Skyrim: Is It Possible To Kill Everyone?

Skyrim allows a measure of incredible freedom for the players. You can interact with almost anything, you can pick up most items in the game, you can interact with most NPCs in the game, and you can also do them harm. While the vast majority of NPCs (named and unnamed alike) in Skyrim are mortal and vulnerable to your attacks, some aren’t. In today’s post, we’re going to be dealing with immortal or “essential” NPCs and what would happen if we attempted to kill every single NPC in the game; with that in mind, let’s answer the most basic question: Is it possible to kill everyone in Skyrim? 

Can you kill all the people in Skyrim? 

It is possible to kill all people in Skyrim only through the use of console commands or mods. NPCs in Skyrim are generally put into two categories: essential and non-essential NPCs. 

Essential NPCs are important for the stories and are considered “immortal” by the game. You can attack them and reduce their health as long as you want but it will never reach zero, essential NPCs are going to essentially drop to the ground but will never die. Some NPCs are essential only as long as the quest that involves them is active and stops being essential as soon as the quest is over. Some NPCs, however, never lose their essential status, for example, Greybeards. 

Non-essential NPCs, as you can imagine, are mortal and can be killed without the use of mods or console commands. Those are regular NPCs, both named and unnamed, such as guards, bandits, mages, etc. 

You can easily modify the essential status of NPCs by using setessential <base ID> <0 or 1>  command. Base ID needs to be replaced with the ID of an NPC you want to modify and you can choose between 0 (non-essential) and 1 (essential). 

This console command does not work on children, however, as they cannot be killed by console commands in the traditional ways. Children’s mortality is not dictated by their essential status. It’s dictated through their “race”; this race is accessible only through the Creation Kit. 

Even though not all NPCs in the game can be killed, all of them can be disabled by using the disable command. This includes children as well. Even though technically not killed, disabled NPCs will vanish from the world, and you will not be able to interact with them or even find them throughout the world. NPCs can be re-enabled eventually. 

Using killall console commands will not work as well, as it will only kill non-essential NPCs in the same cell as the player. For example, using killall command in Whiterun will result in all non-essential NPCs dying on the streets of Whiterun, however, NPCs currently in their houses will be unaffected as they are in a different cell. If you are in the wilderness, killall command will only kill NPCs that are loaded in the world, far away NPCs are still technically in the same cell as you but will be unaffected by the command. 

Can you kill all the Jarls in Skyrim? 

All Jarls can be killed. It’s just a matter of whether you will need to use the command to edit their essential status. All Jarls are essential, with few exceptions. Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak is essential up until the Battle for Windhelm when killing him is one of the prerequisites to finishing the quest, his essential status vanishes as soon as the quest becomes active allowing him to kill him.

For all other Jarls, however, you will need to employ the command to edit their status. It doesn’t matter whether the Jarls have been exiled after you’ve finished the Civil War questline; they still retain their essential statuses. 

Can you kill every guard in Skyrim? 

It is possible to kill every guard in Skyrim; however, they will respawn after some time, and if you truly plan on doing this, you will have to be through since there are guards on patrols across the holds and guards that are using the barracks and are not patrolling the cities at any given moment.

A vast majority of guards are not named NPCs, and that pretty much means they are non-essential. The same goes for other unnamed NPCs such as bandits, they eventually respawn. 

In theory, every single NPC in Skyrim can be eliminated (children included with the use of mods); however, it’s extremely difficult to do since you would need to edit the essential status of several NPCs. Not only that you would also need to enter every cell in Skyrim in order to locate every single NPC. When it comes to unnamed NPCs, it’s even more difficult since those respawn (think guards, bandits, forsworn, conjurers, necromancers) by the time you are done with the first round of elimination, you would need to start all over again since unnamed NPCs will eventually start to respawn. 

Even with the use of the disable command, NPCs set to respawn will do so. The only option is to modify the game’s files to stop NPC respawning, but this requires advanced modding and could disrupt the game’s balance and stability.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!