I've painted myself into a corner and am forced to choose between abandoning a couple hours' progress or cheating my way out of it. Unfortunately, I can't find hard data on if/how the use of console commands affects the unlocking of Steam achievements.
I've heard a few conflicting theories and can think of a couple more:
- I have heard that using any console command, ever, permanently prevents that/all characters from unlocking achievements.
- I have heard that using any console command prevents you from unlocking any achievements for that "session" (variously, until you load a save or restart the game).
- It seems reasonable that certain console commands (such as
tgm— Toggle God Mode) might prevent the unlocking of achievements while active and/or others (such as directly manipulating skills/perks/etc.) permanently block achievements for that character once used. - It also seems possble that console commands have no effect on achievements whatsover (at least, I have not yet seen evidence to the contrary).
Do we have any hard info on this? Official sources, original research, anything?
Best Answer
Console commands do not affect achievements in Skyrim. I've used it to clip through places when I ended up falling and becoming stuck and still received achievements in the same session. I've also togged tgm on occasion while testing stuff and still received achievements after I finished testing without restarting my game.
Once you get past all the speculation, this thread seems to confirm that using console commands do not affect achievements at all.
Of note from that thread: