Being a fan of the Elder Scrolls myself, I’m obviously looking forward to The Elder Scrolls Online. Not sure how great it will end up being (after having huge expectations of The Old Republic and Diablo 3, and not having them met, I’m no longer blindly rushing head-first into walls), but I’m definitely going to give it a chance when it’s out, if for no other reason than getting that Elder Scrolls fix and satisfying my curiosity. But, since there are still several months left until ESO will be released, I needed something to keep the Elder Scrolls junkie in me going.
So, I’ve picked up my copy of Skyrim from a shelf that has been gradually collecting dust, wiped it off with a tender puff (poetic, aren’t I?), and sat down to enter the world of Tamriel once again.
Roughly two years have passed since Skyrim has been released, and while the hype surrounding the game has been gradually fading (especially with a focus on the future of the Elder Scrolls through Elder Scrolls Online), Skyrim is not ready to die just yet. Fans of the game have been taking advantage of the excellent modding possibilities of the game, and wow, there’s such an abundance of great mods out there!
I’ve played Skyrim a lot when it was launched, and felt like I wanted to play it again, but I also wanted a different experience. So, I’ve begun a process of pimping my Skyrim with some fun mods, and while I’ve first focused on the visuals, I ended up with having over 50 mods installed, of various sorts.
Now, to clarify a few things. Mods for Skyrim are in abundance and are free, but they are also not developer supported, which means you’ll have to install them at your own risk. Generally, I recommend modding Skyrim before you even start a new game, because there’s a chance that you’ll compromise your save games if you do it, and you don’t want 90 hours of gameplay to go down the drain, do you? Also, mods come in different flavors, and I’ll be covering some very popular ones (which I’ve used), but all in all, they cover aspects like graphic improvements, gameplay balance, new areas (even miniature expansions), new quests, bug fixes, various new armors or weapons or new monsters to fight. The amount of mods is astonishing, you can add hundreds of hours of gameplay to your Skyrim experience, which is exactly what I needed during these winter evenings. Nuff said, let’s get into the mods themselves.
SkyUI
SkyUI is one of the most popular Skyrim mods because it completely reworks the user interface (inventory, spell selection, quick-keys, etc) and it’s features, making it a lot easier to both play and navigate through your items. It took some time for me to get used to the interface, because I’ve been very accustomed to the standard one, but once I did, I never wanted to look back. It’s easy to install and isn’t a really large mod, so this is one of the real must-haves if you decide to tune up Skyrim a bit.
Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons
These are actually two separate mods, but they both do the same thing, and that is add craftable gear to the game. And before you’re jumping sky-high yelling “overpowered”, rest assured, these items are anything but. They are basically designed around the already existing armor types, but bring a great variety of looks, while keeping with the lore of the game and the setting (well, for the most part, there were some certain weapons and armors that I didn’t really enjoy, but the vast majority of them are lore-friendly). Once you’ve installed these mods, you can craft the new items at any anvil, same as with regular crafting.
But wait, there’s more! The mod also does something else. The armors available in the mod will be worn by hostile NPC’s too. Which, beside bringing diversity to the loot table, means those dull same-looking bandits are a thing of the past. The best thing about it though, is that after a few hours of playing with the mod installed, you won’t even remember which were the Vanilla (non-modded, regular Skyrim) weapons and which weren’t. It’s that well made!
Skyrim Redone
I’ll say this much. This mod has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times on nexusmods.com alone! I can’t even begin to express how good it is, and can’t fathom how much time the mod developer invested into it. In any case, this is one mod you won’t want to miss. It basically re-balances the game, reworks the skill tree system, makes the game more challenging and diverse by reworking the way NPC’s and monsters level up compared to you, and much, much more.
If you’ve wanted to play Skyrim in a different (and I have to say, better) way, this is the mod for you. You’ll be lost in the changes at first, especially if you’re a Skyrim veteran, but you’ll quickly see the benefits too. The abuses of Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting are a thing of the past, Barter is actually interesting to level up, bows are split into short (fast-firing) and long (slow-firing, but high damage) bows, and the list can go on and on. Overall, it feels like a huge improvement, and removes the overpowered elements while boosting the underpowered features. I must again emphasize though – use this mod with a NEW playthrough, don’t install it if you’re already deep into the game. The changes to skills will render your save game unusable.
Graphics
Graphics is not a mod, I’m just going to sum up a few exceptional mods that will make the game look a lot (and I mean a LOT) better.
