buried dragon skeleton glows red-hot, it begins to steadily jostle about with its tail trapped in a hill. As its wings make contact with the road, the carcass jumps all around, swinging its body about the place while its tail stays firmly stuck. This animates the creature with a bizarrely jolly movement.
User Stuffman1861 pokes fun at the dramatic way in which the dragon expires by punning on Skyrim’s dragon naming conventions, dubbing the creature “Drahmahkwiin.” Another user, Claptrap-94, jokes that the dragon’s erratic movements are akin to “trying to find a comfy position” to sleep in each night. Still more quote Todd Howard’s now-infamous phrase “It just works” to describe the flouncing skeleton.
Helpfully, user techimp explains what exactly is happening to cause such irregular movements. As seen in the video, the tail of the dragon is clipping the hillside terrain, which prevents the Inverse Kinematic skeleton from finding solid ground to settle on. As almost every bone of the beast is in the air, the skeleton will continue to flail until it is supported by geometry. As techimp succinctly sums up, this is “Aka bugged.”
Though Skyrim has been re-released across many platforms, bugs like this continue to persist. However, aspects of the game affected by the physics engine are not so easily adjustable as the few changes that came with the Special and Anniversary editions of the game. Moreover, with a fanbase dedicated to the memes and bugs that crop up in and around the game, it’s worth asking whether Skyrim would remain as relevant without them.
Skyrim is currently available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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