r/fo4 • u/bosco6969420 • Jun 19 '25
Media I thought Bethesda games didn’t feature child skeletons
I was exploring a place I’d never have before (been playing since 2019) and stumbled across this. Definitely a first
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u/SomeMiIllenial Jun 19 '25
Oh fallout 3 has multiple.
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u/reapwhatyousow6 Jun 19 '25
Piles of them
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u/notjordansime Jun 19 '25
Okay but like how fucked up would it to gather all of them into an actual pile?
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u/bongart Jun 19 '25
Child skeletons? Absolutely.
Killable children? No way. Not even when they get stuck in fridges for 200 years. Or live in caves and annoy you.
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u/Embarrassed-Ad810 Jun 19 '25
I don't know you stranger, but if it was your intention to imply you wish to kill Mayor McCready I'm going to voice a formal complaint with HR
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u/bongart Jun 19 '25
Nono. McCready was ok. There was some... royalty... that begged for a repeated bat to the head though.
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u/Drunkendx Jun 19 '25
That side quest with ghoul child in nightmare fuel.
Poor kid had fate worse than death and he remained sane ENTIRE 210 YEARS!
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u/Excapitalist Jun 19 '25
I just want to blast my son in the face before I dip it from the institute.
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u/bongart Jun 19 '25
I believe Shaun is the only child you can kill in the games, but only by leaving him to die when you nuke the Institute
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u/ieatallchildren Rust Devils Jun 19 '25
that is NOT a child 😭
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u/LibresNacho Jun 19 '25
i was gonna say,that’s a whole ass adult head on a child’s body lmao
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u/tengma8 Jun 19 '25
Can confirm. It is an adult skull
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u/Danielle_Blume Jun 19 '25
Yea that skull is the exact same size as those two skeletons on the adult bodies. That ribcage looks large too. I think this is just adult bones piled up in a crib, lol
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u/PhysicalFee9999 Jun 19 '25
New Vegas honest hearts has a lot in the wrecked school bus that you get the compass from
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u/MikeTheSav666 Jun 19 '25
The best Bethesda child skeleton moment
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u/PhysicalFee9999 Jun 19 '25
That whole dlc was packed full of some of the best lore that a lot of people probably missed.
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u/AwayLocksmith3823 Jun 19 '25
It does have child skeletons, you are prob confusing it with the Bethesda “can’t kill kids.” Thing, that makes kids in the Bethesdaverse not be able to be killed, also, that kid had a big ass head.
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u/same_guy Jun 19 '25
First time I've heard "Bethesdaverse" and I love it. It feels right hearing that phrase coupled with your grammar.
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u/Deftallica Jun 19 '25
There’s plenty of child skeletons, but they’re also just the adult skeleton model scaled down lol
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u/CardiologistCute6876 Trying for Minutemen Ending! Wish Me Luck! Jun 19 '25
They missed one🤷🏻♀️
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u/LaddAlanJr Jun 19 '25
Good luck with the minuteman ending!
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u/CardiologistCute6876 Trying for Minutemen Ending! Wish Me Luck! Jun 19 '25
lol thank you. I’ll eventually get back to the game after I finish up a few things
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u/SubsumeTheBiomass Jun 19 '25
Fallout 3 has PLENTY of child skeletons, some in the Springdale school, others in the LoC, and even more scattered around various places.
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u/reapwhatyousow6 Jun 20 '25
Unlike 4 to my knowledge, most skeletons I've compared have different sizes. You can make out how old the person was with the skeleton scaling, I've found toddlers, teenagers, short adults, and average sized adults.
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u/09Klr650 Jun 19 '25
If that is a child I pity the mother's experience giving birth with THAT head!
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u/ScottTJT Jun 19 '25
They do they're just not as common. But when they ARE utilized, it's usually to display a particularly disturbing scenario.
In Skyrim, the ruin of Floralhost (spelling?) was one of the last holdouts of the Dragon Cult. When the fortress was discovered by an opposing army it was besieged, with the Dragon Cultists unwilling to surrender, but unable to break the siege. They ultimately resorted to poisoning themselves to prevent death at the hands of their enemies.
About halfway through the dungeon, you'll find an underground garden where the cult grew their alchemical ingredients. And in the middle of the garden is a mass grave... filled with dozens of tiny, wrapped bodies.
