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Like the rest of Earth’s population, I had a wonderful time with Skyrim when it released in 2011, and for hundreds of hours afterwards. Then one fateful Sunday I realised I’d spent six hours smithing weapons and mining for ore, and decided it was probably time to stop playing now.
It turns out I got off the train early: in the intervening years the modding community has gone from strength to strength, doing its best to keep The Elder Scrolls V looking like it was released last week. With Skyrim Special Edition’s arrival in 2016 those modders have a new and improved base game to work with, and the results are getting seriously close to the hyperbolic promises made in my YouTube sidebar. ‘PHOTOREALISTIC SKYRIM: INSANE MOD!’ they shout. And ‘ULTIMATE SKYRIM GRAPHICS 2017’. And ‘Justin Bieber FORGETS words to 'Despacito' LIVE’, although I’ll concede that’s not immediately pertinent here.
Curiosity got the better of me. Exactly how good can you make Skyrim look these days, using Special Edition as the new baseline and cherry-picking the finest community-made visual mods? achieved a frankly fearsome level of fidelity with the original version, but years have passed since then and graphics cards have gained multiple zeros on all their spec sheets. Is it possible to get Skyrim looking so realistic that it takes a second for your brain to distinguish it from reality?
The results of my own personal quest surprised me: not only did I get the game looking beautiful enough that I want to play it all over again, but those gorgeous graphics mods have fundamentally changed the way I play now.
Finding the right mods
Skyrim SE Mods
It's not all about the graphics. Here's our guide to the best Skyrim Special Edition mods. And if you're playing the original version, here's our guide to the best Skyrim mods.
There’s a particular alchemy to selecting a series of mods that work well together. Very often one mod will want to overwrite another’s files, or there’ll be some overlap between seemingly disparate mods (like a snow replacer and a water overhaul) which will end up cancelling each other out. I’ll throw my hands up at this point and admit I let YouTube’s sizable Skyrim mod content creator community do the hard work for me on this front. Taking the recommendations of , , , and others, I compiled a list of texture mods, weather mods, flora overhauls, water improvements, armours, and NPCs—in addition to essentials like the Static Mesh Improvement Mod—that looked believable, consistent with Skyrim’s world, and above all, beautiful.
Personal preference is the ultimate deciding factor in any mod list like this, but to make Skyrim SE look like my screenshots, these are the ones to use:
- Really high-quality, high-resolution and lore-friendly apparel for NPC and player alike.
- In all honesty the vanilla hairs were fine by me, but this hair overhaul is required by Diversity (see below).
- If you only install one mod, make it this. It squashes bugs and refines things you never noticed were broken or clunky before. It won’t make your game look better, but your experience will be much more polished.
I didnt swear on steam.im a good boy mommy.SEREOUSLY THOUGH WHAT THE FUn times at disneyland AM I MISSING SOMETHINGit cant be that hard for someone who has done ANY modding just to make a jeff the killertheres already white hoodies and knives, just slap that crap on a ghoul, if u want to do a bit of geck work make im pale and strech out the mouth.DONE.everything is already in game no external textures needed. Cause sereously i have looked litteraly everywhere on the internet and there is NOTHING!-except a single slenderman mod on the nexus, which is a badly streched out version of doc michels with a 'slenderman' name replacement its actually hillarious, you should check it out for s.ts and giggles:iv even googled fallout new vegas mod (insert ANYTHING TO DO WITH A CREEPYPSTA here)and got JACK SHI.take mushrooms are actualy not bad you should try them. Fallout new vegas hoodie mods. HELLo how are you, the only reason im not doing it is cuz my laptop is in such bad shape i doubt it could handle any kind of creation kit.
- A water overhaul that improves everything from transparency effects to foam texture resolution and coloring. I like the watercolor version, but that’s just my preference.
- Fills the outdoors with wonderful grasses, mosses, ferns, bushes and flowers to frolic in. One of the most immediately transformative mods on the list.
- I tried out a few different weather mods, and nearly prevailed, but to my eye Vivid Weathers produces the more realistic lighting conditions in conjunction with the lighting mods below and my chosen ENB (more on that later).
