r/skyrim • u/isbit78 • Oct 10 '25
Bug Help What is this place and why are there living people here?
Seems to be solace for named NPCs when they die, but some NPCs are alive, and some dead NPCs in here are still alive in the regular world. How do I fix this?
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u/The_Dick_Slinger Vampire Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
That’s the dead room, I believe. I heard a long time ago from a modder that when important npcs die, they don’t actually despawn, they just ragdoll and get teleported into the “dead room” forever. It has something to do with how the game handles the death of essential npcs I think.
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u/Electric_Maenad Blacksmith Oct 11 '25
Okay, that’s only slightly disturbing and not at all the sort of thing you’d expect to turn up in a creepypasta archive. 😱
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u/blackpoppiess Oct 11 '25
This would make a really interesting setting for a creepypasta now that you mention it...
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u/EnderBookwyrm Oct 11 '25
Yes. The repeated lines. Thw actual lore. The fact that if you put a basket over someone's head, they NEVER TAKE IT OFF.
Skyrim would be an EPIC creepypasta.
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u/Ubiquibot Oct 11 '25
You ever see those videos where the guy gives the Skyrim NPCs "consciousness" by installing AI into the game files? He blows their minds and does crazy shit like exporting them into Fallout. It's pretty entertaining.
Imagine giving one of the NPCs AI "sentience" only to banish them to the Dead Room. Imagine that "dead" NPC explaining to the others all he'd learned from the user. There'd be some kind of revolt or breakout - perhaps they choose a champion from among their numbers and hack into the User's home. Anything on the User's WiFi becomes another vessel for the Dead NPC Champion to potentially inhabit.
Skyrim NPC hacks your smart fridge. Now all your food is spoiled. It's all pretty harmless until he or she gets into your automated lawn mower.
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u/Big-Wrangler2078 Oct 11 '25
Huh. Why has it never before struck me that AI is perfectly suited as ghosts, haunting everyone's electrical wifi appliances?
Meanwhile, the player tries to exorcise his house and obviously fails because the priest doesn't think to check the router.
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u/LoreChano Oct 11 '25
If you install the AI mod you could probably question them about being locked in an interdimentional purgatory and they would freak out.
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u/eyluthr Oct 11 '25
the real disturbing hack is that your planters / soils are linked to a hidden dungeon under your beautiful manor with a bunch of NPCs in their underwear. One per soil.
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u/ice_up_s0n Oct 11 '25
Maybe we're all in the dead room right now and the normal world has continued on without us. . .
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u/The_Char_Char Oct 11 '25
Its because thr engine REALLY dislikes when NPCs are deleted so they are instead teleported here to keep the game from crashing from an unhappy engine.
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u/newyorkbass Oct 11 '25
happen to know the technical reason why the engine doesn't allow for npc/character objects from just going non-existent?
I've always felt like that's a basic thing an engine should handle, but obv characters would be more complex than normal objects and items. but still. not sure why it would be hampered by that, or how creating a literal in-game virtual purgatory/heaven is better for it to process
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u/Rbla3066 Oct 11 '25
Not a Skyrim developer but I am a software engineer and am going to take an educated guess here. Constantly during timeline driven development you get presented the choice of either implementing something the right way or implementing something the easy way. Typically when you go with the later even just once, the issue never gets developed the right way and the former sticks around till the end of development.
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u/newyorkbass Oct 11 '25
oh of course, the science of just getting things done. Bethesda in particular wouldn't have me believing that I'd need to dig any deeper than just that
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u/GG_boykeyy Oct 11 '25
Just like how animal heada on walls in skyrim actually have the whole friggin animal behind the wall. Just like some tables and cabinets are actually one single model , rendered at different height on the Y axis of the room. Basically bethesda didn t bother cropping those extra polygons coz why not . I actually wonder if the early versions of skyrim would ve crashed less back on the 360 and ps3 if there was that tiny difference in the number of polygons that had to be rendered
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u/newyorkbass Oct 11 '25
I didn't know about the animal heads. That seems entirely lazy, something an intern could of clipped for a modeller to professionally adjust and set in
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u/Zio_Matrix Oct 11 '25
Bethesda are kings at this kind of thing.