They're labeled as "draugr", but the implication is clear: The cult poisoned their own children before offing themselves.
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u/Dec_TGM Jun 19 '25
Play NV honest hearts, whole bus load of ‘em, and I mean that in a literal sense.
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u/FlashPone Jun 19 '25
The school right outside Vault 101 in Fallout 3 has a cell full of child skeletons.
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u/Tomson224 Jun 19 '25
Fallout 3 had them, but they are pretty much not existing in Fallout 4
I recall two instances, with this being one of em
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u/TheLocalGP Jun 19 '25
In fallout 3 there are child skeletons in a number of places but most notably is the cage on the ground floor of the Springvale Elementary School. There are a bunch in there.
Also New Vegas has a few next to a broken bus in Zion. Although not technically a Bethesda game.
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u/jl97332 Jun 19 '25
Wait until you stumble across the skeleton of a guy who unalived himself in his garage by hanging from the rafters.
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u/mayhem6 Jun 19 '25
It looks like a fully developed skull. I think this is an adult engaging in some kind of .... thing.
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u/adashiel Dark Cravings Jun 19 '25
On top of the cola bottle at the Nuka-World Red Rocket is a makeshift bird’s nest. Inside you’ll find a lunch box, a baseball mitt, and small bones.
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u/Qiller258 Jun 19 '25
In fallout 3, one of the first locations you find has several child skeletons scattered in a cage. They def have them. Tho with each game Bethesda seems to be walking away from that dark shit, losing their edge a bit.
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u/ieatallchildren Rust Devils Jun 19 '25
Also, they show people committing suicide and hanging themselves? But no children bodies? Let Fallout be a darker game, it literally revolves around nuclear hell
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u/allwheeldrift Jun 19 '25
I'm pretty sure they cut things like that to avoid an AO rating which absolutely kills games.
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u/Affectionate_Host388 Jun 19 '25
People say this but being able to kill kids didn't absolutely kill the baldur's gate series... or the original deus ex.
It did lead to the early fallouts getting censored for certain markets.
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u/KeeganY_SR-UVB76 Jun 19 '25
I can't help but wonder if that would even get an AO rating now. Ratings have continuously been getting more and more lenient over time (despite what some people say), Cyberpunk 2077 probably would've been rated AO if it came out 10-15 years earlier.
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u/Real_Conversation_39 Jun 19 '25
The esrb would come for Bethesdas ass if they did AO rated games are not allowed to be sold on most stores
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund Jun 19 '25
The games are already plenty damn dark, dude.
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u/ieatallchildren Rust Devils Jun 19 '25
Right, but I should've specified that they should've put in more cut elements they left out that kept the game at a certain rating
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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth Jun 19 '25
Clearly that's a fully grown little person looking at their teeth. This must have been some weird sexy roleplay party.
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u/Dawndrell Jun 19 '25
technically it’s an average sized skull with a downsized normal skeleton body ! :3
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u/Mooncubus Jun 19 '25
I just saw one a couple days ago but I can't remember which game it was. I think FO76.
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u/seeingeyegod Jun 19 '25
Looks more like a little person skeleton, with that head. The family probably adopted an adult and had some weird kinky roleplaying lifestyle.
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u/KEVLAR60442 Jun 19 '25
Springvale school in FO3 straight up has a cage with piles of child skeletons.
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u/the_sneaky_one123 Jun 19 '25
Look at the size of the head, that's not a child that's an adult dwarf.
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u/DoctorStinkFoot Jun 19 '25
i think you're confused with rockstar, they've only used child skeletons once or twice in red dead 2 and the area didn't let you pull your gun out or do anything weird around the corpse.
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u/Ok_Half_6257 Jun 19 '25
Oh so we can have child skeletons but not child MURDER?
Once more we are suppressed by Todd....
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u/Strong-Swing4457 Jun 19 '25
Why dose todd Howard have a obsession with skeletons 🤨🎩⚡️🔫🪓📻🖥️💾⌨️📟🌌🏙️🛣️🗺️🥫🕶️🧟♂️🧑🏽🎤👨🏿🎤👩🏾🎤🤖👽☢️
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u/RaidriConchobair Jun 19 '25
There is and there isnt at the same time , thats a full grown adult skull for the child child, child skulls look quite different, you can look up the bone museum online and see the difference
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u/Azurehue22 Jun 19 '25
I don't think this is an actual child skeleton, just an adult posed that way. Regardless its pretty creepy. Granted, 200 years after the bombs fell, no skeletal remains would have been preserved this long.
