When it comes to video game glitches, there are few examples more iconic than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However well the game might hold up and despite consistent efforts by modders to patch the game, Skyrim is still host to a significant amount of bugs and errors that result in bizarre oddities throughout the game. One such example of this is the common tendency for mammoths to start flying across the map - but why exactly does this happen?
Although Bethesda has been proactive when it comes to patching some of Skyrim's major issues, it's largely fallen on the shoulders of the fan community to address other problems with the game. The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, for example, is a popular mod that aims to fix hundreds of small errors across the game. At this point, Skyrim's errors have become so beloved by fans that many are even hoping to see some of the game's more iconic glitches appear again in The Elder Scrolls 6.
Many other mods exist to either patch existing errors within Skyrim or improve upon lackluster gameplay features of the original game. Skyrim's modding community is arguably one of the largest and most active to be found online, and the launch of Bethesda's Creation Club offered even more support for Skyrim modders. However, not all of Skyrim's issues are easily smoothed over, and the floating mammoth glitch is one such example of a difficult problem to solve.
What Makes Skyrim's Mammoths Float?
While there hasn't been an official reason given by Bethesda about what exactly makes mammoths prone to fly, there are a few logical assumptions about why and how it happens. Some fans assume that the issue is more likely to occur with higher frame rates in Skyrim, or when the V-sync setting is turned off. Both of these factors do occasionally result in physics errors within Skyrim's engine. The more likely answer, however, is that the problem occurs when mammoths are spawned into the world. The error most commonly happens when mammoths are viewed from a distance or when players are using fast-travel to teleport into a location where there are mammoths present.
Mammoths have a significantly larger boundary box than most other creatures in Skyrim because of their size. Because of this, when the game places them, they often intersect with the scenery such as trees or rocks. In order to circumvent this, the game then alters the placement to relocate the mammoth above the conflicting scenery instead. This results in mammoths temporarily hovering in mid-air before falling back down to the ground. The process isn't exclusive to mammoths - players have witnessed flying horses before as well, but it occurs far more commonly among mammoths due to their higher likelihood of collision issues. Regardless, many Skyrim fans consider this to be one of the game's funniest and most iconic errors.