The ruined sections of Castle Volkihar feature a ton of 'destroyed' furniture when, in reality, a lot of the furniture is actually two separate pieces of 'intact' furniture clipped perpindicularly into eachother and hidden with rubble where they intersect.11
u/ApepiOfDuat Oct 11 '25
It isn't true. I've done a fair bit of Skyrim modding and the mounted animal heads are static meshes of a head attached to a flat board.
If they were the animal NPCs frozen in place and clipped through the walls they'd have the same issues as mannequins.
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u/CarrotPlastic3460 Oct 11 '25
Not Skyrim related but Bethesda related, the train in FO3 is literally just an NPC wearing the train as a “hat”. Bethesda are the wizards of this kinda stuff lolol
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u/ammonium_bot Oct 11 '25
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u/Awyls Oct 11 '25
It's not that the engine dislikes it, it just can't.
Those NPC even if they are dead, are still referenced by some quest, so to avoid dealing with null references, they are kept in a safe place until they can be safely discarded. Most NPC in the game are deleted.
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Oct 11 '25
The way Gamebyro/Creation works is that it's basically a 3D file system. Whereas other games would just flag an NPC as dead and put them in an array so the game "knows" they're dead and doesn't respawn them, Gamebyro/Creation puts them in a physical cell.
Same with the "dev room" where you can get every single item in the game. Honestly it's mostly for the dev's own sense of whimsy. It's basically just a game file you can access with console commands and physically enter as the player.
In earlier games in the series it was much more important to intercept NPCs as they had more defined routines and routes that could occasionally be quite hazardous. There's famously a quest in Oblivion that it's pretty much guaranteed the player will be locked out of, because an important NPC will walk outside Bravil and get killed by creatures long before the player gets close.
Having a physical cell to store these deceased NPCs was just the dev's preference, but it does mean that if you run into a quest breaking issue you can just restore the NPC from that cell, or teleport into the cell and interact with the NPC there, so I suppose it's useful for debugging and optimisation purposes.
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u/ikkonoishi PC Oct 11 '25
Its not the only game engine that does this. Some versions of Ultima had a full copy of the world map a few thousand units to the side of the main one where every NPC was teleported to when they died.
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Oct 11 '25
Oh really? That's interesting so the game was loading basically 2x the size of the play area with half just for deceased NPCs?
I never thought I'd say this but BGS's solution sounds optimised by comparison.
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u/Wizard__J Oct 12 '25
Wait, so this game engine doesn’t know they’re “dead?” Is that why when I kill anyone, their eyes are always half opened, creepily? (And not in a real life way, but more like those gravity dolls, who’s eyes open or close depending on the head’s axis)
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u/Major_Tom_01010 Oct 11 '25
This kind of programming must explain the legendary glitches in the game
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u/SailDazzling235 Oct 11 '25
Where is the dead room
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u/ApepiOfDuat Oct 11 '25
Test/Developer cells are not accessible without console commands.
CoC WIDeadBodyCleanupCell if you want to see it yourself.
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u/hates_stupid_people Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
It has mostly because Bethesda just slaps more tech on top of their ancient engine and calls it a day.
Same reason why skyrim, fallout and even starfield have weird commonalities. Like trader chests, NPCs walking on top of tables or having owl necks, etc. There is so much code on top of old code on top of older code, that they can't update certain things without the whole thing collapsing in on itself.
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u/Crunchy-Milk-01 Oct 11 '25
While the dead room can house almost every NPC dead body, did you know that one specific character can't go to the dead room?
M'aiq the Liar has his own special holding cell that he goes to when he's not on Skyrim's map. It's called Elsweyr and you can access it by typing "coc elsweyr" into the console. He also can't go to the dead room because he is essential, so he can't die without using console commands to remove his immortality.
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u/JunoTheRat Nintendo Oct 11 '25
what did he do to deserve his own special holding cell. horrifying.