- A lot of unused assets were found in Skyrim’s code after release, probably relics of content that Bethesda ran out of time to include. This mod puts it all back into your game, and is required by several other mods.
- Sprawling new four-hour expansion which… just kidding. It makes the trees bigger.
- Improves the textures of commonly found items and quest items.
Remove k9 without password. - Turns the vanilla weapons into artisanal masterpieces. You can see the individual marks on each blade and the texture where it’s been hammered into shape. Incredible. Works well with Immersive Armors to make the game feel new (and look new in screenshots).
- Improves snow textures to higher-resolution images, simply.
- Like Forgotten Retex Project, this mod improves a lot of the incidental items used as set dressing throughout Skyrim—specifically, in this case, those found in dungeons and caves.
- Another hugely transformative mod, with enormous scope. Retextures much of the wild and several cities up to 4K. Use this as your base retexturing mod, upon which other more specific textures can be added.
- More lovely plant life to populate Skyrim’s once brown and barren tundras. It’s compatible with Verdant, but be careful which files you overwrite when installing. Load Verdant after this to get the best from both mods.
- An absolutely staggering piece of work which improves the 3D modelling of items and architecture throughout Skyrim.
Skyrim Ps4 Mod List
- Diversity completely changes the appearance of every NPC in Skyrim. The end result is a slightly disconcerting uniform attractiveness, but if you’re sick of everyone you encounter looking like Danny Trejo this is the mod to fix it.
- It’s not an ENB, but more of a pre-ENB lighting mod which changes light values so that all lights look better after you apply an ENB. To be honest I’m not sure whether I have this working with the below mod or whether one is cancelling the other out, but I’m really pleased with the end result so I’m too scared to upset the apple cart.
- Removes all lights that don’t have sources, and modifies the values for the lights that do. That means it gets really dark outside at night and in unlit areas of dungeons. It also means, together with all the other mods in this list and my chosen ENB/Reshade, the lighting always looks believable.
- An incredibly clever mod that doesn’t overwrite any of your current textures but instead uses actual magic to make them look nicer in your game. Magic or .ini file values, at least.
Using the to install these mods and set their load order is basically essential. It’s theoretically possible to do it all manually, but in the time it would take you to modify the .ini files correctly and ensure the right files live in the right locations, you could have coded The Elder Scrolls VI from scratch. It also affords you the advantage of swapping particular mods in and out to observe their effects.
On to the installation.
Choosing an ENB
Initially I was almost disheartened when I installed this giant list of mods, loaded my game, and found a familiar-looking Skyrim staring back at me. The textures were much improved, yes, and the landscapes populated by much more realistic plant life. But it didn’t look like a generational shift. It was still recognisable, and that was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Applying an ENBSeries preset, a popular community lighting mod available for games like Fallout, Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto, would change all that in an instant.
You’ll hear it said a lot among the modding community, but there’s no more dramatic change you can enact on your game than applying an ENB to it. Therefore, my particular pick would be paramount. There are so many competing ‘photorealistic’ or ‘next-gen’ variants of Boris Vorontsov’s famous lighting mod that you could lose days watching those transitional wipe videos on Youtube demonstrating them all, but in the end I landed on one I was very happy with: the catchily named . While the majority of ENBs feature way too much contrast and bloom for my taste, this one works beautifully with Vivid Weather and my existing lighting mods. It produces dramatic but believable lighting conditions at any time of day, indoors or outdoors, and also exaggerates the depth-of-field and ambient occlusion effects for a more cinematic view.
Downsampling
At this point Skyrim started throwing out some really impressive imagery, so it was time to take things to the extreme. from will let you render games at resolutions far exceeding your monitor’s native output, and then ‘downsample’ the image so that it fits back on your screen. But you likely already know that, because you’re reading an article about making Skyrim look photorealistic. The question, really, is how much closer it can bring us towards that goal.
My monitor’s native resolution is a slightly unusual 2560 x 1600, so I used GeDoSaTo to render Skyrim at twice that: a retina-seducing 5120 x 3200. All those high-res texture replacements really come into their own at this resolution, and the confluence of ENB, mods, and resolution produced natural landscapes that approached photorealism, given the right framing.