First, there’s the ENB mod for Skyrim. This is one of the hardest to install mods for the game, and I’m not going to go into tedious details here, but rest assured, you’ll find very detailed descriptions on how to install ENB when you download the files for it. ENB offers endless possibilities for tweaking every graphical aspect of Skyrim, and enhances the visual aspect of the game to as much as your hardware can handle. And I mean it. You can tweak hundreds of sliders and optins in-game once the mod is installed, from anti-aliasing to shaders and depth of field effects. This mod is recommended for users that have above average hardware. If you’re already having frame-rate issues with Vanilla Skyrim, don’t install this, as it will most likely lead to drops in performance. That being said, the change is drastic. When it came out, Skyrim was a good (some even say great) looking game, no doubt, but playing it now, two years later, the effect of the engine might not be as pleasing. ENB fixes that. Take a look at some of the screenshots that I’ve taken during my playthrough to get an idea of what it’s capable of:
Of course, the system I’ve used is nowhere near being high-end. I’m using an overclocked Intel I3 CPU, with an AMD 6850 GPU and 8GB for DDR3 1600 mhz RAM. Nothing too fancy in my hardware. With these settings, I’ve had the game running at a steady 40 FPS, making it more than playable. Of course, if you have a beefier PC, you can tweak the game further and make it look even better. ENB has an incredible potential.
Once you have ENB installed, running and configured, you can further enhance the visual appeal of the game by installing the Skyrim HD – 2k Textures pack (these amount up to a couple of GB of files and rework most, if not all of the textures in the game), the WATER – Water and Terrain Enhancement mod (the name pretty much states what it does), the Skyrim Flora Overhaul mod (a great mod which adds much-needed diversity to the fauna and flora of the game, making vegetation look a lot better and more colorful), and the Climates of Tamriel mod (a great mod that not only adds diversity in the climate system, with more rain, blizzards or thunderstorms, but also adds light and audio effects to these elements).
Of course, there are a lot of great visual update mods, some smaller, some bigger. You can customize everything from blood gore levels to interior lighting and shadows. As a rule of thumb though, don’t install two mods that do the same thing, as you’ll likely end up having conflicts and game crashes. Stick to one mod for every aspect you want to improve.
UFO – Ultimate Follower Overhaul
I’m taking the time to speak about this mod separately because I feel it’s one that really affects your gameplay experience. Followers used to be somewhat of a nuisance in Vanilla Skyrim, because of limited interaction options, bad combat AI and pathfinding issues. UFO fixes that, allowing you to customize gear on your companions, changing settings for them (such as them being able to die or not), and even adding some quests for some of them. UFO is a must if you plan on using companions, and honestly, if you’re using Skyrim Redone on a high difficulty, you most likely will have to at some point. This mod makes the experience enjoyable, not frustrating.
Deadly Dragons
Oh yeah, the name of the mod should make your eyebrows twitch. This is by far my favorite mods, since the main issue I’ve had with Skyrim was the dullness of the dragon fights. In the basic game, they become easy after awhile, and uninteresting. Didn’t you think it was silly to be owned by a Bandit Thug in some random cave, but at the same time fighting a dragon was a breeze? Well, rest assured, this mod will make you tremble at the sight of dragons. You get to customize how dragon fights occur, how often they occur, and even get to set stats on dragons (such as resists or extra armor). Even with default settings, dragon can become a pain, but on Master difficulty, with pumped up stats, dragon-fights become epic battles of massive proportion lasting 20 to 30 minutes.
And it gets better! Deadly Dragons also introduces new dragon types, with new abilities and spells. If you think a frost-breath spell is something to fear, wait until you meet a Spectral Dragon that can become invisible. I’m not going to go into details about each and every dragon type, but rest assured, there’s a lot of them to meet and fight, and I promise you’ll be sweating heavily after defeating one of them. But that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?
On a personal note, I remember having a fight at around level 50, against a Blood Dragon, a Forsaken Dragon and a Storm Dragon, right outside my cozy Lakeview Manor. The fight took me well over an hour to finish, I’ve used various summons and shouts to call in my own flying allies, and it was one of the most epic fights I’ve ever completed in any video-game, not just Skyrim. So give the mod a try, it will surely give you something to do in Skyrim, and with the added difficulty customization options, you can set an appropriate difficulty for your own play-style.
Midas Magic and Apocalypse Magic
These two mods expand upon the magical abilities that were offered in the standard game, bringing in new spells (some with great utility) that feel balanced. You won’t see overpowered stuff, and some spells are hard to get and craft, but the mods definitely make playing a mage a more appealing choice. Skyrim Redone already reworked aspects of magic and casting, but if you’re not using Redone, these two mods will be a great way to enhance your game experience.
Closing thoughts
I’m going to stop here, since there are so many great mods that I could talk about, that my fingers would most likely fall off sooner than I would finish. The fact is, Skyrim is a great game, and has so much fun content to play with, that it can keep players busy for months. I haven’t even mentioned some of the mods that add actual new islands to the game with hundreds of new quests. The point is, modding Skyrim is a time-consuming process, but it’s well worth the investment. You can add hundreds of hours to the game for free, while making those hours even more enjoyable.
The best place to find mods for skyrim is on skyrimnexus.com, a website that not only offers a collection of mods and info on what they do, but also offers tutorials on how to properly mod Skyrim to avoid crashes and errors. You can also download the Nexus Mod Manager from their website, a small program that makes downloading and installing mods convenient. Added to that, I recommend using WryeBash, a small program that provides management and safety protocols for Skyrim modding.
So, what are you waiting for? Re-install Skyrim, get to modding, and enjoy the ride!