The best Skyrim mods in | Rock Paper ShotgunThe best Skyrim Special Edition mods in | PC GamerThe best Skyrim mods in 2021SKYRIM SE MOD LISTSThe best Skyrim Special Edition modsBest Skyrim ModsSounds of Skyrim: Complete.Apocalypse: Magic of Skyrim.Diverse Dragons Collection.Enderal: The Shards of Order.A Quality World Map and Solstheim Map with Roads.Vivid Weathers Definitive Edition: A Complete Weather & Visual Overhaul.UFO: Ultimate Follower Overhaul.We've selected over of the best mods for improved visuals and optimization, new quests and locations, roleplaying and immersion, creatures.Skyrim turns ten years old this year, but a list of the best Skyrim When Skyrim Special Edition launched, the script extender's absence.It's literally impossible to list absolutely all great mod of this category here as there are hundreds or even thousands of such mods, so that's just mostly my.Best Skyrim Mods · Patch Any Bugs (Unofficial Skyrim Patch) · Better User Interface (SkyUI) · Remove Loading Screens (Open Cities) · Better.Best Skyrim Special Edition mod lists with complete installation tutorials for you to overhaul your gaming experience completely.The Northern Experience - while this is a great set of mods, I can't recommend it simply because of the author's arrogance . Wabbajack -.› sharedfiles › filedetails.The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition · Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul SE[] · Realistic AI Detection SE (better sneaking).Best Skyrim SE mods: Graphics mods · Static Mesh Improvement Mod · Skyrim and Skyrim Parallax · Enhanced Lights and FX · Natural and.Home Discussions Workshop Market Broadcasts. Change language. Install Steam. Store Page. It is only visible to you. If you believe your item has been removed by mistake, please contact Steam Support. Current visibility: Hidden. This item will only be visible to you, admins, and anyone marked as a creator. Current visibility: Friends-only. This item will only be visible in searches to you, your friends, and admins. This is my Mod List, it's an extensive overhaul of the gameplay and graphics, I give clear, detailed instructions, for everything, that makes it pretty easy to get installed, but you have to have some knowledge of how to use Vortex and 7zip. This item has been added to your Favorites. Created by. Goonz Offline. Languages: English. Guide Index. Don't Forget to Rate The Guide. Gameplay Video. My Discord Server. Clean Install. Mod Manager. Cleaning the DLCs. Good Modding Tips. Performance Tips. Before You Download Anything. Instructions for using the guide. Base Textures. Mesh Fixes. Enb Talk. Enb, Weather and Lighting. Mesh Patches. Base NPC Changes. Add on Quest and Content. Legacy of The Dragonborn. Landscape and Flora. City Retextures. DLC Locations. Retextures 1. Retextures 2. Retextures 3. Creatures 1. Creatures 2. NPC Replacers 1. NPC Replacers 2. Clothes, Weapons, and Armor 1. Clothes, Weapons, and Armor 2. Conflict Resolution and Patches. LOOT Messages. LodGen Settings. Snow Patching. MCM Settings. My Other Modding Guides. If you want to thank me for all the time I put into making this guide and keeping it up to date Please Rate it with a thumbs up, Bookmark it to your Favorites,and recommend it to others, a good rating will help it show up on the first pages of the Guide sections, so it does not get buried and others will find it easily. Your User Name? This Guide was written specifically for Vortex, if you try and follow it with MO2, then you are gonna have to be an experienced users, that could build a mod list like this on there own, I don't use MO2 but I would imagine that you would have to install and order this list in a completely different order then I have, and your plugins want come out in the order mine have and its hard for me to provide support for a mod manager that I have never used, they are lots of MO2 users on my Discord that follow my guides, you could probably find help there For help with Vortex, here is the link to a youtube playlist of how to use it VORTEX - A Beginner's Guide Vortex Mod Manager [www. For Vortex to find a game you have to have it installed and booted the game at least one time, in Vortex open the Games tab on the left, at the top click scan and do a full scan, let the scan complete, your game should now be in the Unmanaged section, click on it to manage and after it is done you should get a notification in the top right corner on the bell icon, that mods can't be deployed, select fix, select next, then select apply fix, then its going to bring you to the settings page at the mods tab, at the mod staging folder select suggest, then select apply. Modding Tools Folder Create a folder, not in the program files directory or the game folder, put it somewhere, were you want ever