It’s a frame rate killer, of course. My specs (GTX 1070, i7 2600K, 16GB RAM) were no match for that downsampled resolution and could only render the game at around 14fps. Attempting a 12K resolution resulted in a single-figure frame rate, which was frankly too unwieldy even for screenshot-hunting.
Making Skyrim playable again
My longstanding reservation with mod collections like this when I see them elsewhere is: yes, but is it actually playable? There’s fun to be had by being a photojournalist in Skyrim and scouting out the best locations for screenshots, but after you’ve spent all that effort imbuing all that beauty into the game, it’d be a shame if you didn’t actually play it.
I was able to pull it back to around 45 fps (I know, I know) by disabling downsampling and making use of . Simply put, it’s a handy tool that modifies your prefs.ini file and comes with new graphics presets which really boost performance. Using BethINI’s ‘ultra’ preset is much kinder to frame rates than the vanilla ‘ultra’ setting, without compromising any visible fidelity.
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Meaningful gameplay improvements
I was surprised by how far I could push Skyrim, which is another way of saying I was surprised by the sheer talent and enduring commitment of the modding community. What surprised me even more, though, was that the concessions I made on my photorealistic screenshot quest actually improved the gameplay experience, too.
Firstly: play without the HUD. Really. I disabled it just to take screenshots at first, and my inherent laziness meant that it stayed disabled while I played. I soon found that not having a bunch of quest markers, a crosshair, dialogue subtitles and health meters is, to use the Skyrim modder’s favourite word, a hugely immersive experience. Archery was suddenly satisfying again, and in the absence of a big quest arrow guiding me forth I engaged with the environments properly, looking for signposting cues and navigating using landmarks.
All my efforts to produce realistic lighting changed the way I played, too. Suddenly going out at night without a torch was a terrible idea (a mechanic I always loved about Dragon’s Dogma), and certain areas of caves and dungeons were simply pitch black unless I illuminated them. It meant I had to treat lighting like a game mechanic, like Skyrim had suddenly become a Thief game.
Having those little moments of revelation as I realised I had to play the game differently was a wonderful thing. It’s inspired me to go through Skyrim all over again, which is what I always secretly hoped the right collection of mods would do. And now as I do it, I’ll perpetually be on the lookout for killer screenshots.
Skyrim has been out for almost 8 years at this point, but that hasn’t stopped a large swath of players logging in each week. This is largely due to the vibrant modding community that surrounds the game, making substantial upgrades to bring it more in-line with more modern experiences. The problem is, there are separate mods for each platform, and there are literally thousands to choose from. To help you out, we’ve been busy collecting a definitive list of the best Skyrim Mods for PC, Xbox One and PS4.
Skyrim Mods - Outfits, Visual Mods, and more
Skyrim is a fantastic game, there’s certainly no doubting it. It is a little rough around the edges, and ripe for modding, which is why it has one of the most active modding communities of any game currently available. Here’s some of the best:
- Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch - arthmoor
- Enhanced Blood Textures - DDfinder
- Immersive Citizens - Dorchymont
- Diverse Dragons Collection - OpusGlass
- A Quality World Map 9.0 - Chesko
- True Storms - Fading Signal
- Realistic Water - Isoku
- The Forgotten City - Modernstoryteller
- More Kills and Decapitations - Sp0ckrates
- Cloaks of Skyrim - Langnao
- Alternate Start - Arthmoor
Skyrim Xbox One Mods
Xbox has the most substantial modding support when compared to other consoles. Official mods are supported via the Bethesda modding site, and while there aren’t nearly as many mods as on PC, there’s plenty to work with. We’ve listed the best Xbox One Skyrim Mods below:
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch - arthmoor: this is the ultimate quality of life mod for the Special Edition of Skyrim. It aims to fix every bug not addressed by the developer, and does a damn good job of it. Well worth checking out for general stability fixes.
Enhanced Blood Textures -DDfinder: Skyrim is a brutal, violent experience at times, which makes the sub-par blood effects even more noticeable. This mod remedies this, adding in realistic blood spatter and textures.
Immersive Citizens -Dorchymont: This AI Overhaul is a mod whose purpose is to increase player in-game immersion by greatly improving Artificial Intelligence (AI) of friendly NPCs (citizens) in order to make them act and react like true humans in relation to their environment or to an aggressor.
Diverse Dragons Collection -OpusGlass: Dragons are a pretty big part of Skyrim, though their designs in the base game are kind of lackluster. This mod adds a bunch of new diversity to the dragons of Skyrim, including new breath attacks, and ranks.
A Quality World Map 9.0 - Chesko: This mod provides a new set of highly-detailed world map textures, complete with most roads! The roads shown were artistically selected by IcePenguin. This mod also adds a detailed Solsteim map.
Aternate StartArthmoor: Thank the Gods, this mod removes the lengthy intro sequence from Skyrim. Perfect for those wanting to jump back in with a new build.
Ordinator: If you want to add more perks to Skyrim on Xbox One, look no further than this mod by EnaiSaiaion. It adds 400 perks to the skill tree, from mage skills to warrior perks.
Skyrim PC Mods
Onto PC Mods now, and there’s even more to choose from. We've included some of the best Skyrim PC Mods we could find below, ranging from quality of life upgrades, visual fixes, and more.
True Storms -Fading Signal: Skyrim already has some truly hostile weather, though this mod really takes it to the next level. It’s really shines in mountain areas, and by the sea. Just remember to pack some thick fur and armor.
Realistic Water -Isoku: One of the many upgrades to Skyrim Special Edition is the new water flow system that allows water to bend around turns and change speed depending on the environment. While the water is much improved over the original edition of Skyrim, water flow was applied to most bodies of water indiscriminately resulting in odd looking water at times. With this mod, lake, pond/marsh, river and ocean water are once again visually and aurally distinct from one another.
The Forgotten City -Modernstoryteller: The Forgotten City is an award-winning, critically acclaimed expansion mod offering a unique 6 - 8 hour experience: a murder mystery investigation set in an ancient underground city. It’s well worth checking out if you’re looking for a new storyline to explore.
More Kills and Decapitations -Sp0ckrates: You know those awesome slow-motion kill moves that you can trigger in Skyrim? Well, this mod increases the likelihood that they will trigger. It significantly improves the combat, making it much more varied and action-packed.
Cloaks and Capes of Skyrim -Volvaga0: There’s a severe lack of badass cloaks in Skyrim. Thankfully then, this mod adds a bunch in, and they sure are badass.
Apocalypse - Magic Of Skyrim - EnaiSiaian: This is a giant spell package, adding in 155 new spells to the game. Each school gets 31 new spells with high quality custom effects and animations.
Climates of Tamriel - Jjc71: Climates of Tamriel is a comprehensive weather, lighting, effects and audio overhaul for Skyrim Special Edition. The mod is widely regarded as the number one weather and lighting mod for Skyrim with the 32bit version racking up over 8 million downloads to date.
Skyrim PS4 Mods
Finally, we have Skyrim PS4 Mods. Due to some frustrating Sony policies, there are significantly fewer mods for Skyrim on PS4. There are still some great ones to be found though, and we’ve listed them below:
Faster Levelling - RampageBW1: This mod gives you a small boost in XP earning rates. This is perfect for those who wish to get through the game faster, or those who are working on a new build or character.
Phenderix Magic Evolved -Phenderix: Phenderix Magic Evolved (PME) is the largest and most comprehensive spell mod available for the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Currently, it adds approximately 400 new spells to the game. This is a massive sandbox collection of balanced spells that I strongly encourage you to download and try out.
Rain and Snow FX - Chesko: Rain and Snow FX allows your character to show frost and wetness (complete with dripping particle effects) when in the rain and in snowstorms. It really adds to the immersion of the game. Definitely worth a download.
Rich Merchants Of Skryim -Micahghost: One of the most frustrating things about Skyrim is the low amount of coins available for merchants to spend. It makes it extremely difficult to sell anything, which is why this mod is so handy. It increases Merchant gold values to 10,000.
