No One Escapes Cidhna Mine—does the quest actually break or am I missing something?

[RiftenWanderer]

I'm stuck on this one and I'm genuinely not sure if it's bugged or if I'm just doing it wrong. Got arrested, thrown in the mine, talked to Madanach, and he wants me to kill the foreman. I killed the foreman no problem, but now nobody's reacting to it. Madanach's still just standing there, the other prisoners aren't doing anything different, and I can't seem to trigger the escape sequence.

I'm playing on Switch so I can't just console command my way out. Did I mess up by talking to someone else first or something? I've seen people mention this quest can break pretty easily but I'm not sure what the actual trigger is. Do I need to kill him a specific way, or talk to specific prisoners before attempting it?

 

[WhiterunModder]

Yeah, this quest is notorious for getting stuck, especially on console. The foreman kill should trigger the escape, but it sounds like the quest state didn't advance properly - that usually means either the foreman didn't register as dead to the quest, or you're in a weird dialogue state with Madanach that's blocking the next scene.

Few things to try: go back and make sure the foreman is actually dead (sounds dumb but sometimes the body despawns weird), then try talking to Madanach again - not just standing near him, actually initiate dialogue. Sometimes the quest just needs that nudge to realize what happened. If that doesn't work, try leaving the cell area entirely and coming back, or sleeping in one of the beds down there to reset the cell.

The thing about this quest is it's super sensitive to dialogue order and timing. Talking to prisoners before or after Madanach can sometimes lock you out if you trigger the wrong dialogue branch, but killing the foreman should always work as long as you do it after Madanach asks. Since you're on Switch you're stuck with whatever the game state is, so honestly if none of that works you might be looking at a reload from before you got arrested.

Did you pickpocket or kill the foreman? And was there a big combat thing or did you sneak it?