Almost six years ago, Bethesda released one the greatest games of the seventh generation, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game was an instant hit, being lauded as one of the best open world RPGs of all time. Gamers have fond memories of Skyrim due to the various events and occurrences that can happen during their exploration of the vast world. The quests are abundant, the locations are immersive, the modding community is extremely active, and the combat is... well, it's there.

But there's another critical aspect of Skyrim that it's pretty much synonymous with — the glitches. And there are a ton of them, including hundreds of coding errors that were missed by Bethesda but are included in the Unofficial Skyrim Patch — a mod made by the ever-present and dedicated fan base. Of course, sometimes its just better to let these glitches play out during your playthrough on the off-chance that it may be hilarious to watch... although there's always the risk of a game-breaking bug that will infuriate you to no end. Keeping all of this in mind, here are 15 of the most insane glitches ever in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

15 Giant Sends Your Body Flying

Giants are one of the first enemies you encounter who'll pose a significant challenge to you in the early stages of Skyrim. After killing a few weak monsters, you might gain the confidence to try out your skills on a giant. You ready yourself for the epic encounter, and land a few decent shots... before a swing of the giant's massive club sends your character flying across the countryside as you stare in wonder.

This glitch is one of the most beloved ones in the community, and for good reason. The developers actually found this glitch, but decided against removing it since they found it too funny. Bethesda has made a ton of debatable decisions over the years, but it's unanimously agreed that this was a rare masterstroke.

14 Flying Mammoths And Horses (Among Others)

Skyrim might have a ton of memorable moments that one can debate about, but there's no question that watching a giant mammoth spawn out of nowhere, float across the landscape and fall to its untimely death is one of the most hilarious things anyone's ever witnessed in a game. And that's exactly what Skyrim offers, along with a few other glitches of the sort as well.

Mammoths aren't the only creatures prone to this glitch. Horses (including your own) can also simply fly away at a moment's notice, leaving you frustrated and amused at the same time — a feat that not many video games can accomplish.

There's one particularly imposing creature that's supposed to be flying, but even that can occasionally provide a bit of entertainment...

13 Static Dragon Animation While Flying

Dragons are one of the most recognizable aspects of Skyrim, and a welcome improvement — in terms of a flying enemy — from the highly annoying cliff racers in Morrowind. These majestic creatures serve as a dangerous threat during the early stretches of the game, before becoming hopelessly weak against the might of the Dragonborn. No matter what, it's always intimidating to see this huge creature appear from the sky as it prepares to engage you in battle... unless that is, if it's flight animation stops working.

When a dragon flies at you in a static manner, the entire encounter becomes somewhat bizarre, and the epic music seems woefully out of place. Even then, it's not recommended to take a fight with any dragon lightly, despite the admittedly hilarious introductory sequence.

Oh, and speaking of dragons...

12 Blowing Away Dragon Skeletons With Spells

A dragon's skeleton is a satisfying thing to see after a grueling battle with the tough monster. The sight of the creature's skin disappearing as you absorb its soul is gratifying enough, and the bones of the dragon that you've slain serve as a satisfying mark of your victory — a mark that you can have some fun with if you desire.

It's quite hilarious when you cast a spell on the skeleton and watch it fly away from you, as if the bones were completely weightless. Oddly enough, this doesn't happen when you use the Unrelenting Force shout, which seems like a missed opportunity, to say the least. Oh well, as long as you have an appropriate spell in hand it's not that much of a loss.

11 Rapid Leveling At The Starting Point Of The Game

Skyrim has one of the most memorable opening sequences in a video game. In typical Elder Scrolls fashion, you start out as a prisoner who's slated to be executed before the dragon Alduin comes and crashes in on the proceeding affairs. What follows is a well-made tutorial that acclimatizes gamers to the mechanics of the game. However, if you want to start the game with an advantage, there's an exploit to help you do so.

You can improve your sneak and any combat skill of your choice by attacking the NPC you choose to side with in the early stages of the game. When you encounter the bear in the cave and need to enter stealth mode, you can start whacking away at your unfortunate companion with the weapon of your choice in order to level up your sneak and whatever skill you choose. Be careful to not level up too much, since the game scales according to your level after all.

10 Infinite Dragon Shouts

Dragon shouts are a new power introduced in Skyrim that become an essential part of your arsenal in the early stages of the game. These powerful shouts have a bevy of effects that can turn the tide of battle. The only negative thing about these is that they have a cooldown timer... but with this exploit, one can circumvent this.

Firstly, make sure that you have an Amulet Of Talos and some crafting gear that provides a bonus to alchemy. Follow the steps in this video, and in no time at all, you'll get a ridiculously powerful Dragonborn who can shout as much as he/she wants without worrying about the cooldown timer.

9 Enter The Thalmor Embassy Before 'Diplomatic Immunity'

The Thalmor Embassy serves as the setting for one of the main quests of Skyrim, 'Diplomatic Immunity.' Before this quest is triggered, the Thalmor Embassy is inaccessible to the player and can't be entered in any way (and after you're done with this quest, the door is locked and can't be picked unless you have the required perks in lockpicking). Well... no legitimate way, at least.

