Skeletons in Video Games

A screenshot of Mr. Bones, from the cult classic "Mr. Bones" for the Sega Saturn.

Mr. Bones (Saturn, 1996)

An enemy known as "Y-17 trauma override harness" in the Old World Blues DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. One of the inventions created in the Y-17 medical facility of Big MT, the Y-17 trauma harness is a full body suit designed to automatically retrieve injured soldiers and return them to their home base by automatically taking over their motor functions and "walking" them to the base. However, as the Big MT research teams soon learned, the harness had several design problems which precluded it from entering general production, at least until the issues could be rectified. The primary problem was that calibrating the injury threshold which would trigger the suit was problematic, leading to unpredictable behavior. The harness was also unable to determine whether the occupant expired and will continue to function, even if they are completely dead. This functionality was quickly considered a "feature," as autonomous corpse retrieval would also be useful on the battlefield.

Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues

Two skeleton enemies attempt to attack the player in the game "Trio The Punch – Never Forget Me...", an arcade game made by Data East in 1990. The game itself is rather notorious for the lack of quality and general nonsense, which earns the title of "kusoge", meaning "shitty game" in Japanese.

Trio The Punch – Never Forget Me... (Arcade, 1990)

A red skeleton attacking the player in the lightgun arcade game, "CarnEvil". Notice how the boss is called "Tökkentäkker", a pun made by the devs because the game was designed to be cheap and difficult to make as much money as possible for those that want to get to the ending.

CarnEvil (Arcade, 1998)

A skeleton praying before a visage in ULTRAKILL. Normally, the skeleton is headless but you can put another skull onto the skeleton. The skeleton is then given the name "Hank".

ULTRAKILL

A Waiter Skeleton holding a tray of curry, from the game "Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls".

Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls

A bug that occurs if Seven dies during his ult. Normally, it would swap between his normal model and his skeleton when using his ultimate, "Storm Cloud". The game is Deadlock, a game that is currently being developed by Valve.

Deadlock (Valve)

A closeup of a skeleton enemy from the game "Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen".

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

A group of skeletons about to make your day miserable. Or give you XP.

Old School RuneScape

Alucard, the protagonist of Symphony of the Night, standing on the skull of Paranthropus, a skeleton enemy.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

A skeleton in the middle of jumping away from Richter Belmont. Game: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, by Konami, 1993.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (1993)

A screenshot depicting a skeleton referee calling a bogus penalty against the opposing team due to being bribed. Yes, I may have posted this during Super Bowl. I just really like MFL.

Mutant Football League

The secret character "Ripper" from "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2", a playable skeleton. In this picture, he is holding a skateboard with its own face on the deck of the skateboard.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2

A screenshot of a character standing beside a skeleton in the program "3D Movie Maker" from 1995. Ignore the Bandicam watermark.

3D Movie Maker (1995)

An image of Hell Biker from the game "Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance"

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

The infamous Skeleton Biker [with Machine Gun Sidecar] from Castlevania 64.

Castlevania 64

Rance Quest

R.E.P.O.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Amazing Spider-Man (Amiga, 1990)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

DARK SOULS II

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Two Point Hospital

Lobotomy Corporation

DARK SOULS

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley