It's been a superb year for gaming and RPGs, but Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim still manages to be one of the most enduring games thanks to community support. The open-world action RPG has one of the most dedicated fanbases in gaming, leading to a plethora of unique mods to keep the game fresh even today.
There's an incredible level of depth in the mods available, ensuring that countless players' experiences through the lands of Skyrim are different from each other. Whether it's a graphical mod to make the game easier on the eyes by today's standards or expanding the combat options available, there are many worthwhile Skyrim mods to liven any playthrough.
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10 Skyrim Script Extender
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is among the most versatile action RPGs on any gaming platform, but before players jump into the game's diverse mod library, there are important housekeeping mods to download first. Created by the SKSE Team, Skyrim Script Extender is perhaps the first, especially for players planning on running many mods at once.
Skyrim's modding scene has become increasingly demanding since 2011, meaning that the Script Extender is needed to expand the game's scripting capabilities to effectively run more complex mods. Not every mod requires this, but most of the best do, meaning that it's ideal to install this upfront.
9 Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Though Bethesda has developed and published some of the best open-world RPGs, they're also infamous for being plagued by bugs. While Skyrim wasn't an outright broken video game launch like other modern titles, it's not exempt from this issue.
After downloading the Script Extender mod, players looking to start a fresh adventure should look to the Unofficial Skyrim Patch next — created by the Unofficial Patch Team that also worked on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This has been one of the game's most essential mods for nearly as long as Skyrim has been available, fixing a slew of minor and noticeable glitches and performance-based bugs Bethesda left in.
8 SkyUI
As much of a joy as it is to engage with Skyrim's various role-playing systems, its user interface is far from being the most intuitive. The menus are fairly archaic, making it apparent that the vanilla layout was a compromise between the inputs of a PC and consoles.
Thankfully, SkyUI — created by the SkyUI Team — provides a streamlined alternate solution, especially for those playing with a mouse and keyboard. SkyUI completely overhauled the game's UI to be much more organized, pleasant to look at, and much more informative of the player's items, weapons, armor, and abilities in their inventory. This mod is arguably the most essential UI-focused add-on for Skyrim.
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7 A Quality World Map
Part of what makes Skyrim such an excellent open-world action RPG is how immersive its world is, but the in-game map could be more helpful. A Quality World Map does precisely what the title suggests, polishing the design of Skyrim's map to make it more intuitive to look at.
This mod better distinguishes the lands' topography, namely mountains, as well as clearly defining the roads so players can decide the best way to reach their destination. Players can customize the new map's utilities, letting them choose between displaying just the main roads to key locales or all roads. The mod also includes a map for Solstheim for the Dragonborn DLC.
Though Skyrim allows for a spectrum's worth of build variety for players to customize their Dragonborn, it's no secret the stealthy rogue/archer seems to be the most popular. As fun as it is, however, stealth in Skyrim isn't particularly complex, which user Borgut1337's Sneak Tools mod remedies.
Instead of straightforward mechanics like staying out of sight and getting a damage bonus for stealth strikes, Sneak Tools adds a plethora of stealth tactics to make this style of combat much more entertaining and versatile. Now, players can cut the throats of unaware targets from behind, assassinate sleeping foes, conceal their identities with masks, and even extinguish light sources to create shadows.
5 Apocalypse - Magic Of Skyrim
Bombarding enemies with an array of spells is another popular approach to Skyrim's combat, as it's difficult to make a compelling high-fantasy game without magic. Even so, and especially for fans who have played through the game multiple times already, the arsenal of spells available in the game could be expanded on.
User Enai Siaion's Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim is one of the most comprehensive mods for Skyrim's magic, providing greater depth in the kinds of spells players can wield. Lore-friendly and impressively well-balanced with the game's natural difficulty settings, Magic of Skyrim adds a staggering 155 new spells ranging from offensive magic, spectral summons, and debuffs.
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4 SkyrimHD - 2K Textures
No amount of modding will make this 2011 title look as good as contemporary releases, but Skyrim's visuals can certainly be improved. Graphics mods are some of the most popular add-ons, and one of the most fundamental ones is user nebula's SkyrimHD - 2K Textures.
This 2K Textures mod is straightforward, replacing Skyrim's environmental textures — grass, water, buildings, etc. — as well as clothing with upscaled versions. A game having a strong art style goes a long way toward "future-proofing" a title's visuals, but this mod is ideal for facelifting Skyrim's grounded graphics. Conveniently, this mod also comes in a full or lite version to suit the horsepower of the player's PC setup.
3 Tame The Beasts Of Skyrim II
Part of a fantasy game's immersion factor is having fascinating creatures players can encounter, but in Skyrim, they're more or less the unfortunate living cannon fodder in the Dragonborn's path. This makes users hfiani, myriliam, and TheSkoomaKing's Tame the Beasts of Skyrim II mod perfect for animal lovers, letting players tame the game's wildlife.
The successor to TheSkoomaKing's original mod, this iteration allows players to embrace the Hunter/Ranger RPG class in spirit, allowing players to make any animal a companion. After taming an animal, players can assign them a role (Tank, DPS, Magical) to customize their combat style, as well as breed them to raise even stronger companions.
2 Alternate Start - Live Another Life
The game's opening sequence alone has become memorable in the gaming community, but it might get tiresome after repeated playthroughs. User Arthmoor's Alternate Start - Live Another Life has become one of the most popular mods since the Skyrim Special Edition Remaster for this reason, as it lets players choose a different backstory for their character to begin the game with.
Thanks to mod extensions, the level of additional role-playing that Alternate Start provides is even more impressive. Players can now start the story as an outlaw wandering the wilderness, a prisoner trapped in a dungeon, a ship-wrecked sailor, and beyond.
1 Moonlight Tales - Werewolf And Werebear Overhaul
One of the biggest incentives for going through the Companions' faction questline is gaining the ability to transform into a werewolf. However, given the limitations of this power, it can feel like there isn't as much incentive to continue using it.
But thanks to users Brevi and Al99, the Moonlight Tales - Werewolf and Werebear Overhaul mod adds a host of unique gameplay systems to make lycanthropy immersive and — most importantly — far more fun. In addition to being able to play as a werebear and change skins, players unlock exciting new powers, a ring that makes transformation a 60-second cooldown ability, new companions, and more.
