What are the best Skyrim mods? They can be tough to find because there's a lot of them. They're the work of a thriving and diverse scene; an army of fans and bedroom coders determined to make the game a photorealistic fantasy. Or they're just out to transform farmyard animals into deadly explosives. Whatever floats. But when you're looking for the best Skyrim mods, where do you start?
Installing mods is quite simple for one of the best PC games and arguably the most popular RPG game there. This is mainly because Steam Workshop makes it easy to install and activate them and because you can add the more advanced ones to a special folder within your Skyrim files. You can also check out our guide to Skyrim console commands for more tips on changing up the open-world game or just making it utterly chaotic. The choice is yours.
The best Skyrim mods are:
Sanguine Symphony
Seb263's Sanguine Symphony mod revamps the combat system by reworking the impact system to dynamically respond to the enemy's remaining health, armor, and much more. It also adds dynamic blood sprays that utilize the impact system, in addition to slow-motion effects to occur during certain kills. What's more is that Sanguine Symphony is entirely standalone and shouldn't cause any conflicts regardless of the number of mods you're using.
Improved Combat Audio
If you get annoyed by little things that break your immersion, Exalderan's Improved Combat Audio mod is a must-have mod for your next playthrough. Skyrim recognizes when you hit certain parts of an enemy, but the audio that plays is always the same. With this mod, the audio changes depending on what part of the enemy you hit. For example, arrows that hit an enemy's face will sound completely different from arrows bouncing off heavy armor. The armor type also determines the audio that plays, as well as the weapon used to hit the armor.
Interior Weather Sounds Restored
With a game as big as Skyrim, there are various elements that the developers most likely wanted to add but didn't have the opportunity to do so. When browsing through the game files, this modder discovered that Skyrim was supposed to have interior rain and snowstorm sounds, and so they created the Interior Weather Sounds Restored mod. It's a relatively small addition to the game, but it's a nice little touch that adds to the overall immersion.
Skylighting
If you're a big Skyrim modder, you'll no doubt know about ENB shaders and the transformative effect they can have on lighting. This has its own set of pros and cons, but you can avoid any downsides with the Skylighting mod from the CS Team. Skylighting utilizes advanced community shaders to create a much more realistic look when it comes to lighting.
Unlike the ENB shaders, there's no downside to using Skylighting thanks to the mod creators who painstakingly spent hours creating their own rendering techniques from scratch. Check out the link at Nexus Mods to see how much of a transformative effect this mod has on Skyrim's lighting.
Edge UI
Skyrim is over a decade old at this point, so there are some elements that feel dated nowadays. Edge UI by EugeneUI has been highly anticipated by the Skyrim community - inspired by modern games like God of War, Elden Ring, and Horizon, this mod revamps Skyrim's dated UI to bring it inline with the best games of this decade.
With support for ultrawide aspect ratios, this UI replaces the original while maintaining Skyrim's theme. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and Edge UI needs to be seen to be believed. Give the video above a view to see just how much has been changed, it might even inspire you to give Skyrim another playthrough.
Ultimate Skyrim
This chonking great mod is the sum of 16 other mods that come together to make Skyrim a more hardcore and unforgiving experience. Ultimate Skyrim aims to do this by adding a greater focus on roleplaying, with additions of temperature, hunger mechanics, and an overhauled combat system.
Don't worry about having to install multiple mods, though. This mega mod comes with a nice feature called Automation, which automates the creation and installation of mod packs.
Alternate Start
If you don't fancy waking up on that damned cart for the umpteenth time, the Alternate Start mod is the one for you. Choose a specialization, and begin your journey in a specific area of the map. Want to be a thief from the beginning? No problem.
Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE)
As the years have gone on, mods for Skyrim have become ever more ambitious and complicated. In order for some mods to run correctly, the scripting capabilities of Skyrim have to be increased to allow the game to handle more complicated commands. It's advised that you have Skyrim Script Extender installed when modding, just in case it's needed by any mods that catch your eye.
Community Shaders
Bring Skyrim's lighting to modern standards with the Community Shaders mod, giving your copy of the game (including VR) a makeover that looks to improve the grass, water effects, and numerous lighting tweaks. It's worth taking a look at the mod page to get an idea of what to expect because a single photo doesn't do these shaders any justice. Despite the massive improvement to the visuals, you don't need a powerhouse of a computer to run these shaders, and the installation is as simple as dragging and dropping the plugin into SKSE.
Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Like every one of Bethesda's games, Skyrim is a bit on the buggy side. Despite heavy patching, the official development team never quite smoothed everything out. The Unofficial Skyrim Patch is a regularly updated mod that aims to fix hundreds of gameplay, quest, NPC, object, item, text, and placement bugs. For basic performance, this mod is essential.
Security Overhaul
Sick of staring at the same locks in Skyrim? The Security Overhaul mod adds 11 new lock models to add some variation to the game. While this has no effect on how you pick the locks themselves, now you're able to see a clear difference between unlocking a random door in Whiterun compared to a special vault hidden somewhere in the College of Winterhold.
Relighting Skyrim
Have you ever looked at where the light shines from in Skyrim? All too frequently, it's from an illogical source (doors that shine - really, Bethesda?). Relighting Skyrim entirely reprograms the game's light sources, ensuring light beams come out from fires and stars only and not from planks of wood.
FXAA Injector
The tool of choice for videogame photographer Dead End Thrills, FXAA Injector pumps a variety of anti-aliasing techniques into your Skyrim system to help create a much sharper and vibrant image. Post-processing effects like bloom, technicolor, sharpen, and tone map can be cranked up or down on a slider system to alter the visual quality to your own personal preference.
2K Textures
2K Textures actually provides textures up to 4K in resolution, a whopping eight times the resolution of vanilla Skyrim and four times that of the official HD patch. The mod applies new textures to almost everything in Skyrim, from the floors to the skies and everything in between. The effect is understandably astonishing, as are the system requirements (4 GB RAM and 1 GB video memory). A 'lite' version can be used on less powerful systems or even a mix of full and lite elements for a good balance.
SkyUI
Skyrim is a very solid PC game, but there are telltale signs that it wasn't solely designed to be played on a computer. The user interface is the leading clue; wholly built to be navigated with a controller. SkyUI completely rebuilds the HUD and interface of Skyrim, making it much more friendly for keyboard and mouse users. Alternatively, you can try the iEquip Skyrim mod, which is designed to keep you out of the menu for longer periods of time by giving you a powerful hotkey system.
Realistic Ragdolls
You can install hundreds of the best Skyrim mods to create the most immersive experience possible, but all of that work goes out the window as soon as someone dies in front of you. Their poor remains go flying into every rock, tree, and building, where they continue to twitch. Skyrim's ragdoll physics system never gets old, but it's also entirely antithetical to realism. Thankfully, Realistic Ragdolls imposes a limit on the flailing limbs and lightweight bodies of humans and beasts, ensuring that the force you apply to them mimics reality. Well, unless you unleash your Unrelenting Force Shout, then all bets are off.
A Quality World Map
One of the most popular mods, Quality World Map boosts the visuals on Skyrim's world map, adding plenty of details like clearly defined roads and much more texture in the mountains and plains of grass. It also includes the Solstheim map for anyone with the Dragonborn DLC.
Pure Waters
Water effects are notoriously challenging to pull off, and Skyrim's rivers look tantalizing at a distance. Up close, however, they're murky, stiff, jelly-like gunge pools. Turn them into refreshing, cool, clean dreams with Pure Waters. This mod thins down the appearance of water to acceptably fluid levels, adds some wonderful wave and flow effects, and gets those reflections just right.
Pure Weather
Combining well with Pure Waters is Pure Weather, which affects rivers with better shores but also brings some phenomenal rain, snow, and fog effects into Skyrim's skies. Mountains look especially beautiful when shrouded in Pure Weather's astonishing fog clouds.
Better Embers
If water is considered difficult to replicate in games, then fire must be written off as impossible. While Skyrim's fire effects continue to be that awkward gif-style flicker, Better Embers introduces some warm-looking fire residue to the world's hearths. These pinpricks of glowing heat replace the default chunky slabs of light to create some truly mesmerizing fire pits.
