Why does Ancano just... stand there during the College questline?

[RiftenWanderer]

I'm on my third playthrough and I just hit the part where you're supposed to confront Ancano in the College, and I swear he's bugged or something. He just stands in the Hall of Elements and doesn't actually engage with you properly until you get super close. On my last run I thought I was doing something wrong but nope, same thing happened.

Is this a known thing or am I missing some trigger? Like does he only aggro if you talk to him first or equip a spell or something? Because it feels like the quest expects him to be way more aggressive than he actually is, and the whole confrontation just feels... flat? Especially compared to how the earlier College quests build him up as this threatening presence.

Also unrelated but why is the College questline so short compared to the other factions. Feels like you could've gotten way more out of that story.

 

[TamrielTactician]

Yeah, that's not really a bug - it's just how the encounter is designed, unfortunately. Ancano does stand there passively until you get close enough or initiate dialogue, which honestly makes the whole thing feel anticlimactic after all that buildup. He's supposed to be this smug antagonist the whole questline, and then the payoff is just... walking up to him while he waits. I think the quest design assumes you'll naturally approach and talk to him, but there's no real urgency to it, so it lands flat.

The College questline being short is a pretty common complaint. You get like five or six main quests and then it's over, whereas the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood have way more meat to them. I think Bethesda just didn't flesh it out as much - there's potential for a lot more intrigue and politics between the mages, but instead you mostly just run errands and then suddenly you're Arch-Mage. On PC if you're interested, there are mods that expand it, but on Switch you're stuck with what's there.

For what it's worth, the confrontation itself is still fine mechanically once it starts - Ancano's got some decent magic - but yeah, the dramatic tension of the scene gets undercut by him just standing there like an NPC waiting for you to talk to him.