While Skyrim might not boast the dense, raucous crowds of other big RPG games like The Witcher 3, there are still a lot of (virtual) folk who call Tamriel’s frostiest region home. One Skyrim fan in particular should know, as they’ve decided to dispatch each and every NPC and creature in the land – and it turns out the job meant multiple thousands of kills.
“It is finished,” says Skyrim fan Jaeinskyrim on the open-world game’s subreddit. “2,201 people/NPCs, plus over 2,400 more various creatures. All gone. I am alone in Skyrim.” The post is accompanied with a bundle of images showing the devastation they’ve caused to Tamriel’s populace. Winterhold, Dawnstar, Morthal, Solitude, and even Castle Volkihar – nowhere and no one has been spared the player’s ruthless rampage. Commenter Brando3141 jokes that “the whole region can now be called Solitude”, which – as the original poster notes – is a good one.
It’s difficult to judge, though, whether every single Skyrim NPC has indeed been successfully dispatched, as it’s difficult finding a number to put on that total. While there are many unique, named characters wandering its cities and byways which are easy to tally, there are also a bunch of randomly generated ‘generic’ folks, like soldiers and hunters, which will respawn after a time if killed.
But, who are we to question Jaeinskyrim’s impressive feat? With more than 4.6k people and creatures seen to, it’s certainly hard to imagine there’s a single soul left in the vast land, as their images reflect:
It’s not the first time we’ve seen such, er, determined crowd control, either – several years ago, Redditor SachielMF posted an image of the work their Geralt made of Novigrad’s townsfolk. Gulp.
If you’d like to make some changes to Tamriel, albeit in a slightly less, er, final manner, be sure to take a look at our rundown of the best Skyrim mods for some inspiration. You can also read our reflections on what we reckon it might be like if Microsoft made Skyrim free with Windows at that link.