Skyrim developer debunks the decade-long "Myth of the Treasure Fox" - brownwitheme

Skyrim developer debunks the decennary-long "Myth of the Treasure Fox"

(Image credit: Bethesda, CamKitty / NexusMods)

A former Skyrim developer has explained why players have spent nearly ten eld arguing over whether operating theatre non foxes lead the dovahkiin to treasure troves.

If you're not familiar with "the myth of the treasure fox," atomic number 3 developer Joel Burgher dubs the phenomenon, it stems from players in the youth of the game claiming that if you trip across one of the creatures, you should follow it. Follow up on it far enough, those players allege, and it'll at length lead you to an undiscovered positioning that you can loot for a uncluttered profit.

Among Skyrim players, you'll occasionally see this tip: if you find a wild fox, follow information technology and you'll embody LED to treasure.Sometime shortly after shipping, we saw this going around online, and an informal investigation started. Who made foxes do this?!August 18, 2021

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According to Burgess, that line of thinking is only when half-true. As Bethesda started noticing increasing numbers of players talking astir 'gem foxes', the studio began to investigate where this behaviour might have stemmed from. Nobody had deliberately scripted this behaviour, so where was it coming from?

The answer lay in the game's AI navigation. Skyrim uses a system known as 'navmesh', "an invisible 3D sheet of polygons that is set over the populace, impressive AI where it can and cannot go." Once an NPC had decided what action it wanted to take, it would use navmesh to make a path to allow it to ask that action. Foxes, with their relatively simple AI, can only run away from the player, simply they placid use navmesh to do so.

In Skyrim's grand open wilderness, the navmesh is real swordlike - identical hardly a triangles (the basic shape used to construct more complex, in-game shapes) are needed to make up a field with a few rocks and trees. Past contrast, significantly Sir Thomas More triangles are required to build a head of interest like a camp or a homestead.

In the real world, a fox might essa to put as a good deal space as possible between itself and a potential vulture, but in Skyrim, Burgess explains that "the fox isn't trying to nonplus 100 metres away - it's trying to sire 100 *triangles* away." That's merciless work out in the empty tundra, so a pathfinding fox bequeath prepar a beeline for more labyrinthian areas, which Bethesda filled with treasure to advance players to explore. That means that "foxes aren't leading you to treasure - but the way they behave is leading them to areas that incline to HAVE prize."

Earlier this week, another former dev outlined how a single bee almost ruined the game's painting opening scene, and Burgess' story is yet another example of the fascinating development process behindhand Skyrim. Even if it's not great news for the foxes.

Deficiency a brand-new go through, cardinal eld on? Here's our list of the best Skyrim mods .

I'm GamesRadar's lieutenant news editor, employed with Ben T across our gaming news articles. I started my journalistic vocation while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor program on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run along the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. American Samoa you might be able to state, PC is my platform of choice, so you derriere regularly find ME playing League of Legends operating theatre Steam's latest independent hit.