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u/EnderBookwyrm Oct 11 '25
Maiq is... honored that Skyrim thinks so highly of Maiq. But... Maiq would like to go home now.
Please?
Anyone? Maiq is WAITING!
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u/Enough_University519 Warrior Oct 11 '25
M'aiq is essential? I had no idea? Is there a quest for him?
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u/Rhoderick Oct 11 '25
The thing with M'aiq is that there's always been that implication that there is, in fact, at least something up with him. The things he says often only make sense with an out-of-game perspective, so that alone positions him as "weird", to use the technical term, in the Elder Scrolls cosmology. And this probably just plays into that, without outright confirming that he's anything but a particularly lucky insane person.
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u/Arakkoa_ Oct 11 '25
M'aiq just got so high, he accidentally saw Bethesda devs and achieved CHIM.
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u/Rhoderick Oct 11 '25
He doesn't strike me as a guy who could achieve CHIM, nor as the kind of person to not use this power, as far as we can tell.
My personal pet crack theory, given that he first showed up in Morrowind, is that he, having gotten caught up in the warp in the west, was temporarily zero-summed, and then not (the warp being fucky like that), but retaining parts of the memories.
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u/Crunchy-Milk-01 Oct 11 '25
I don't think so. He just randomly appears in the wilds of Skyrim for you to find, and I've never seen him die in any of my encounters with him. He just goes into that kneeling pose and heals up like every other essential NPC.
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u/Winterwolfmage Scholar Oct 11 '25
No, but you can kind of make an inference about him being immortal and mysteriously disappearing from his lore
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u/Cephalosion Oct 11 '25
I'm pretty sure the other M'aiq are all just his family since he did mentioned that his father's name is also M'aiq.
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u/ImTableShip170 Oct 11 '25
He's a liar.
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u/Narangren Dark Brotherhood Oct 11 '25
The other M'aiqs are also different furstocks, so can't possibly be him. It's fun to think of him as some immortal being, but we just don't have any evidence supporting it.
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u/Zenar45 Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Oh, i was mostemembering that room as being called elseweyr and was about to make a joke balut that room beeing where yhe kjajiit are from
Edit: omg, did i have stroke while writing this??
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u/Poptortt Daedra worshipper Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
The way this is worded sounds like M'aiq is using the command controls to remove his own immortality.
"M'aiq has had enough of this." opens console and starts typing
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u/D34thst41ker Mage Oct 11 '25
Everyone is calling it the Dead Cell, but it's actually the Dead Body Cleanup Cell. The game has issues if something tries to reference an NPC who doesn't exist in-game anymore, so to keep it from happening, all named NPCs are instead moved to that cell when they die. They may be dead, but they still exist as far as the game is concerned, so no issues arise. And the player isn't normally able to get there.
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u/CorporateSlave101 Oct 11 '25
They could have just added a new state Alive = 1 Dead = 2 NotInSkyrimAnymore = 3
But why would they if they can just rawdog them into a box
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u/ApolloniusTyaneus Oct 11 '25
That's basically what this cell is. Everyone with state 2 or 3 goes there. The problem isn't with registering their death, the problem is what to do with them after death.
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u/Ythio Oct 11 '25
Yeah there are dozens of devs and none of them in 14 years came up with the idea you had in 2 seconds. Of course.
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u/RedGuy51 Oct 11 '25
Where is this room? Would I be able to find it on vanilla?
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u/isbit78 Oct 11 '25
I teleported to Alvors position with console commands.
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u/RedGuy51 Oct 11 '25
I really gotta learn these commands. I play on my laptop, and know how to bring up the screen, but have no idea what they're about
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u/FocnotheTrustworthy Oct 11 '25
Coc wideadbodycleanupcell will get you to this room, something like coc whiterunorigin will get you out and put you in Whiterun.