![Skyrim Ps4 Mod List Skyrim Ps4 Mod List](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123708298/231481733.jpg)
Dolomite Weathers And Lighting Overhaul -Megaloblast: For our money, this is the best mod of its kind on PS4. It seriously improves weather and lighting, especially in green areas.
Alidon's Ultimate Armory - Alid0n: A custom armory full of tons of unique items, spells, followers, and so much more.After installing you will have a new marker for the armory called 'Void Armory' right next to Riverwood.
Katana Pack - Cyan49: What's coller than a katana, nothing! this mod adds ten different types to Skyrim, perfect for striking down your enemies in style.
How to Install Mods in Skyrim
The way you install mods in Skyrim differs by platform. It also depends on whether you want to install official or unofficial mods. We’ve included all of the info you need to know.
- Xbox One - to install mods on Xbox One, head into the pause menu and select the modding option. From here, you can browse mods that you want to add to the game.
- PS4 - The same method applies here, though there are a lot less mods available.
- PC - For Unofficial mods, you can install the Nexus Launcher (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/). If you wish to install official mods, head to the official Bethesda website via the links provided above. You can then add mods to the library tied to your Bethesda.net account. These can then be applied in-game.
We’ll be adding more and more Skyrim mods as we find them. Be sure to check back for future updates.
There aren't usually a lot of ways that PS4 players end up in this situation, but they've actually been outclassed by Xbox fans in the mods department this time around thanks to Skyrim: Special Edition.
PlayStation 4 players are now playing catch up twice with this revamped Skyrim experience: once to meet the PC community's insane plethora of mods, and again to just get on par with the Xbox One, which had several months lead time on mod support over the PS4.
At the moment, there are only a paltry 1,600 PS4 Skyrim mods available, which might sound like a large number, but it's an infinitesimal fraction of what's been created since the game first arrived for PC six years back.
Many of the best Skyrim mods -- like the major bug fixes that address problems still present even after all the patches -- sadly haven't hit the PS4 just yet. There aren't a ton of mods that spice up the game's dialog options yet either, which is a shame as much like with Fallout 4, the dialog and story in Skyrim aren't quite up to par with the promise offered by this massive game world.
Despite those missing elements, there are still plenty of excellent PS4 Skyrim mods available, and here we're rounding up the best of the best mods you should get on installing first.
If you want to see other fantastic Skyrim mods, check out this page.
Mod: Even Better Quest Objectives
Skyrim's vanilla (and exceedingly bare bones) quest objective screen barely tells you anything about your current quest other than the absolute basics.
It definitely pales in comparison to the lengthy journal entries of more hardcore RPGs, and the lack of information sort of dumbs down the game -- especially the Special Edition -- as you basically just follow the arrow until you hit the person you need to talk to or kill.
That particular issue is alleviated with this mod, which gives you a much clearer idea of who gave the quest, where they are located, and what you are supposed to do to specifically fulfill the quest objectives.
Mod: Scroll Crafting
I sort of don't understand why this Special Edition mod wasn't in the base game. Who exactly is making these scrolls that you find everywhere -- and why can't the main character get in on the scroll-creating action?
Bethesda's vanilla Skyrim oversight is fixed by the modding community yet again, adding a new branch to the skill tree and the ability to craft a scroll for any spell. Besides the obvious utility function, this addition also makes it easier to have a pure magic build at earlier levels -- even before you have tons of magicka available.
Mod: Cooking, Brewing, and Alchemy Overhaul
An expansion to Skyrim's base crafting system, this nifty mod puts cooking pots and alchemy stations in every inn so you don't have to go hunting for them in any given settlement. But that's just the beginning.
The main draw of this mod is the brewstation, letting you brew drinks in addition to cooking the standard food options, while the number of food recipes is also bumped up significantly and a few ingredients have been added in as well.
If you've already crafted every type of food, try installing this Special Edition mod and keep your craft addiction going strong!
Mod: Hardcore Difficulty -- No Milkdrinkers
Is Skyrim too easy an experience for your walking siege engine of a Dragonborn? Does destroying enemies in the Special Edition get rote and tired? Not anymore!