Deeper Snow
In certain areas of Skyrim, snow is dynamic and builds up over time. While technically impressive, these gradually growing snow piles are rendered in an ugly pure-white texture that makes it look like a bucket of paint was tipped over the landscape. Deeper Snow can turn these regions into blankets of crisp-looking fluffy snow.
Wet and Cold
Skyrim is a chilly place. There are so many opportunities to get wet-through or frosted by snow, yet the effect is never seen. Enter Wet and Cold, a mod that adds numerous weather effects to characters. Snow gets caught in hair and sticks to clothes, water drips from armor, breath steams on cold air, and NPCs run home during storms.
Lanterns of Skyrim
Lanterns of Skyrim adds a variety of new lamps to the world in a selection of logical places. The new light sources certainly help navigation in the dark, but it's the feeling of life that they add that's the true value. Skyrim feels lived in, populated, and functioning, all thanks to a few extra candles.
Towns and Villages Enhanced
A pack of enhancements for every town and outlying village in Skyrim, the Towns and Villages Enhanced collection adds numerous extra details to the world's populated areas. The most notable is trees; there are trees in every garden, roadside, and grass patch. For some people, this will be a little too much, but it does radically transform the feel of each town, and those extra leaves banish the harshness of bare stone. Enhanced also throws in a boatload of chickens into towns, just in case things weren't Fable-like enough for you.
Immersive Saturation Boost
As strong as Skyrim's art is, there's no denying that its colors are a bit washed out. In the chilly mountainous areas, this is fine, but take a walk in a forest on a sunny day, and it just won't feel as lush as you wish it did. Immersive Saturation Boost injects the world with a pack of melted crayons, strengthening those autumn oranges and boosting the fresh greens. The effect may be a little bold for those who prefer the Winterfell look, but for those tired of the drab, this mod is the miracle cure.
Detailed Cities
If the astonishing influx of trees in the Towns and Villages Enhanced mod drives you crackers, but vanilla Skyrim feels too bare, then a subscription to Detailed Cities should keep you happy. A healthy middle ground, Detailed Cities plants some trees and adds some decor without completely reinventing the look of Skyrim's settlements.
Valhalla Combat
The Valhalla Combat mod redesigns the combat in Skyrim, inspired by modern action games like Assassins Creed Valhalla, God of War, and Elden Ring - to give the dated combat a much-needed makeover.
HD Plants and Herbs
Skyrim's flora suffers significantly at the hands of the resolution gods, their low pixel count turning them into splodges rather than petalled beauties. HD Plants and Herbs sharpen them up and make them bloom with sharp, defined leaves.
Real Vision ENB
Real Vision ENB is a graphical mod that produces some absolutely tremendous photorealistic effects, especially when combined with a number of other mods available from the Steam Workshop. Take a look at the video above to see the mod in action. Just remember to draw breath every once in a while. Real Vision ENB is designed to work with Climates of Tamriel, so make sure you have that installed, too.
The City of Bromjunaar
The City of Bromjunaar mod transforms the location of Labyrinthian into a re-settled city and the "city for mages" as a reward for completing the College of Winterhold questline. It has six houses, an alchemist shop, a market with six merchants, a blacksmith, a small dungeon, an inn, a castle, a jail, and a mage academy.
Climates of Tamriel
A weather and atmosphere modification, Climates of Tamriel entirely recalibrates the weather and lighting of Skyrim for a much more realistic and picturesque world. Clouds, sunsets, storms, rain, and mists are just some of the thousands of effects that it adds, with everything created from scratch. The entire lighting system is handcrafted for more realistic sun and starlight. The impact on the game's atmosphere is indisputable. It'll hammer your system, but if your PC has the muscle, this is a must-have.
Lightweight Potions
Skyrim can be quite the challenge when the difficulty is cranked up. With bigger beasts come bigger wounds, and you'll need to be chugging potions to keep yourself healthy. At 0.5 weight per potion, these curatives are pretty light, but if they were nothing more than feathers, you could certainly have more at hand for when the going gets tough. The Lightweight Potions mod reduces potions to 0.1 weight, so you're able to carry more than enough for the journey.