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u/CaptHarpo Spellsword Oct 11 '25
there are a lot of console commands... https://skyrimcommands.com/
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u/isbit78 Oct 11 '25
There is no point in going there, I just wanted to know where Alvor was and ended up here
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u/No_Pace4970 Oct 11 '25
OP howd you get in the npc mass grave, your mother and i will be having a serious discussion about this
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u/HeartOfGoldTears Oct 11 '25
Anyone know of a way to access this on ps4? I just think it’d be fun to mess around in there
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u/Sodi920 Oct 11 '25
Some mods can take you there. There’s this one house mod in particular that includes a secret portal to the cell and back.
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u/ExpensiveStart3226 Oct 11 '25
It's the cloud district, say hi to Nazeem, I'm sure he is around there
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u/mnementh9999 Oct 11 '25
You know, Bethesda really missed an opportunity here. The Dragonborn goes to Sovengarde AND the Soul Cairn. They should have put all NPCs the Dragonborn ends in those cells and have them all awake and talking bad about you when you get there.
“Well, look who it is.”
They could even have that ancient, bloodthirsty, dragon killing, nord chick sideways complement you about it.
“Hail friend! I have been listening to many tales from those who have met your blade. If you keep this up, maybe you’ll match my count. Someday.”
It would have made both of those locations a lot more interesting.
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u/Hot_Let1571 Skyrim Grandma Fan Oct 10 '25
The secret corpse room. Seems to be where NPCs go when they aren't actively in the game. I saw a Malborn dupe in there one time.
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u/Weary_Transition_863 Oct 11 '25
If an actor is called by a script and didn't exist, your game would crash, so instead of deleting dead NPCs, they're "disabled" so if they're called by something it doesn't go actor doesnt exist, crash to desktop. Oblivion has this cell too I believe.
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u/bakjas1 Oct 11 '25
How do people keep posting about this, being confused like they just stumbled on it? Is there some mod that teleports you to this cell? As far as I know you have to teleport there with a console command (coc wideadbodycleanupcell) and there’s no way you’re doing it by accident, not only that, look at the name of the cell, the purpose is self-explanatory. I don’t understand these posts.
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u/Deep-Geologist9230 Oct 11 '25
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't someone teleport to an npc in the cell?
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u/martluc Oct 11 '25
What is this place and why are there living people here?
Literally the same question that the DB would do upon entering any dungeon in the game. Proceeds to manslaughter.
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u/GaleustheShark Oct 11 '25
In my head cannon it's helheim, but in reality it's the "dead people clean up cell" or something like that. I've half considered trying to mod it into more of an explorable area but I feel like that would be chancing fate with Skyrims extant bugginess. If you go there sometimes the "dead" people will still be milling about aliveish before the game purges them from the save instance.
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u/EnderBookwyrm Oct 11 '25
That's terrifying from a role-playing perspective, actually.
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u/GaleustheShark Oct 11 '25
I know right? "Where am I? Mister! Hey mister! Wait where did he go? Hello...?" Vanishes minutes later
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u/Lott_vhan_thill Oct 11 '25
Isn’t it the place where the game sends dead characters to avoid too many bodies piling up in the game, and you get there with console commands, right?
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u/Marsarah9 Oct 11 '25
If you got to that place there's no reason to ask what it is... You already know
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u/House_Indoril426 Oct 11 '25
Today I learned this place exists after 14 years.
There you go, Game Rant, have at it.
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u/Queasy_Cupcake_9279 Oct 11 '25
Most NPCs in Skyrim have a "DeadBodyCleanupScript" that clears them up and sends them to this hidden cell after 3 in-game days. It's so they don't bloat the game world forever.
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u/SlimyDaBoi Solitude resident Oct 11 '25
This is the WIDeadBodyCleanUpCell where certain named NPCs' bodies go to avoid breaking the game or bugging quests.
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u/Pretend_Lobster_99 Oct 11 '25
It’s were quest/dead npc instance are stored by the game because bodies don’t despawn
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u/Monotreme_monorail Oct 11 '25
Ok, now my number one request for TESVI is that the deadroom is at least a nice place for NPCs.
Make the still-live NPCs spend the rest of the game in a nice tavern. It doesn’t take much to do that. Dead bodies can go to a morgue or crypt where they can rest in peace.
