Todd Howard on chickens reporting crimes in Skyrim

Crimestopping chicken

Radiant Story is Skyrim's unique storytelling feature that acts as a narrator for the player. In practice, it'll look at the history of your playthrough and cater upcoming quests to your character. It might, for example, add context by switching out a kidnapped character for an NPC you've previously met.

Executive Producer at Bethesda, Todd Howard, let Tom into a secret while they discussed the feature a few weeks ago. Radiant Story was creating crime-conscious chickens.

PC Gamer : "Can you think of anything you've seen Radiant Story do that's surprised you?"

Todd Howard : Let's see... something that was good lately... but this was a bug - lately we realised that chickens were reporting crimes. I found that very funny. That was just last week: "Why are we getting caught?" "Oh, the CHICKENS are reporting the crimes!"

PC Gamer: (Laughs) If there's some way that could be made clear to the player, that'd be a great feature.

Todd Howard: That actually took us a while to track down, that bug. Like, "Why is this happening?" (Laughs)

Do you think chickens should be able to report crimes in Skyrim? Even if it's an option at the start of your journey? Let us know your take in the comments. For our full Skyrim feature, pick up PC Gamer UK 232 .

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