Forbidden Legend is genuinely broken on Switch and nobody talks about it

[TamrielTactician]

So I'm on my second Switch playthrough and I hit Forbidden Legend, and I'm pretty sure the amulet fragment in Saarthal just... didn't spawn? I cleared the whole dungeon, beat the boss, looted everything, and the fragment wasn't on the corpse or anywhere in the room. Checked my inventory three times. Nothing.

I've seen people mention this quest gets buggy on PC if you talk to the wrong NPC first, but I don't think that's my issue here. I did the Saarthal excavation quest first like a normal person, then came back for Forbidden Legend way later. The other two fragments spawned fine in Bloodskal Barrow and Glenmoril Coven.

Has anyone else hit this on Switch specifically? I'm wondering if it's a loading zone thing since Switch has those slightly longer load times between areas. Might be a save corruption issue creeping in? I'm not super far into the playthrough so I could reload, but I'd rather not nuke like 8 hours if I don't have to.

 

[DragonbornVet]

Yeah, that's rough. The Saarthal fragment can definitely be finicky - I've seen it fail to spawn on PC too, though usually it's tied to doing the College of Winterhold questline in a weird order or talking to that one mage before triggering the right dialogue. On Switch though, ngl, I'd lean toward a loading zone hiccup or possibly a quest flag getting stuck since you can't use console commands to force-fix it like PC players can.

The good news is Forbidden Legend isn't actually required for anything, so if you're not going for the full amulet you could just... skip it and move on. But if you want to try salvaging the run, your best bet is probably reloading a save from before you entered Saarthal the second time and seeing if it spawns on a fresh attempt. Eight hours sucks, but it's better than getting locked out of something actually important later.

Have you tried dropping and re-picking up any of your items in that room? Sometimes on Switch the physics engine gets weird and stuff clips through the floor or gets stuck in geometry. Probably won't help here but worth a shot before you reload.