Potion of Ultimate Leveling
Skyrim is the kind of game you'll happily put hours into, but when you roll a new character, sometimes the last thing you want to do is spend days leveling them up. For a quick jump to the fun stuff with a new character, brew this Potion of Ultimate Leveling, guzzle it down, and increase every skill by 85.
Become High King of Skyrim
When you complete everything there is to do in Skyrim, those randomized quests asking to find swords lost down wells just don't cut it. You can use this mod to Become High King of Skyrim and start bossing lesser souls about. Have people jailed, executed, or enslaved; order anyone to yield their possessions to you; demand anyone in the world becomes your follower; and command an army. You'll need to complete a quest to prove yourself worthy, though - just downloading a mod doesn't make you king by default!
Dwemer Dogs companions
Dogs, as the entire internet will tell you, are great. They're so great that they need to be in at least your peripheral vision at every moment of the day. That's where this Dwemer Dogs mod can help out. You can use a spell to summon a robotic dog to stand by your side for a whole hour. Sure, they can't actually do anything other than bark and be astonishingly cute, but who needs function when the form is so good?
Sneak Tools
By and large, Skyrim doesn't do sneaking all that well. To make a stealth playthrough more compelling, use this Sneak Tools mod to add variety to your arsenal. Now you can slit throats, knock people unconscious, conceal your identity with a mask, extinguish lights, and use Thief-like special arrows, including the rope arrows!
Invested Magic
Magic may be a tempting route to take in Skyrim, but the way sorcery functions in the game can make it very off-putting. Invested Magic addresses Skyrim's poor buff systems by making them an 'investment'; casting them only costs ten mana points, but those points are deducted from your total mana pool for as long as the spell lasts. Buffs last for much longer now - removing the need to constantly re-cast - but the trade-off is a smaller mana reserve for other spells. A much more logical way of handling armor spells, we're sure you'll agree.
Midas Magic Evolved
Midas Magic Evolved is an excellent mod that adds a whole library's worth of spells to the discerning caster's arsenal, and it certainly makes being a wizard much more appealing than in the vanilla game. Midas Magic Evolved only strengthens that mod by adding a further 250 spells. Wonderfully, these include a variety of 'beam' spells, adding a little Magicka chaos to your wizarding adventures.
Become a Bard
Warriors and rangers are ten-a-penny on the streets of Skyrim. Gain true respect by adopting an artful profession: being a bard. Sing your way from tavern to tavern and earn yourself a pretty penny from ale-guzzling patrons the world over. Use the Become a Bard mod to play any instrument in Skyrim, and a simple tap of the Z key will cause them to erupt into song. Your companions will even join in should harmonies be required. A skill tree will help you improve your vocals and bag you Christmas No. 1.
Dragon Knowledge
With the number of dragons burning down Skyrim's towns these days, a likely scenario for a mighty Dragonborn like yourself is having a massive stockpile of dragon souls with nothing to spend them on. Dragon Knowledge takes a few liberties with Skyrim's lore and suggests that absorbing the soul of the great winged ones would grant the Dragonborn new insights into the ways of the world. In other words, you can spend dragon souls on perks in the skill tree.
Craftable Clothing
If you're more comfortable in threads than you are in bulky armor, you've been cut quite the raw deal in Skyrim. While armor users can merrily skip away to the forge and hammer themselves out a new helmet or breastplate, you're stuck with tacky store-bought jumpers or the robes you've pulled off the back of a corpse. Craftable Clothing remedies this injustice by making the tanning rack a key to all kinds of fashionable garments, from hard-wearing trousers to stylish mage robes. No longer will men and women of the cloth be second-class citizens in the war of Skyrim's catwalk.
