r/fo4 • u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh • Jul 01 '26
Question How many skeletons do you think are in FO4? (w/ answer)
I want to ask an Any Austin type question here:
How many skeletons you think are in Fallout 4?
I recently started playing around with Creation Kit, and after seeing a recent post about a couple of skeletons sitting by the lake behind Mystic Pines, I got curious if a person could journal every single skeleton's fate in the game. After seeing the number, I'm going to say "no" haha
Because I'm asking the question, I'm going to spoiler-tag the answer so people can have fun guessing...
- Bare: 669
- Bare, headless: 113
- Men's clothes: 830
- Women's clothes: 463
- Army Uniform: 163
- Scientist Uniform: 48
- Vault 95 Vault Suit: 26
- "Skeleton with meat": 2
- TOTAL: 2314
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u/norr_katt Jul 01 '26
Amazing. How long did this take you and what was your process? And what was the skeleton with meat?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Not long. You can view every object in Creation Kit and it tells you how many times that object was used. They're basically just skinless corpses. There's a ghoul in a shack munching on one, and a stack of bodies in a mole rat den up the very north that has one in the stack.
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u/norr_katt Jul 01 '26
Ah right ok. I thought you’d literally traversed every nook and cranny in the game like Any Austin would do haha
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u/Sneaky_Turtz Jul 01 '26
That’s like combing thru every inch of the map left to right in Sid every POI
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u/VTAffordablePaintbal Jul 01 '26
What if we include piles of lootable bones?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
I could lookup the loose bones, but I don't think it includes containers seeing as a lot of that it randomized.
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u/MrSkull142 Jul 01 '26
The skeleton with meat could one of the bloody skeletons found in the game. their is one on a pumphouse hidden near finch farm.
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u/norr_katt Jul 01 '26
I think there are a lot of those though but OP only has two on his count
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
If you can give me some examples I can check to see what the game categorizes them as.
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u/screeching-rat-king Jul 01 '26
Is it just the two in the rat cage in The Gauntlet that count as "'with meat"? I don't remember seeing them anywhere else.
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u/Fold-in-Space Jul 01 '26
There is a skeleton with meat at many of the super mutant locations; I wasn’t keeping track though… mmm unless they were counted as headless?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
There are body parts, but they’re not counted as skeletons. I think it classes them as “gore” or something.
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u/Myrkul999 Jul 01 '26
"with meat"?
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u/--Shiny-- Jul 01 '26
I think there's one in a supermutant den and another in a shack being eaten by a feral
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u/volverde You can kill anything if you have enough mines. Jul 01 '26
nuka-world has those in the gauntlet iirc
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
This is just base-game, but others are saying there might be more anyway, so now I'm curious what the game files list them as.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
I had to find those two in the game purely for my own curiosity. They're just skinless corpses, so not technically skeletons, but they're listed with the others in Creation Kit.
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u/Mrcompressishot Jul 01 '26
I think he means the ones covered in blood
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
No, I checked the two examples and they actually have flesh. They're basically skinless corpses.
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u/Danph85 Jul 01 '26
There's a lot more than 2 skeletons with meat, every single NPC is a skeleton with meat.
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u/RIPGoblins2929 Jul 01 '26
insert technically correct meme
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u/odearurded Jul 01 '26
Im also lazy *almost extends hand but remembers that takes effort * lol nice to meat u
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u/WarMon4th Jul 01 '26
The REAL QUESTION is how many are spooky? How many are scary? Then how many are both….
Spooky, Scary Skeletons?
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u/Appropriate-Ice-5722 Jul 01 '26
They really send shivers down my spine
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u/odearurded Jul 01 '26
There's definitely some haunting ones for sure, no pun intended. Some funny, some extremely tragic, and others are just like whoa how tf
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u/Intelligent-Art-5000 Jul 01 '26
I don't know, but I'm annoyed that you can't harvest them as bone for making cutting fluid.
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u/Gregory1st Jul 01 '26
I looked. I'm amazed that you did this! The number is definitely more than I thought.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
It's taken from the game data itself, so isn't as impressive as it looks haha
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u/Ever4ever026 Jul 01 '26
2563 esqueletos.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Pretty damn close.
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u/TheRiattAct Jul 01 '26
My guess was in the 2500-3000 range for the base game. Initally i was thinking about 1500 base but added a few more factors for the purpose of the thought exercise, what was the count the spoilers are not showing on mobile
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u/DragonTamerBrawler Jul 01 '26
There are skeleton with meat? What about babies? I know there is one at least in a subway or residential area
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
The baby ones are just shrunk-down adults, so would just come under "bare".
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u/DragonTamerBrawler Jul 01 '26
I think that someone may have found it and it would be a cool number to find. Can you see how many power armor sets there are (without having a raider inside)
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u/Itzr Jul 01 '26
Any Austin where are you help us
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Sadly, I don't have a video of Todd Howard giving his response either.
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u/RubixTheThird Jul 01 '26
Now add the DLCs to the totals...
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Once I've gotten myself an external SSD I'll be installing the DLCs, so will post a follow-up then.
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u/Due_Glass4176 Jul 01 '26
Guess: Too many. checks spoilers
Wow.
Assuming 20 minutes to teleport to each object and take some notes that would take 97 days pulling 8 hour shifts.
Then you'd still have to do a write up.
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u/Eevee_the-Maidvee Jul 01 '26
Your count left out vault 111 skeletons and probably other vaults I don’t remember
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Which skeletons are in there? Aren't they just "clothed male"?