With a horse, it's actually pretty easy to enter the Thalmor Embassy with some precise jumping. On the left side of the compound, there's a tree that you can jump against in order to gain access to the embassy. This isn't exactly recommended though, since there's a high chance that you might bug out the quest if you do so.

8 Wear All Dragon Priests Masks At Once (Only PC)

The Dragon Priest Masks are some of the rarest and powerful headgears that one can acquire in Skyrim. Each mask has their own unique effect that is quite useful, and a dedicated player can find all nine masks if they wish. Unfortunately, these effects can't be stacked together, unless you're playing on the PC.

Console commands are amazing for a number of reasons, this being one of them. By using the command 'player.setrace dremora,' one can wear all nine masks and enjoy the stacked effects as their Dragonborn becomes an absolute beast. You can use this command to stack other equipment as well, but the Dragon Masks are specifically mentioned because of their unique characteristics.

7 'Ice Form' Shout Glitch

The 'Ice Form' shout is one of the many powerful shouts that the Dragonborn can unlock throughout his/her journey. This particular shout freezes an enemy completely, placing it at the mercy of the game's physics. You can use this shout on enemies in certain situations to great effect... and sometimes, this can result in some unexpected hilariousness.

If you're lucky enough, you can witness this amusing glitch if you use this shout on an enemy standing on an elevated surface — preferably high up, like a cliff side. As you watch your enemy helplessly slide down to the ground, there's a slight chance that the body will start twitching and erratically moving all over the place.

6 Using A Basket To Steal Everything

Skyrim is a game full of loot — in fact, there's so much of it that there's a guaranteed chance that a first-time Elder Scrolls player will get encumbered within the first few moments of the game. As is with most Bethesda games, money becomes a non-issue after a certain point if the player manages to single out the important loot and sell it. If one does not have the patience for that, however, then there's always this handy little exploit to satisfy your greed.

If you place a basket or something of the sort on a shopkeeper's head, you can steal all of the items he has for display from right under his nose, and he won't even notice. Just make sure you have a fence or the required perk to sell all that stolen stuf. Otherwise, you'll have to drop the occasional fork in order to move at your normal speed.

5 Dead NPCs Can Still Talk And Move Sometimes

You'll amass quite a high body count during your journey through the vast expanse of Skyrim, and a sizeable percentage of that will be the people from the numerous races of The Elder Scrolls you can interact with. While the vast majority of them should stay dead for good, a few NPCs can surprise — and maybe even scare — you during your journey.

If — for some reason — the game screws up and forgets to register that a particular NPC has died, said character will still retain their mobility and the ability to speak. This can get quite creepy, especially since their corpse will simply slide on the ground as if it's completely normal. They can also hold a conversation with you, which truly seals this as one of the creepiest Skyrim glitches ever.

4 Purchase All Houses For Free

Just to clarify, this doesn't include the plots of land one can buy in the Hearthfire DLC. Rather, this exploit is for the various houses one can buy in the base game. These properties cost a lot of gold, but with some fast reflexes, one can own all the houses in Skyrim without spending a single penny.

In order to pull this exploit off, one needs to have the required amount of money at hand in order to approve the purchase. After doing so, the player needs to quickly interact with a container near them hand dump all their money into it. If done correctly, the purchase will become official, and the player can simply take their money back from whichever container they'd placed the money in.

3 Become Both Vampire And Werewolf

Werewolves and Vampires are mortal enemies in Skyrim, and it should be impossible to gain the powers of both. However, there's not one, but two ways to exploit the game so you can enjoy the best of both worlds. The best part is that one of these methods doesn't even require the Dawnguard DLC (although the exploit with Dawnguard is more stable and reliable).

The methods are somewhat complicated to be described briefly, but it's quite satisfying once you pull it off. The only drawback is that while you are in werewolf form, you'll lose all your vampire powers but retain the weaknesses. It's a small price to pay to attain such a vast amount of powers at your disposal.

2 Dead Friends Of Your Betrothed Can Crash Your Wedding

Marriage is one of the newest additions to Skyrim, although it's pretty cosmetic and feels somewhat disjointed from the actual experience. Nevertheless, you can choose to ask someone eligible to be engaged to you, and have a wedding. If you decide to do so, then just make sure that you haven't killed any of your wife's friends in case you want a rather creepy guest to join the ceremony.

For some reason, when the wedding guests come there's a chance that the corpse of the friend who died (through no fault of you own) will gatecrash the wedding. This glitch is another example of something that's hilarious and creepy at the same time — something that happens frequently in Skyrim.

1 The Disaster That Was The PS3 Version Of Skyrim

Skyrim has always been a PC game, but the console releases aren't anything to laugh at. Sure, they might not have the access to console commands, features, mods (although that's being integrated), or anything of the sort, but they're still somewhat playable... as long as your save file doesn't exceed 6 MB.

The PS3 release of Skyrim had its fair share of bugs and glitches, but the worst one by far is the absolutely game-breaking glitch that makes the game pretty much unplayable after the size of your save file reaches 6+ MB. The game lags, freezes, and crashes at an alarming rate, causing you to restart the game in frustration... only to realize that the bug has literally rendered your game absolutely unplayable. The fact that this broken release was considered ready for retail is downright insulting.