Fishing
The MMO-favourite hobby of fishing finally makes it into Skyrim by way of this mod. Fishing adds rods, nets, and dwarven boomfishing to the game. Rods and nets can be set up by riversides, while bait must be attached to lure in your prey. Dwarven fishing methods prove a little more military-inspired, with explosives thrown into the water to kill fish en-masse and provide a haul to sell for profit.
Faction: Pit Fighters
The Faction: Pit Fighters mod adds a new guild for Skyrim, offering up a great questline as you battle for glory in the gladiatorial pits. The quest's NPCs are fully voiced, and the mod comes with a variety of arenas to do battle in. There's even money to be made from the bookkeepers who conduct betting on each fight.
Monsters Reborn
Tired of fighting the same old Draugr and Mud Crabs? Monsters Reborn introduces a massive new range of enemies and creatures into Skyrim across a vast range of levels to offer a stiff challenge. From lowly Werewolf Behemoths to brutally powerful Blizzard Dragons, Monsters Reborn adds a welcome level of variety to the beasts on the end of your sword and scales enemies to pose the right level of difficulty to your character.
Multiple Followers
The classic days of RPGs allowed you to gallivant across the land with a party of loyal companions ready to bash in heads and drink taverns dry. Skyrim, unfortunately, limits you to just a single companion, destroying any hopes of putting together a Fellowship of the Dragonborn. Multiple Followers fixes this by allowing you to recruit up to seven companions for your journey.
Better Combat AI
While Better Combat AI can't stop the clunky nature of Skyrim's sword, swinging it does make the whole affair much more tactical. Enemies will adopt better strategies for fighting, such as attempting to cripple you or using power attacks to break your defense. The mod also adjusts the intelligence of your enemies depending on the type - bandits are much more ferocious than angry farmers.
GreyLight Soul Summoning
For those looking to bring a little extra muscle to battle without messing around with conjuration magic, GreyLight Soul Summoning adds a mechanic that, when killing enemies, allows you to add their souls to a register, which you can then call upon at any time in battle. Almost every enemy type is accounted for: from bears and wolves through Falmer and even dragons. It's basically a really macabre version of Pokémon.
Better Hunting
This is a small mod that changes the values of animal pelts, meat, and parts. The idea of Better Hunting is not to make the act of taking down animals better but to improve the rewards for selling your catches, thus making hunting a viable pursuit. Furs and meats traditionally demand high prices, and with this mod, you'll be able to finance your other world-saving pursuits with the animals you bring back to town.
Engineering
The dwarves may be gone for good in Skyrim's lore, but that doesn't mean their technology has to be lost to the winds of time. Engineering allows you to craft a variety of Dwemer machines to help you in battle. Finally, a use for all those Dwarven Gears cluttering your inventory!
Reverse Crafting
That sword you found may be pretty useless in its current form, but the steelwork surely has value. If only you could melt it down and reforge it into some cool armor or a nice new helmet. Vanilla Skyrim refuses to allow such sacrilege, but Reverse Crafting adds the simple but exceptionally useful ability to break down items into their base components, allowing you to recycle waste rather than simply throwing it away. Keep Skyrim green, please!
Legacy of the Dragonborn
A perfect mod for scavengers, collectors, and lovers of shiny things, Legacy of the Dragonborn provides you with a huge museum filled with trinkets and trophies from all corners of the map. This titanic mod also adds an extra story and a new exploration-based guild to take charge of. This is a great way to add a little extra purpose to all the exploring and side quests you'll be doing anyway - for someone who spends so much time digging around for loot in caves, it makes a lot of sense to become an archaeologist while you're at it.
Tame the Beasts of Skyrim
Take a pet with you on your journey through Skyrim - it's a rewarding pursuit that also helps you out in battle! The Tame the Beasts of Skyrim mod allows you to do just that: snag any beast in the wild using a special shout. Once a beast is captured, you'll be able to assign it a role (DPS, Tank, or Magical) and have it assist you out on the open road. Pets do require looking after, though, so please remember to feed and water them. You can also spirit bond with your pet, merging your souls together so you can directly control them.
Glowing Ore Lines
A mod that causes ore lines in rocks to glow brightly, making spotting mining opportunities much easier. You can find the Glowing Ore Lines in a surprisingly hidden section of the mods site.
