There are lots of memorable moments and quests in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, such as that famous opening cutscene, the first time players fight a dragon head-on, the entirety of the Thieves' Guild, not to mention the Dark Brotherhood questline. While Oblivion may have perfected the Dark Brotherhood, Skyrim's efforts are still noteworthy, with some great missions and interesting characters. With that, one of the game's developers has come forward to talk about how this side quest was originally supposed to end. It's worth saying at this point that the rest of this article will contain spoilers.
Design director Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on the Dark Brotherhood quests from Skyrim, has said that the guild story was meant to have a somewhat different ending. Or at the very least, they talk about its original ending which was eventually changed to make it have a bigger impact. Those who know the quest and how it ends, will know that at one point, the mission tasks the assassin with poisoning the Emperor. In doing so, it later transpires that this was the Emperor's double. According to Pagliarulo, this was going to be the original end to the questline.
As mentioned in the report, Elder Scrolls and Fallout creative director Todd Howard vetoed the idea, calling it "lame" and insisting that if players were to kill the Emperor, they should be killing the actual Emperor, not a body double. As a result, the guild questline was seemingly expanded to include the ending that fans got in the final release. It's up to players to decide whether the true Dark Brotherhood ending is better than Pagliarulo's original twist finale.
Even though many Elder Scrolls fans are in agreement that the previous game's Dark Brotherhood subplot was the superior one, Skyrim's is still a great one, with some unforgettable characters such as the jester Cicero. Pagliarulo may have been surprised that Howard wanted him to include the killing of the actual Emperor in the side quest, but some fans may feel that this ending had a lot more weight than just murdering a lookalike.
It's incredible to think that ten years later, there are still some interesting things to discover about the game, or new things to find. With one Skyrim player managing to level up hugely right at the start, and a multitude of mods still being made and released for it, it's an Elder Scrolls entry that is still finding its audience, even if much of the community is now vying for the sixth installment in the series.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available on PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.