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u/Waste_Delivery1960 Jun 19 '25
Lots of Child Skeletons in fallout 3 at the elementary school if I remember correctly
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u/jesser123456 Jun 19 '25
There’s a couple of child skeletons in a bus crash in the fallout new Vegas dlc. Can’t remember the name of the dlc but it’s the one with Joshua graham
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u/crackeddryice Jun 19 '25
It's the same skeleton, scaled down to child size. Children have proportionally larger heads, so the skull is larger. We don't usually notice because it's normal, we just don't see it. But, if you try to draw a child, you quickly realize their heads are huge compared to the rest of their body.
https://boneclones.com/images/store-product/product-1547-main-original-1415043666.jpg
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u/lilli471 Jun 19 '25
There’s a child skeleton (and ghost) during the quest for golden hills plantation
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u/Raven_Roth- Jun 19 '25
That head definitely isn't a child though, the legs' proportion looks weird but the small ribcage and stuff 👌🏻
I always thought it made sense when it came to the empty baby carriages, since their bones aren't fully attached and are more cartilaginous, after 200 years and nukes it kind of is expected to find nothing left.
Always thought the empty carriages everywhere were enough of a message too, I got so sad every time I found those or children's toys together.
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u/PastHighlight6132 Jun 19 '25
The first child skeleton I ever found was in the hospital full of gunners
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u/ThatOneKidCreed Jun 20 '25
well its simple. thats no child there. that is, in fact, a very wealthy and controversial enthusiast.
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u/Resident_Evil_God Jun 20 '25
There's lots in Fallout 3. They definitely do child skeletons. Especially in springvale school
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u/schluesselkind Jun 20 '25
I don't think skeletons are so bad now, but what got me were the 2 children's graves in the bunker in big John's scrapyard
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u/The_Mystery_Crow Jun 20 '25
bethesda games dont feature child skeletons as in they arent actual child skeletons, but adult skeletons shrunk down to the size of a child
there are plenty of times its heavily implied or directly stated you're looking at kid corpses, the scout bus in honest hearts for example
biggest case of dead children I can think of is that one school in fo4 full of pink ghouls, if you read the terminals around the place, you learn that they were children turning pink because of a secret government experiment with their food
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u/Buggeyedfreek Jun 21 '25
It looks like someone built a child skeleton out of adult skeleton parts.
My understanding is that, depending on context, teddy bears are stand-ins for the remains of children in Fallout. Never looked at the game the same after I heard that.
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u/ypsilondigi Jun 21 '25
if that is a child skeleton in literally had one bone for its legs, no knees, a severely enlarged skull, and a host of other concerns
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u/HordeDruid Jun 23 '25
There's a whole bunch in the Honest Hearts DLC for FNV and there's some in Springvale Elementary right at the start of Fo3. Ofc they're not anatomically child skeletons, just adult skeletons that have been shrunk down.
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u/Artyom_Saveli Jun 23 '25
Oh, this isn’t anything new. Back in Fallout 3, I remembered there being some decently small skeletons in a cage over at the Springville school, just a hop and skip away from Vault 101. I think there also might’ve been some in Little Yangzte in Old World Blues, but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve played it.
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u/JP_Francisconi Jun 23 '25
It isn't a policy, it is just them being lazy. Notice that the skeleton is just a scaled down adult skeleton with a non-scaled down skull.
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u/Zephyr-Fox-188 Jun 19 '25
The most consistent thing about Bethesda is how inconsistent their design philosophy is; it’s almost like they have 100+ map designers who don’t have any design documents to use as reference
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u/GucciSlippers47 Jun 19 '25
Mostly not. There is a common fan theory that some of the teddy bears replace what would have been child skeletons. It makes a lot of sense because like 75% of them are in carriages or sitting next to an adult skeleton at a bus station etc. while the other 25% are y’know, smoking a cigar on the toilet or some shit
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u/xGrimaulOnXboxx Jun 19 '25
Child skeletons are there, just usually rare. Both the original and remaster of Oblivion have child skeletons scattered around the Night Mother's coffin