Questingfor Skyrim console commands to help explore the land of the Nords? You may dream of Bleak Falls Barrow each night, but have you shapechanged into a giant to stomp around Whiterun while screaming townsfolk scurry underfoot? Have you leapt into the skies and flown from Riften to Winterhold just to take in the view of a freshly created aurora? Have you masterfully crafted a personal throne out of thousands of wheels of cheese, or just spread holiday cheer as Skyrim's very own Santa Claus?
Skyrim console commands make all of these shenanigans ready to go at your fingertips. And more everyday useful things in case you're the more practical sort, like making yourself invincible, leveling up annoying skills, or just unlocking that key treasure chest when you've broken the last of your lockpicks. All good thieves are experienced at bending the rules from time to time, after all.
Be warned, some of these console commands may cause glitches, problems, or crashes, so it's definitely worth saving your game first. You don't want to make some change and get stuck with it.
Many of these console commands require specifying an NPC or item or place with a reference number. If you're specifying an item or NPC in front of you, click on them while you've brought up the console to get their code immediately. Otherwise, here's a quick cheat sheet of reference pages where you can find those codes. Remember, CTRL+F is your friend!
Skyrim player cheats can set different values for your Dragonborn. You can change your level, your face, your carry weight, and a bunch of other things. For commands that require an item or NPC ID, check our linked lists above.
Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Christopher LivingstonSocial Links NavigationSenior EditorChris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.
My PC version of Skyrim has always been broken and buggy. Having played the same installed version on the same machine since college, it's become more and more unstable as time has gone on, hardware's been upgraded or replaced, and the computer itself has been (less than carefully) moved across the country.
Luckily, this is a rather common bug, and the easiest solution is to simply enter the game's console and use the command setstage MQ104 90 to mark the quest as complete. As I defeat other dragons, I have to artificially increase my dragon soul count by 1 using player.modav dragonsouls 1.
I personally first encountered Quake's console with noclip, a command to allow walking through walls and flying, and god, the god-mode (invincibility) cheat. These still commonly appear in games that have their own in-game consoles!
One important thing to know about in-game consoles (like Quake's above) is that they are NOT windows into the engine's processes, nor the game's source code. It's easy to look at a console like this and assume that you're pausing the game's engine and directly accessing/modifying the code that's currently running. Nope.
Instead, an in-game console is an additional CLI built into the game that offers a specific set of commands for that game's console alone. While some game engines may have a set of common commands, their effects are game-specific, and they must be created by developers.
Note: Depending on the game, you may have to enable use of the in-game console (for example, with Steam games, running them with the -console flag), or by otherwise making it available. Just be prepared to do some Googling on the specific game!
I've painted myself into a corner and am forced to choose between abandoning a couple hours' progress or cheating my way out of it. Unfortunately, I can't find hard data on if/how the use of console commands affects the unlocking of Steam achievements.
Console commands do not affect achievements in Skyrim. I've used it to clip through places when I ended up falling and becoming stuck and still received achievements in the same session. I've also togged tgm on occasion while testing stuff and still received achievements after I finished testing without restarting my game.
NO, using the console does not disqualify you from gaining Steam achievements in Skyrim. I use console commands quite frequently, ranging from the innocuous (fov 90) to the uber-cheaty (tgm, tim, player.modav carryweight 1000) and have received all Steam achievements corresponding to events in my game, even within the same game session - restarting is not required.
In the most extreme case, I was playing around with player.modav dragonsouls and used my cheat-provided souls to buy levels 2 and 3 of the Throw Voice shout to see how it behaved at higher levels. When I exited the game, I noticed that I had received the achievement for unlocking all three words of a shout; this achievement was gained purely through blatant console cheating and Steam either didn't notice when my souls jumped from 0 to 100 in an instant or didn't care.
I use the console quite frequently, both for trivial things like setting fov 90 and for actual cheats like using tcl to get up a mountain and tgm or tim to get back down. Even within the same session, achievements have continued to register normally. In one case, I was messing around with player.setav dragonsouls, unlocked the third tier of a shout, and accidentally got the corresponding achievement entirely through pure, blatant cheating which would have been trivially detectable if anyone had bothered to look.
Although I've not done anything achievement-worthy in offline mode myself, in another discussion about this, a poster responded to my possible exception by saying that, when he plays in offline mode, any achievements he may have earned while offline are awarded the next time he starts the game in online mode.
I finished the game with only using the tcl cheat to get out of the floor (don't ask). My char was a level 29 and I had about 36 or 37 achievements unlocked on Steam. I then quit the game and started it up the next day only to find that I had 3 achievements. One of the ones that was close to completion was the 'Apprentice' achievement. I have a level 29 char.
According to this answer, Bethesda has modified the way that cheaters are flagged from how it worked in Fallout: New Vegas. Once you use a console command, you are permanently ineligible for achievements. After using a console command, your only choice is to restart or load a save prior to using a command if you want to earn achievements.
EditIt has been discovered that the above is not actually true. Console commands do NOT disqualify you from achievements. Thanks to Dave Sherohman for reminding me to update this answer
EDIT: It seems like you may not have to quit in order to get the achievements. Through my own testing, I have used console commands and still obtained steam achievements without reverting to an earlier save.My process:
Bethesda themselves release modding tools, and the console is enabled by default, so that suggests that you should be good to go right? Kind of.
Apparently once you issue a console command, you're no longer eligible for achievements until your next session. So if you're worried about achievements, enter your console command 'cheats' (like "fov 90"), save, exit, start up skyrim, load, and be on your merry way.
I have used today the cheat killall on my PC to kill Ancano in the staff of magnum mission. I immediately solved the mission. I also safed the game and restarted after that. I can safely say no achievements were lost or any bad consequences
The best Skyrim cheats can tailor your experience in Tamriel to your liking. Skyrim console commands can also help you in all manner of ways and change up your experience, from spawning items to levelling up skills and much more. While it takes some doing to discover all Skyrim has to offer over, we've had plenty of time to get lost in the adventures of the Dragonborn over the last decade. Happily, Skyrim cheats are also a great way of breathing renewed life into the game in fun ways.
No matter whether you're playing an older version of the game or the more recent Skyrim Anniversary Edition, you can only use Skyrim cheats via PC console commands. So, if you're on Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation, you won't be able to use them. But, if you're looking to shake things up a bit on other platforms, it can be worth checking out our roundup of the best Skyrim mods.
You can enter multiple codes at a time and stack up various effects, just be wary of breaking things - using some of these codes (especially in combination) can cause glitches, mess up ongoing storylines or saves, or crash your game entirely, so make sure you create a back up save and keep it separate before you start playing around - otherwise you may find you've permanently broken your progress, and nobody wants to deal with that in a game the size of Skyrim. Achievements will also be disabled as soon as you start entering these codes, so unfortunately you won't be able to cheat your way to completing any challenges.
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