To Have and To Hold Marriage
The aim of the To Have and To Hold Marriage mod is supposed to strengthen the bond between you and your husband/wife in Skyrim, but, quite honestly, it sounds more like a homewrecker's paradise. You can now divorce your partner should you become bored of them. Should polygamy be more your style, the mod will allow you to take on up to 11 spouses, which is sure to impress your original spouse. You can ask your partner to play 'Dress Up' with a variety of new outfits as well as take part in three small quests to bring you closer together.
Monster Mounts
Horses are so pedestrian. Why gallop around on a steed when you could skitter on a giant spider, bound on a massive kitten, or balance on the shoulders of a troll? Monster Mounts allows you to ride on the back of 87 different, wonderful monsters, all inflated to perfectly mountable sizes. You've never looked heroic until you've ridden into battle on the back of an oversized puppy.
Bandolier Bags and Pouches
Skyrim is a world with a lot of items to pick up, and you'll want to leave behind a few of them. But even the Dragonborn is not Superman - they cannot haul everything. Should you be running out of inventory space all too often, try the handy Bandolier Bags and Pouches mod. Crafted from the tanning rack, they add a good chunk of extra carry weight to your character, meaning you'll never have to leave anything behind again.
Throwing Weapons
There's more to ranged combat than spells and bows, which is why this mod adds a wonderful collection of sharpened Throwing Weapons to the Skyrim armory. Javelins, axes, knives, and even grenades can be equipped and hurled at enemies, and your skill with them is improved via a skill tree.
Daedra Hunter Armor
This mod adds a suit of ornate armor to the game, but finding it requires you to embark on a little quest first. Follow the diaries of a Daedra Hunter through numerous dungeons in order to discover the prize, along with a great collection of new one and two-handed blades. Start the quest by finding the Buried Tower southwest of Riften.
Staves of Skyrim
Staves of Skyrim is a staff overhaul mod that adjusts the way staves work in Skyrim, as well as adding some beautifully detailed new staves to the game. Staves now come in heavy and light variants, as well as magic and defensive. With a defensive stave, you can block incoming attacks in a similar manner to a shield. This allows mages to defend with a weapon that suits their class rather than having to use a warrior's shield.
Dragon Bone Weapons
It takes a long time to reach the crafting level requirements to work with dragon bone, and it's rather devastating to discover you can only forge light or heavy plate armor from the skeletons of slain wyrms. Dragon Bone Weapons finally adds a full variety of weapons to the crafting system, allowing you to strike fear into the hearts of dragons everywhere by stabbing them with their brothers. You really should use the whole dragon as a sign of respect for one of the best dragon games around.
Talos Armory
If Daedric fashion isn't for you, then perhaps you need to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and wear a style that's godly in nature. Talos Armory adds the armor of hero-god Talos himself to the game and can be crafted only at the Forge of Talos. You can also recruit the Avatar of Talos as an NPC follower.
Royal Elven Armor
Some stunning armor as worn by the Royal Elven Guard, is now available for the common folk to craft at all good forges.
Immersive Armors & Weapons
While adding an impressive 55 new sets of armor to the game is what it's all about, Immersive Armor's secondary aim is to avoid disrupting the natural feeling of Skyrim. The armor is all lore-friendly and feels suitably 'Bethesda Official', and is integrated in such a way that it feels like a genuine element of the world. Find them on bandits, in chests, at vendors - these are not 'craft-only' pieces. Working in the same way as Immersive Armors, the Immersive Weapons version of the mod seamlessly adds 224 new weapons to Skyrim.
Cloaks of Skyrim
For a fantasy game, Skyrim is severely lacking in cloaks. Everyone loves a swooshy cloak, and Cloaks of Skyrim adds 100 wonderfully detailed cloaks to the game. Worn by player characters and NPCs alike, they're both stylish and can be worn over any existing armor set. Cloaks can be crafted at the tanning rack, but be sure to read up on how to stitch them together in Fryssa the Wide's Nordic Tailoring, an in-game book you'll need to find before you can craft.
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