Skyrim is a massive game with tons and tons of things to do, and places to explore. Be it monsters, NPC’s, quests or dungeons, the game has it all and hen some in abundance. The amount of contentment is what’s made it such a success and what continues to make it so appealing to new players nearly ten years after its initial release. In a game so big, it may be hard to imagine hings being cut out during development. But there’s actually a lot of content that was either changed or taken out completely prior to the game’s release.
The type of cut content varies, but it’s usually quests. Sometimes items, charactees or even events and lore can be found to have been removed for undisclosed reasons as well. With a game this size, there’s going to be lots to choose from. So let’s get started! Here are 10 things you didn’t know they cut out of Skyrim before its release.
10 Trius' Trinket
The first entry is actually a quest that seems to have been removed due to the character who gives it having been taken out of the game as well. Trius is a mage that was removed early on in the games development. Though his camp can still be found, it has no significance in the game whatsoever.
The Trius’ Trinket quest would have been a fetch-quest, where Trius would have tasked the player with finding a jewelry box within a shipwreck. Doing so would have given the player access to a new spell.
9 Supply Line Quest
Yet another canned quest, the Supply Line quest wouldn’t have blown players away but would have been nice to go through regardless. The premise is simple enough; the player would be tasked with delivering Frost River Mead to innkeepers and taverns all over Skyrim.
The quest was looked over when Rundi and Borvir, the two who were supposed to give the player the job, ended up dead in the final version of the game. It seems like a simple enough task, but for whatever reasons, things never quite worked out.
8 Lod's Lot
Another quest, this one much simpler and less detailed than the others covered so far. Lod’s Lot is triggered when the player buys a book off of Lod, a blacksmith living in Falkreath. The book would contain something of interest to Kurst, another resident of Falkreath. The quest presumably ends when the book is handed to him.
It’s all pretty straightforward and seeing as it’s cut content, we don’t know whether or not there was supposed to be more to it, or if this is it.
7 Boethiah's Bidding Quest
This next quest is actually interesting for a few reasons. Not only did it sound like an interesting task, but it also served as a continuation of another quest in the game; Boethiah's Calling. The bidding quest would have taken place right after its predecessor.
In this quest, players would have been given the task of assassinating the Jarl of Solitude, Elisif the Fair. This would have been done with stealth, and seems like it could’ve been a real blast for players to pull off.
6 A Bad Trade Quest
Yet another simple quest, the Bad Trade quest not being in the game probably wasn’t a huge loss for fans. But like so many others, we just don’t know all that much about what else this quest would’ve offered due to it being scraped during development.
The quest would have been given to the player by Birna in Winterhold, who would task them with placing a burial urn in Yngol Barrow. There would have probably been more to it, but alas it wqas never expanded upon.
5 NPC Ghost
Of all the cut features in Skyrim this one is the most interesting by far. Though it did turn out to be a memorable title, this would have had people talking for a while.
One idea that was initially thrown around was certain NPC’s being able to haunt their family members after having been killed. The chance of this happening after some time is random, but would have been cool to see play out.
4 Collecting the Edda
This next cut quest is another fetch quest, this time tasking the player with collecting poetry across the region. As the name suggests, the quest would have had players collect parts of the Poetic Edda, an account of Skyrim’s history from bards all over the land. It seems like a bit of a mission considering all you’re doing is gathering poetry – so maybe we didn’t miss out on much with this one.
3 Family Ties
This next one is another feature related dead NPC’s. This time with NPC’s mourning the loss of loved ones. This would have appeared in dialogue options and certainly would have made the world feel more life-like.
The reasons why this was cut out aren’t clear, but it really does feel like a missed opportunity. Not as if the game itself was lacking, but as fans the more we can get the more we want. . Luckily, modders have brought this feature along with the NPC ghost feature back into the game. So you can still experience it if you want to.
2 Missing Apprentices
This next quest seems like it would have been an interesting one, and from what we know about it was probably one of the more fleshed out side quests cut from the game. The quest – as the name suggests – would have had the player search for the missing apprentices of mage Phinis Gestor.
Players would go across Skyrim searching for the four missing students. When found, each would have an item proving their identity which the player would then return to Phinis.
1 Civil War
What was actually planned for Skyrim’s Civil War went way beyond what players actually got in the end result. It’s been found that a number of features and scripted sequences were removed, despite being planned out throughout the development cycle. This probably means that the devs didn’t have time to implement everything.
Among the cut features were recruiting giants, encouraging soldiers to defect and burning down mills. These would have made the whole thing seem that much more engrossing, and though the final product wasn’t really lacking, we find ourselves wishing we didn’t know exactly how much we missed out on.