Skyrim players discover real reason why dragon spawns get disabled halfway through main quest

Skyrim players are just discovering why random dragon spawns become disabled during the main quest, and we all missed it.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, once you get past a certain part of the story, dragons will start randomly spawning during your adventures across the country.

They can often catch you unawares if you’re in the middle of another quest or activity, sometimes changing up how you play the game as you suddenly have to kill a dragon before going back to what you were doing.

However, fans have discovered that there is a point in the story where dragons in Skyrim will actually stop spawning completely, only coming back once you’ve done a specific thing.

Dragon spawns are disabled in Skyrim during one specific quest

As shared on Reddit, user SDirickson explained that dragon spawns are disabled for the entirety during the main quest A Blade in the Dark, which occurs at the beginning of the game’s second act.

The quest activates after talking to Delphine at the Sleeping Giant Inn, which occurs a few hours into the main story. Delphine is one of the last surviving members of the Blades, and the quest involves you proving you’re the Dragonborn by slaying Sahloknir at the burial mound at Kynesgrove.

It turns out that during this quest, Bethesda disabled the ability for all random dragon spawns to occur until you’ve accomplished your task.

So if you trigger the quest, but don’t go to meet Delphine at Kynesgrove, you can safely explore the world without falling victim to any random dragon spawns.

However, dragons will still spawn at scripted locations, such as Northwind Summit or Dragontooth Crater, meaning controlled fights are still possible if you want to rinse through some of the word walls.

The reason why dragon spawns become disabled during this quest is to keep the focus on killing Sahloknir. The whole point of your task is to prove that you’re the Dragonborn to Delphine by killing a specific dragon, so it would be anticlimactic to kill them after you’ve just slain a few other dragons moments before.

Still, if you were hoping to get some questing done in Skyrim and didn’t want to fall victim to random dragon attacks, it’s recommended to do these during A Blade in the Dark so you’ll have an easier time.

The only other time that dragons don’t randomly spawn is any time before the main quest Dragon Rising, which occurs as soon as you present the Dragonstone to Farengar at Dragonsreach.

Putting off this quest can also be beneficial, as it means random dragon attacks won’t inadvertently kill off characters not classed as essential, which can sometimes fail some side quests that occur during the game’s story.