I am in work at the moment so am unable to play the game for another 8 hours.

My main question is - Are we able to disable/enable the dlcs like we used to be able to in the original game?

I play on PC and never use mods at all so I'm just wondering purely about the DLCs - Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn.

If so brilliant but if not it's an absolute travesty. If not though is there any way to do this? Perhaps by moving the esm files out of their folders or something?

Thanks for any help.

If anyone on PS4 can confirm this as well that would be much appreciated as I'm in work too!

I do hope you can as I won't appreciate being overrun by Vampire attacks straight off the bat. Going to be a nightmare if this is the case >.<

All signs point to no, not without mods.


For Dawnguard, there is a workaround: simply don't go to your level-up/skills screen once you're past level 9. It's a lazy solution, but as long as you don't hit level 10 (as in, get the level-up screen and reaching 10 or higher) the vampire attacks cannot happen. While only 9 you can carefully make your way over to Fort Dawnguard and complete enough of the quest that the vampire attacks stop happening. Once you're at that point you can then freely apply all the level-ups you banked in the meantime.

I tried that with Dawnguard and it seemed to be working.

Haven't you got to beat the main quest for them to stop happening? Or am I missing something..

No, just part of Dawnguard.


What usually happens is people hit level 10, then randomly stumble across their first vampire attack or overhear a guard mentioning Fort Dawnguard. That triggers a quest where you must find Fort Dawnguard. Once you do, the attacks stop, though players usually either do a bunch of other quests first or get lost trying to find the fort (I can't remember if there's a marker or not, I assume there is) and the whole time every time they reach a village there's a chance vampires will attack.


If you're still level 9 when you find the fort, you skip right to the next objective and never give the attacks chance to happen.

No [censored]? Man I thought you had to actually finish the quest line. God on every character I made i'd literally smash out the Dawnguard quest line as quick as I could because I hated those damn vampire attacks killing NPC's.

So you're telling me once I hit level 10, I pick up the trigger quest, go to Fort Dawnguard and then no more vampire attacks in towns?

I hope this is true.

You're right - it's the Dawnguard questline - whereas I thought you were referring to the main questline for some reason. The Dawnguard questline isn't long and you should be able to hammer it out without visiting too many villages during the night. As soon as you deal with Harkon, either way the attacks stop.


A lot of folks either don't know how to stop the attacks, aren't sure what triggers them, or never prioritize gettIng Dawnguard done, thus they prolong a situation where vampires are a problem. It's annoying, but besides waiting for a mod, you at least have the option to finish their quest and stop them for good... unlike say Dragons who will persist forever once triggered.

Here's official word on the matter:


https://beta-community.bethesda.net/topic/374/skyrim-se-launch-faq


Can I remove or disable the DLC that comes with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition?


No. The DLC that comes with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is part of the game by default and cannot be disabled or uninstalled.

That FAQ ist for PS4. Moving the files or disabling them with NMM appears to be working.

Indeed, but that was never in doubt. PC users can also locate the ESM files and hit the delete key.


On console we cannot access the files directly, thus without a method to delete/disable DLC we're literally stuck with them until someone mods them out. It's a bizarre decision: no other release of the game forced you to play with any of the DLC's installed, especially Dawnguard, and Bethesda should already know Dawnguard is polarizing if not downright unpopular. Forcing players to have to deal with content they don't want or don't like (in this case, vampires are harder to delay indefinitely than dragons) is a good way to get people to hate this particular version, and will no doubt rub some reviewers up the wrong way. Surely the option and ability to play it, which we don't have to accept, is enough?

Ok, I agree with that. And while the OP asked for PC, I just now saw that the second poster asked about PS4.

Eh, it's not a big deal really. Just became a bit of a chore running the soul cairn and forgotten vale over and over. But if that is the way it must be then so be it!

I just want to point out that you actually get your first vampire attack at level 8, not 9. The Dawnguard recruiter does not appear until level 10, and I forget if there are any other attacks between that first one and then. It's been a long time since I've allowed them to occur. I use a mod that blocks the scripts. It should work with SSE, once I can resave the .esp. Before I found that, I used to trigger that first attack deliberately so I could somewhat control it. After that I would just avoid settlements during the attack hours. That requires avoiding fast travel directly to towns.

Thanks for the insight. Having never had the DLCs before, I knew literally nothing about them. Now I know to crack this one out fairly early as it sounds like it would be a bit irritating!

That's good to know

There was also a mod for vanilla that delayed Dawnguard

As well as another which made the NPCs flee into buildings when vampires attacked

which saved them from getting killed

The point of SSE for most PC players is the modding potential of the 64 bit engine

We always adjust Elder Scrolls games to our personal wishes and tastes - and that requires all kinds of tweaks and mods etc

For many of us this process is fun and central to our continuing engagement with and enjoyment of the game

We can and do keep on changing it - there are almost 40,000 mods on Nexus

We are grateful to Bethesda for the awesome base game they create

and the fact they supply the tools to completely alter it to our personal desires

and they dont copyright strike us for doing Youtube videos or streaming (as some publishers do)

That's really sweet of you to say but it doesn't really help with my issue - Why was a feature such as this removed? Shouldn't we be able to turn dlcs on and off by default like we were in the non-special edition???