If you are felling dragons and giants with ease -- and the town guards are no match for your Nord killing machine -- try out this mod to make things more deadly.
Best Ps4 Skyrim Mods 2018
The main tweaks you'll find here are that your stamina and magicka will regenerate slower, while enemies will be tougher and block your attacks more often. It's an addition that really increases the stakes.
Mod: Alidon's Ultimate Armory
Definitely a “cheating” mod, this Skyrim: Special Edition mod is basically like accessing the secret console room in Fallout 4 -- but on steroids.
The extra area created by this mod gives you access to every vanilla item in the game, in addition to a host of custom items, spells, and followers. Topping it all off are doors to every hold, dungeon, and guild location. We'd suggest installing this one after you've either beaten the game or start a new playthrough.
Mod: Phenderix The Archmage Artifacts
These Skyrim “artifacts” are really just a simple way to cheat and get essentially infinite magicka. Equip one of the rings from this mod and you'll find yourself with an extra 100,000 magicka with which to sling an endless torrent of spells. So get on changing those iron ingots to gold and let loose with the fireballs already!
Mod: Extra Carry Weight
One of the most annoying things about these types of open world RPGs (other than de-emphasizing story and actual roleplaying choice) is that you always have more loot than you can conceivably carry back to town to sell or disenchant.
That won't be a problem with this very helpful PS4 mod, which gives an extra 2,500 pounds of carry-weight capacity for every point you put in stamina upon leveling up! Your mage will be able to sling a couple of hundred suits of armor over his shoulder and sell 'em all! If you've ever wanted to make more money in Skyrim, this is one of the better ways to do it.
Mod: Magical College of Winterhold
This immersion-based mod makes a series of tweaks to the college at Winterhold, so it feels more like a place actually inhabited by powerful wizards. In other words, Winterhold becomes a little more Hogwarts and a little less “dusty empty barn on top of the mountain.”
While it might not be a game-changing Skyrim mod, this one does lend more realism to the game -- which can go a long way after you've spent 200+ hours slaying dragons.
Mod: Surreal Lighting
With the serious possibility of spending hundreds of hours in-game, graphic overhaul mods are always a welcome addition to any RPG. However, they especially keep Skyrim looking interesting and gorgeous.
This much-praised lighting mod makes some changes to the base game so that outdoor areas have a brighter, more vibrant feel. Again, not a game-changing mod, but one that will make the Special Edition just a tad more special.
Mod: Rain and Snow FX
There may have been a graphics overall update with the release of the Special Edition, but there's still room for improvement -- and more ways to utilize the advanced power of current gen systems.
![Skyrim ps4 mods 2019 Skyrim ps4 mods 2019](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123708298/475351073.jpg)
Creating more immersion with weather effects, this PlayStation 4 mod adds frost to your equipment when outside in cold areas, and also creates dripping particle effects when you run through water or stand outside in the rain.
Mod: Khajiit Speak Dialog Overhaul
An immersion mod to get you more into character if you picked the Khajiit race, this one modifies nearly every line of player dialog in the PS4 version of the game -- with a heavy dialect emphasis on Khajiit speech patterns.
Some of the additions are funny, while others are serious, and quite a few dig deep into the lore of The Elder Scrolls universe. Afterall, it's the ethos of the RPG genre to make you feel more like you're actually a living person in Skyrim.
Mod: Restore Vanilla Settings
As many a giddy PS4 fan has learned after going crazy installing new features, uninstalling mods isn't quite the same as it is on the PC version of Skyrim.
When you're done playing with all those nifty new mods, you might want to grab this one to scrub it all clean, especially if you went overboard and installed a bunch that don't play nice with each other.
This is a life-saving fallback if you're combating broken mods that have unintended consequences, accidentally preventing you from completing main story quests for one reason or another.
With more and more mods being added every day, it's only a matter of time before the PlayStation 4 version of Skyrim: Special Edition starts really competing with the Xbox One and PC versions.
While the number of mods right now is limited, there's still a massive amount of fun to be had trying out the options currently available on PS4.
What did you think of our PS4 Skyrim mod picks, and what mods would you recommend we try to keep us playing the game years later?
Published Jan. 4th 2017