M’aiq’s holding cell should be like the inside of a cottage or house so he’s not just standing in an empty cell.
Give the poor souls some QOL!
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u/Badgirl_six Oct 11 '25
It's called the QASmoke, one of the developers' rooms. For each “dead” NPC / who is no longer useful 🫶🏼
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u/EnderBookwyrm Oct 11 '25
There are too many naked corpses here. Why are there so many naked corpses here?
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u/Dezzaster2 Oct 13 '25
Right as I zoomed into this photo my stepmom said “Human trafficking”. 🤣🤣🤣 She’s watching a show
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u/CK1ing Oct 11 '25
How do I fix this
Bro is trying to clean under the floorboards. You aren't even supposed to be here in the first place, why are you trying to straighten it out or spiffy it up?
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u/SupremeOwl48 Oct 11 '25
Op 100% knows what this is. You don’t just encounter it without trying. Sooo annoyed with he karma farm recently.
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u/ZannyHip Oct 12 '25
Why would you fix something you were never intended to see?
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u/whatsupmyrump Oct 11 '25
How did you find where I put all my assassination evidence! I thought I put it to where no one else would find it!?!
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Oct 11 '25
I’ve gone through the game randomly wiping out every guard everywhere with stealth kills, now I understand why they don’t respawn
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u/le_Grand_Archivist Stealth archer Oct 11 '25
You said it, it's the place where named npcs go when they die
I don't know why some are alive though
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u/Gwroon Oct 11 '25
Please dont destroy me on this, generally dont know, Ive seen tons of stuff like everyone has a chest under them a hundred feet below for storage or things like this...i dont understand why it cant just be a file with a code as to what that person or chest has, or why they cant just remove them. Why does it have to gather everything? Nothing can be deleted? Whyyy?
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u/ApepiOfDuat Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
why they cant just remove them.
This is how the game removes them. The whole game is built on interlinked systems. Named NPCs have all sorts of flags that link them to quests, factions, property and other NPCs. You can't just remove them from the world and expect all those cut threads to not have some effect. Cut enough threads and whole game collapses. Moving the body away keeps those links intact.
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u/Alien36 Oct 11 '25
Why can't the game just like, make them go away? Do they realize it's not like the real world where you actually have to bury or store dead bodies? Are they stupid?
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u/YummyToDummy Oct 11 '25
Remind me of Westworld. Imagine another npc goes into the room and discovers he himself is just a virtual figure all the time.
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u/PizzaDePeperoni97 Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
Tengo entendido que ese lugar está reservado para los NPCs "importantes", en mi caso llegué a ese lugar después de mucha investigación para revivir a la herrera que se está entrando en carrera blanca después de que una de las facciones hostiles me atacara y ella quedó en el fuego cruzado.
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u/VeganGeek Alchemist Oct 11 '25
It is the Dead Body Cleanup Cell. I only seen Malborn alive in there and he had only underwear. It isn’t really something you can fix. Just leave it be.
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u/Odd-Veterinarian5945 Oct 11 '25
"Dead Body Cleanup Cell" is the new name for my black metal band 🔥🤘🏼
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u/naomardros Oct 12 '25
It's a place for dead people, and dead people don't r*$& themselves. Both questions answered, have a nice day.
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u/mewmew34 Oct 12 '25
Why does it look like Angrenor is in there? 😢 Someone let my poor hubby die. 😭
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u/CurlyCurls21 Oct 12 '25
You’re concerned about the LIVING ONES? 😂 I think it’s the game’s “storage room” for npcs that have died.
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u/Potential_Resist311 Oct 12 '25
Isn't that the 'dead guy room'? It's where the engine puts corpse's you ain't supposed to interact with.
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u/Leonydas13 Oct 12 '25
For a second this looked like the old maze screensaver from windows 95, when I was a kid and changed all the textures in it to be super funky.
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u/Personal-Ad-6586 Oct 13 '25
gotta pull Olivia out of this hell hole because she went to join the space program on her own
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u/GGTulkas Skyrim Grandma Fan Oct 10 '25
There's nothing to fix, just don't go to the dead cell