What about the players who don't use mods or don't want to edit the game like that?

For people who don't use mods, yes it probably is quite the pickle, but I wonder if the decision was in part because most mods will require all the DLC to be installed to ensure it has the latest official patch. Otherwise people using mods, but have Dawnguard disabled may run into issues. Speculation though, I'm not absolutely sure on that

As schnoe said most mods require all DLC these days

If you play on PC and want to switch off the DLC perhaps you can

if you install the Nexus Mod Manager I think you will be able to disable the DLC esms

Generally my policy if I find an issue in a game that causes a problem for me I ask and research and try to find a solution

Most communities are friendly and have people who know better than I how to set the game up and fix most isses

I dont just rage and bad mouth the developers

You may call that 'sweet' but I just think it's sensible

I made my way to Fort Dawnguard and started the questline at level 6 tonight. Admittedly, I had to find it as there were no in-game prompts, but I was able to start the questline once I'd found the fort.

Hopefully someone is working on When Vampires Attack or Run For Your Lives mods or something similar for SSE in the mean time.

I gotta chime in here and note that it is REALLY disappointing that you can't disable the DLCs. I get that with most mods you need the latest version of the game so I can see why they would all be installed to begin with... but still no option at all? This was a great feature of the Legendary Edition in that you had that choice. Look again I kinda get it that the Special Edition is mostly for people looking to do Mods on consoles or people who never played the DLCs.

However you are doing new players a huge disservice with this. Say someone was 15 when Skyrim came out and couldn't get it for whatever reasons. Now let's say that person is 20 and this is their chance to experience Skyrim like it was... only shinier now. Well gonna be hard lesson for them cause once they hit Level 10 they get to experience the great joy of Vampires slaughtering whole cities. Woops there go all the merchants...

Incoming Rebuttals

Duh I played for 2 hours and I was able to save every NPC - you svck brah! - Yeah and I've tested vampire attacks and can tell you most of the time you aren't bad [censored] enough to save every NPC.

Just travel to stables or travel only during the day. - While this is somewhat effective this asking a lot of needless management from the player, and I wouldn't exactly say the stable hands are expendable since again... horse merchants.

Look Dragons are an acceptable risk in that they are tied to the main quest and only attack you outdoors. I mean if an Elder Dragon comes and wipes out a small village it's lamentable, but generally not disastrous since the main cities are okay. Dawnguard is kind of flawed in that it ruins the sanctuary of walled cities and your only option is to not go past Level 10. While the Dawnguard quests by themselves are fun... the implementation of the DLC is really really bad for anyone who doesn't have Level 50 Character (been there done that) or isn't going to finish Dawnguard straight away. See even with the Main Quest guess what... it's OPTIONAL! If you really don't like Dragons you can just put off Bleak Falls Barrow til you ready for Dragons. No such luck with Dawnguard.

Why Dawnguard isn't triggered after the Main Quest or something the player intiates on their own is beyond me. Like seriously why not just have the Orc guy approach you after a random vampire attack/vampire dungeon? THEN once you go to the Fort you can deal with Vampires murdering everyone everywhere at night. Seems simpler and more intuitive. Also better immersion wise.

Just to give some perspective: Bought Skyrim Legendary for PS3 for like $40 (cant remember) gave up after 10 hours upon realizing just how horrible that plays FPS wise, pathfinding, etc.

Bought the game for the 360 (and yes I literally bought an Xbox mainly for that). Was great until after 50ish hours where the game CRASHES all the time due to save file size. Another $25 wasted.

Joined PC Master Race... pretty good all though to be honest I'm really not big on that modding. I get for some having Skyrim full of a million butterflies with scantily clad elves everywhere is a big deal... but I just want to play the game as is without being a lite Game Developer.

See I've had one simple quest for the past 5 years: Play Skyrim on a large televison screen from the comfort of the couch with no baloney. Again while I can sort of do this with PC... it's not ideal. I really thought Special Edition would be the answer to my prayers. But it's not looking that way. Already on PC I see there's been no real bug fixes of any kind. So I'm really skeptical these new console versions are in good working order. I don't know just a bit jaded from someone who's probably spent $100 on one game and yet the Developer still seems to be trying to squeeze us for money like were crack addicts. And again I get that you didn't have to make Special Edition, that you owe nobody nothing... But relying on Modders to sell your product by fixing things you apparently can't. Kinda shady?

Simply put you'll get no extra $$$ from me until Mods make their way to Console. I ain't dealing with no Vampires this season! Though if Christopher Lee come back from the dead as Vampire that's okay with me.

/Rant Over

P.S. Think I'm gonna make an effort to fix the shield iron bar smithing glitch with my own mod since I seem to be the only person on planet Earth who plays Skyrim with a shield and does smithing. Kthx bye!