The ESRB’s M rating covers a relatively broad range of subject matter. Bethesda’sThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis arguably on the tamer side of that spectrum. While there’s violence, it’s not as graphic asGears of Warorthe body horror ofDead Space. The game also pulls its punches with mature themes like sex and drug use.
It’s not the kind of game that one expects would let the player become a drug dealer and certainly not one that sells drugs to children. However, as one Reddit user recently pointed out,Skyrimlets players do precisely that.
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Reddit user MagnusIrony posted a screenshot of his character trading with the child NPC Sofie. Players may remember her as the orphan girl who sells flowers in the Stormcloak capital of Windhelm. While players can only trade a limited range of items with her, the screenshot indicates that the narcotic Redwater Skooma and hallucinogenic Sleeping Tree Sap are on that list. While the situation around Sleeping Tree Sap is somewhat ambiguous,The Elder Scrollshave always depicted Skoomaand its variants as highly addictive and very illegal. Redwater Skooma is particularly dangerous since it’s both more potent and used bySkyrim’svampires to soften up potential victims.
Obviously, despite some joking comments to the contrary, Bethesda did not deliberately give players the option to sell drugs to children. Instead, it’s a side effect of how the game classifies these items. Skooma,its Redwater Skooma variant, and Sleeping Tree Sap are all considered potions and show up under that category in the inventory and merchant interface. Sofie, meanwhile, sells flowers, whichSkyrimtreats as Alchemy Ingredients. Alchemy merchants buy and sell both Potions and Ingredients, and it seems that’s what the game considers Sofie to be. The result of this logic is a system that technically allows players to sell addictive, mind-altering substances to a small orphan child.
Interestingly,Skyrimis not even the only Bethesda game that lets players give controlled substances to minors. InFallout 4, a young boy named Sheng Kawolski serves as Diamond City’s water merchant. Purified Water is an Aid item inFallout 4, as are Alcohol and Chems. Both of the latter are addictive in the lore and game mechanics, withmany ofFallout’sChemsbeing direct stand-ins for real-world narcotics. A character inFallout 2even explicitly refers to Jet as a type of methamphetamine.
As should go without saying,SkyrimandFallout’sdepictions of drug use should not be confused with endorsement. Likewise, it seems unlikely that anyone at Bethesda ever sat down and decided that players should be able to sell drugs and alcohol to kids. However, the whole situation is an interesting example of how game mechanics can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
