A game developer who previously worked onThe Elder Scrolls: Skyrimhas revealed something the average player never knew about theDark Brotherhood questline. One of the most creepy moments of the series of quests might not have been quite as terrifying as players were made to believe.Skyrim’s Dark Brotherhoodis a group of assassins who serve Sithis and the Night Mother. After the player unwittingly takes a job that was meant for the group, they can potentially join as a member of the Dark Brotherhood.RELATED:Skyrim Mod Adds a Treasure Map Journal For That Authentic Adventure FeelingWhile there’s a lot inSkyrimthat has likely spooked players, whether it’s the attacking undead or giant spiders, most would probably agree that meeting the Night Mother herself is an unpleasant experience, at the least. After progressing through the storyline, players find themselves literally face-to-face with the Night Mother, temporarily locked into her coffin to speak with her. Being forced to stay unmoving in first-person mode looking directly at a telepathically communicating corpse, however, was actually a clever way of hiding a secret, according toSkyrimdev Emil Pagliarulo.According to Pagliarulo, when they were developing the quest line, closing the player into the coffin with the Night Mother caused collision problems. Most people who have playedSkyrimor other physics-enabled games have likely seen similar cases, where models intersect and start shaking or moving abnormally as a result. This would have obviously caused some problems in one ofSkyrim’s tensest moments, so a little trickery was used instead: the player is put in first-person mode, the lights are dimmed, and a sound of the coffin shutting is played. However, the player is actually still exposed to the world and fully visible to anyone else in the room, which they would see if it were possible to turn around.
It’s an interesting secret into the development ofSkyrimand how the developers had to find ways to make the engine work with them.Skyrimdefinitely has its share of odd collisions between objects, but the ability to interact with nearly any object in the game certainly increases the immersion.
This particular method of working around a problem is far from the only instance of development oddities inSkyrim, too. Over the years sinceSkyrim’s release, players have discovered things like the merchant chests hidden off the map containing the store’s wares and gold, or the hidden room that dead bodies are teleported to. While this particular revelation is actually less bizarre than those, the fact that theNight Mother encounterstands out for so many players shows that the devs did a great job finding a unique solution to a problem.
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrimis available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