have to move it, if it gets moved later, it will break the Vortex dashboard links we are gonna create, I placed mine on my D-drive as a standalone folder 7zip [www. Do the same with one more, and go find SSEEdit. BethINI- [www. Always disable steam overlay, steam cloud saves and any other overlays, like Nvidia's Ge Force, Discord, Afterburner, etc. It really comes down to the mods, and what particular change is conflicting, using Xedit is not something you will learn overnight, it takes time and experience, if you are gonna mod these Bethesda games, then it is the most essential tool there is, other then your mod manager, to get familar with it read this Tome of xEdit [tes5edit. Visual Studio , and [support. SkyUI [www. Skyrim Realistic Overhaul Part 1 - Download and extract this to your Downloads folder, after it creates a folder titled data Part 2 - Download and extract this to that data folder from part 1 Part3 - Download and extract this to that data folder from part 1 Update - Download and extract this to your Downloads folder, go inside the Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1. Update folder and drag its data folder into the data folder they are all extracted to, now its all combined into one mod, and you can pack the data folder into a zip file, after name it Skyrim Realistic Overhaul, and drag and drop it into Vortex, into the Drop Files Box at the bottom Static Mesh Improvement Mod - SMIM [www. Unofficial Material Fix [www. ENB Binaries [enbdev. Mesh Patch for Various Mods [www. Unofficial High Definition Audio Project [www. Imperious - Races of Skyrim [www. Nemesis Engine [github. Now you will see nemesis on the dashboard, click the little play icon on it, and the Nemesis menu will come up, click Update Engine and wait, it will tell you when you are done. Then you select any patched that you need and then press Launch Nemesis Behavior Engine and wait for the Behavior generation complete message and close Nemesis and then go back to mods and click deploy mods and your done. Legacy of the Dragonborn SSE [www. Tamrielic Textures SE 1 - Landscapes [www. Majestic Mountains Main File v3. A little tree mod WIP [www. Helgen UV Tweaks [www. Ruins Clutter Improved [www. Organic Riften Leaves [www. Simple Sacks SE [www. RaceMenu [www. Authentic Eyes [www. Remiros' Dawnbreaker HD [www. Legacy of the Dragonborn Patches Official [www. Open the dashboard tab in Vortex and click add a tool, name it TexGenx64, for the command line put -sse ,for target click the folder icon and go to your modding tools folder, DynDOLOD folder and click the TexGenx Goonz [author] 8 Oct am. Grunt The Current main File v3. Grunt 8 Oct am. In case anyone else comes to the comment section, I'd like to say the following Double check to ensure you've gotten the mods you want. I've noticed that I haven't installed a mod, and well, now I'm going to double check to make sure it's all good. Grunt 6 Oct pm. Alright, I'll go ahead with that. Goonz [author] 6 Oct pm. Grunt If you dont figure it out, tell me which mods you have a cycle with and i'll help ya. Grunt No, you are not suppose to have any mod rule cycles, it just means you put something before or after and it wasn't suppose to be that, probably just one mod rule causing it, double check the mod rules for the ones that are in the cycle, make sure you have them set correct. Is this supposed to exist? Mind you I've decided to install every mod and then follow the rules part of the guide. Goonz [author] 6 Oct am. I have updated the guide to all current file versions, added a few new things, and added my lodgen output, hopefully I will have enough time when i wake up before Far Cry 6 launches, to come back and add my texgen and dyndolod outputs for both A Little Tree Mod WIP and Enhanced Vanilla Trees SE, if not I will add them after I beat Far Cry 6. Goonz [author] 5 Oct pm. If i skip all the Lodgen , Dyndolod and Snow patch stuff, would I run into major issues or would my game still be playable? Thanks for the amazing Modlist. I spent a lot of days setting everything up and right here at the end. Excited to play again. Share to your Steam activity feed. You need to sign in or create an account to do that. Sign In Create an Account Cancel. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries. Some geospatial data on this website is provided by geonames. View mobile website.Today, [ALL] the modding guides received massive updates. It's the biggest update as for today. My mods were also updated, and now are being hosted on a single page for your convenience. Read the changelog of every guide itself to see the more detailed description of "what's new". It's also briefly presented in this video on the YT channel. This guide is a brother of my Skyrim LE graphics and gameplay guides, in a single one - and a result of many months of modding Skyrim SE. My goal is a complete guide to save other people time that they can have a complete base list of mods for ultrarealistic graphics and challenging, nextgen gameplay, knowing how much these mods will affect on performance and in what order they should install the mods, which are compatible and which are not, etc. Skyrim have thousand of mods here at Nexus and there's very hard to check them all, but I spent some time and did this - from the 1st till the last page I'm not joking hehe of all the mods on Nexus and chosen almost everything you need to transform your game and also to have some variants of similar mods to choose from. Installation order, performance notes, patches list and personal recommendations included. This guide has both graphics and gameplay parts, two in one. For graphics mods installation, the [installation] order matters the most - so, for the best results, it's humbly recommended to follow the same order as mods are listed. Also you can check the videos at my YT channel to see how game can look when fully-modded. To make guide navigation easier, I placed guide sections into so called "spoilers" - when you see "Show" button - just click on it to expand corresponding group of mods. Click "Hide" again to close it : Please also note that this guide is still designed for modern rigs - yet, guide also has section for low-end rigs, and many other advises here and there, as well as performance-hungry mods marked - so, you can build an ultimate setup for your own PC, no matter what it strength is. But here comes another exciting part! Guide also has so called "modules" - a premade mod lists don't confuse with mod packs please for different tastes and goals - which you only need to mimic, without worrying about incompatibilities and other issues. Modules will fit perfectly to the people who don't have enough of free time to go through whole guide themselves. That's not some kind of exaggeration - everything you need is to follow the guide attentively :. In the rest - feel free to translate into other languages just message me in Discord first , I'd be glad if you'll link it to help other people and so on. I'm here to serve - the more people can have stable ultramodded game, the happier I will be :. This project is completely free. Still, it takes insane amount of my time to build and expand it - the modding guides and other related modding content already took me over working hours in total. The more independent I will fee myself as an author - the less stress and more free time I'll have - and so, the faster new updates and modules will arrive, and new projects will appear as well. But support only if you really want it and able to:. Minor update 3. For the changelog of the update 3. Huge amount of mods that previously were grouped into a humongous chunks of lists, were sorted and divided into subsections, as well as new expandable subsections added for easier navigation and not that "scary" look of some of them. Same applies to other sections. Before you'll start modding. Disable all possible overlays, "boosters", "tuners" programs you may be using in general. Follow the guide slowly without a rush. If it's written here to limit your fps using enblocal fps limiter - do it, and don't use and third-party software for it, and so on. You got the idea. Also, never have Skyrim installed in Program Files. If you have it there - reinstall it on another drive, or at the same drive, but out of Program Files folder. Lastly, it's heavily recommended to disable game autoupdates in Steam. All 3 of them are great mod managers, each with something own to benefit player. I personally use NMM. What's the difference? NMM is "simple yet effective". MO is a mod manager packed with tons of cool features, mod manager on steroids if we can say so. Kortex is something in between, more similar to MO, but has own pros and cons over it look here for comparison. Almost all mods can and should be installed via mod manager. Do not install mods manually. Due to the same reason, I won't be able to provide Kortex troubleshooting support in Discord - but once again, it's a great mod manager and you should be absolutely feel free to try it. It's looking pretty fancy visually, but sadly, it's still very glitchy and pretty dysfunctional. I won't be able to provide any troubleshooting support if you're using it as it's not suitable for modding games like TES or FO. My advice atm is, if really want to, track it and test it by modding some other games with much simplier modding stages. Do not use Vortex to mod Skyrim. Yes, this note still applies for If it will be fine one day, I'll let you folks know. If you allready have it - great. If no - install it. It's obligatory. SKSE is [essential]. Stability