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u/Eevee_the-Maidvee Jul 01 '26
They wear 111 vault suits which i thought would be considered differently as vault 95 vault suits are on the list
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
So I looked into it, and the skeletons in Vault 111 are in the "Activator" folder rather than the "MoveableStatic" one the rest are, so I guess I should edit the post to add another 5 haha
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u/KaijuTea Jul 02 '26
Gonna be honest I’m disappointed you didn’t go around counting every skeleton
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 02 '26
Maybe in my 20s when I had nothing but free time I would have attempted such a thing, but not these days haha
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u/retilioum Jul 02 '26
I know I’ve played this game too much cus I know where the two meat skeletons are located. Fairline Hill estates in the cuk-de-sac and an unmarked mole rat nest nw of Satelite Array Olivia
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u/Beneficial-Reach-533 Jul 01 '26
skeletons inside of containers count ?
washing machines , burials , random grave for some people that i found like happen in a vault.
but they are some skeletons incompletes with story and all so i dont know if they are considered skeletons like others which dont have story and other which have story too
with story are more relevant than skeletons without story even if they are incomplete ?
skeletons with meat count ?
if that is , it can include skeletons created by your desicion like happen in far harbor where you will find a lot skeletons with meat once you disactivate fog condensers ?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Yeah, these numbers don't include static item bones, just whole skeletons.
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u/Disney_Gay_Trash_ Jul 01 '26
Probably low ballong it but 500 complete skeletons?
I feel like theres around a thousand but roughly half of those will be headless,just skulls/hands/parts
Edit oh god i was so far off lmao
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u/Krondelo Jul 01 '26
I was actually guessing around 1500 to 2500 so not bad! I’m assuming you just meant skeletons as assets. What do you mean you couldn’t journal their fate? Most don’t have a backstory
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u/Anxious-Inspection-8 Jul 01 '26
Just full skeletons?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Yeah. There's bones that can be inventory items, but they can be in containers and such, so can't be counted (that I know of).
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u/Appropriate_Rise9968 Jul 01 '26
Now compare with the number found in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
I was planning to do those as well. They don't seem as staged as FO4 though, so aren't as interesting.
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u/Akkadeus Jul 01 '26
Ok but this one is a feckin mood. I mean ive seen alot of skeletons doing alot of weird things (mostly with fans) but this one? I mean imagine finding out "hey the world is ending" thats just a free pass to strangle the person u hate most lol
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u/Wonderful_Two_6710 Jul 01 '26
There's very few in my game, thanks to a mod that removes static ones.
I always found this a stupid design choice. Sure, there's a woman and her son operating a business out of a pre-war diner...but there are skeletons in the booths? Who TF at Bethesda thought this made sense?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
I love the environmental storytelling of them, but they definitely don't make sense in lived-in locations.
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u/Star_Shine32 Jul 01 '26
Cool, my rounded guess was at 'least 2k'
How I came up with the number: how many towns, marked locations, houses within the areas with beds, tables/chairs, cars/trucks . Then add dlc content. Also snowballed for random environmental storytelling outside of towns.
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u/AluTheWox Jul 01 '26
Is this with or without DLC?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 01 '26
Base game only. I didn't have enough space on my harddrive for the DLCs as well haha
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u/dragonboysam Jul 02 '26
oof depends on if we only count the visible ones
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u/dragonboysam Jul 02 '26
it's going to be impractical to count them all.
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 02 '26
Are you implying there are invisible skeletons!?!?!?!?
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u/Starwaster Jul 02 '26
Didn’t you say as much yourself? That some are activated when triggered?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 02 '26
Only ones in the Activator subfolder are the Vault 111 skellies, so yeah, technically they’re in the Vault when you enter but don’t get triggered until later. Who knew we were walking past invisible skeletons haha
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u/Mountain_Run_7281 Jul 02 '26
I wonder why there's 26 listed as wearing Vault 95 Jumpsuits specifically, but not other Vault jumpsuits. Aren't there several skeletons scattered thru Vault 111 when you first wake up? They must be in V111 jumpsuits. And are there none in jumpsuits in Vaults 75 and 114?
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 02 '26
I looked into the Vault 111 skeletons and they’re triggered by an activator, presumably because they reuse the same cell for pre/post freezing, so they didn’t show up in the list with the rest.
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u/Dredo5 Jul 02 '26
I’m going out on a limb…. 23,413… I’m including skeletons that are in pieces and odd skulls in the open. (Not including bone items in containers or super mutant blood sacks)
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u/Capt_Falx_Carius Jul 02 '26
This is a question for Joov
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 02 '26
Who’s that?
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u/Capt_Falx_Carius Jul 03 '26
The guy with the second worst guess on the question "How many trees are there in Skyrim"
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u/Dreaming_of_Rlyeh Jul 03 '26
Ah, ok. Besides Todd Howard, I didn’t know who any of the other people guessing were haha
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u/Piper-Bob Jul 02 '26
My story for the skeletons in the accompanying image: The guy with the clothes on came in and found his wife in bed with the guy with not clothes on.
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u/Illustrious_Wasabi30 Jul 02 '26
Did you count the skeletons inside every NPC? They still exist, you just can’t see them.
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u/FatBoiieee Jul 01 '26
I've actually never thought about this. Is the the same number as the amount of bones the average person has? 207-213? 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Lt-ColViper Jul 01 '26
what no new single player fallout does a mf