mods are also working through it, as well as vast majority of amazing gameplay mods. Consider it a basic invisible evolution element of Skyrim. Download the SE version as marked here. Download the archive somewhere, unpack it. From the folder, get the. On practice, it's also required by most of well-known mods in addition to SKSE. Also install this fix for it and this. Optionally but very recommended as it's just looks so much more alive and beautiful install animated icons mod for it. Also optionally, install this "wider" addon for MCM look. Also install iHUD. Get the. LOOT is a must-have tool if you're planning to have many mods. It's very easy to install and use. Its most basic and important function is mod sorting. Many mods should be loaded in strict load order to work properly together. LOOT makes miracles! You can automatically sort most of your mods properly by just clicking a button twice. Sometimes it happens rarely, so you probably won't have to think about it some mods have direct instructions about how they should be loaded, in this case it's also easy to sort them manually using it. Also, LOOT shows you all you need to know about your installed mods - errors, missing records etc. In many cases, if something is not right - it will let you know and it will advise you. Actually, you'll not need to read and learn more than this to use it, but if something is unclear or you want to look at very in-depth guide, check this awesome Gopher's video. Use LOOT sorting each time after you've installed a few mods. This mod is a partial solution to endless game update issues in SE which breaks dll SKSE mods - it allows for such mods to keep working properly not depending on the game version. Solution is partial because it doesn't work automatically - each dll SKSE mod must be updated by its author to depend on this one, and as not all authors are aware about this or just active, this solution won't be universal - but it clearly will help you with many mods which are usually broken after every update. Note: mods has TWO parts - first main file, the "Part 1" you can install with mod manager. Second, "Part 2", you should download manually, unpack and place all 3. Fixes some SE engine bugs. Enabled and FixAbilityConditionBug. ForceAccurateCheck to false instead of true. Mods may contain "dirty" records and some other issues, and when you have hundreds of mods, that could be a problem and cause crashes. Clean all mods that have dirty records until it's directly written by mod author to not do that for some reason and all Skyrim's DLCs which have [hundreds] of dirty records. Yeah - Betheshda didn't even bother to do this for the game "remaster". Don't be afraid of it, it's not as hard to use as it may look. Check these awesome video tutorials about it. Also there is a lot of info and videos on its Nexus page. Note 1: Make double sure to clean all base game master files Update. Note 2: MO2 users can try to download and use zEdit as an alternative. It doesn't mean it's bad - quite the opposite, but until it's officially and fully released, I won't be able to provide troubleshooting support for it - so use it at your own wish. There's a basic documentary and description of it here. Scroll down and download the. The link now is temporary, as it's the newest release that fixes some bugs - so track the WB page itself from time to time to see if the newer version is uploaded at the mod page. Amazing and essential tool to achieve maximum possible compatibility between all your mods. We will use it later in our journey, so just grab it for now. I'll explain it later in the guide : Note: if you'll be noticing you're clearly going above active. Yes, Merge Plugins is hosted in Skyrim LE sections and yes, it does work with SE absolutely fine : You will need this if you'll make really heavy load order and reach the plugins. It easily merges plugins into one. For A to Z simple tutorial about using it, watch this amazing video and follow the steps. Note 1: But what about. It's allegedly a cool feature, so maybe we don't need to merge mods at all anymore? There is a bit more about that - indeed, marking plugins as. You can also watch this tutorial video. Note 3: if you'll be noticing you're clearly going above active. Why you need this? These mods provide wide amount of alternative starts to the game for those who do not wish to go through the lengthy intro sequence at Helgen. And there's very high chance that your game will crash because the Papyrus, Skyrim's script engine, was [not] updated in SE and it's same clunky and limited , even if the game itself is absolutely stable. And now these mods save the day! You can just skip this heavy-scripted scene and start anywhere you like. Besides, they have a really wide amount of alternative start, great for roleplay. Which one to use, what is the difference? Long story short, ASLAL provides more "roleplay-wise" starts - you will appear in a certain cell, depending on your start option choice, and also has plenty of additional start options addons. Unbound will spawn you randomly, so less "immersive" start, but it allows you highly adjustable character customization gear, spells etc which ASLAL doesn't, and the most important - it allows you to play as NON-Dragonborn but you can "become" it in MCM anytime , which is really a great option. RASR is somewhat like a mix of these two, a pretty underrated gem and Realm of Lorkhan is a really fresh and unique alternate start mod, which may look note quite "lore-friendly" to some players, but it's really well-designed and give you very interesting starting choices for your character class and even curses - negative attributes to balance class bonuses if you want so, all these features are entirely optional - my only 2 cents about it is that some class bonuses are still somewhat too strong even with curses, so you may want to adjust them in SSEEdit, which is very simple. I personally recommend to use Skyrim Unbound or Realm of Lorkhan, but it's totally up to you. Lastly, Realm of Lorkhan has on pretty immersion-breaking for some players thing - crystals you appear from after starting the game are not going anywhere and are just scattared across Skyrim. To remove them, use this patch. Easy-to-use tool to convert meshes from LE to SE and backwards as well. This tool will help you. When you'll be browsing the ENB presets for Skyrim SE, you may get the feeling that not all, yet many of them are very similar to each other. Yet, today SE ENB presets look pretty great and so here are some of the most well-made of them, and with different styles as much as it's possible in SE. Rudy ENB While ENB preset choices is a matter of taste more then anything else - still, there are always some presets that are top-notch in terms of overall quality and balance. It has amazing quality of shaders, a gret balance between fantasy, cinematic and realistic look, great performance. Great lighting, great water look and just absolutely polished approach to ENB tweaking in general - that's all about Rudy's preset. In addition, you can always be sure it's always uptodate with all newest ENB effects and it's also an absolute champion in terms of compatibility - it has version for almost each weather mod and compatible with all 3 popular lighting mods at the same time. If you are not quite sure about ENB choice now, but wanna start from something really great - seek no more! There's also an optional addon tweaked LUT for it available here. Weather mods compatibility: Mythical Ages, Rustic. Weather mods compatibility: Obsidian. Lighting mods compatibility: ELFX. Weather mods compatibility: None. Use ENB preset's own weather plugin. Weather mods compatibility: Aequinoctium. Cold, dark and cinematic vibes with great shaders quality. First two presets are for Cathedral and Obsidian weathers respectively, and NVT has a lot of version for different weather mods. Can be called a stripped down version of Tetrachromatic ENB for Skyrim LE as unfortunately proper vibrant, saturated presets are not possible on the same level as it was possible in LE. If you're fan of vibrancy - this one is what you should definitely try. Also has a few color presets inside. Weather mods compatibility: Dolomite. X ENB Somewhat cinematic preset with "vanilla-wise" look in general. Weather mods compatibility: Obsidian, Cathedral. Though, there may be some weird exterior lighting cases as only interior lighting changes are officially supported. Imaginarium ENB Good-looking mix of "light" fantasy and realism. Weather mods compatibility: Obsidian, NAT. Visceral ENB Soft preset also pretty close to vanilla look, with tiny fantasy touch. Organic ENB A stripped down brother of the same named preset in Skyrim LE, it comes with good touch of realism, a bit of vibrancy and generally soft look. Weather mods compatibility: Vanilla. Prismatic ENB Very vibrant preset with indeed somewhat "prismatic" look which may be a good choice for people who love saturated presets. Weather mods compatibility: NAT. Sin Xtreme Realism ENB A very realism-centered preset that also went not too far from vanilla look, but made it more contrast. Vividian ENB Nuff said from the name. Weather mods compatibility: Vivid. Looks pretty good balanced and gives cinematic touch to vibrant Vivid Weathers itself. But goes fine with vanilla weathers too. Lighting mods compatibility: RLO. But goes fine with ELFX and vanilla lighting too. That's it. It's REALLY old and not updated, but somehow one of those presets who manage to keep authentic look even without being up-do-date - that's why it's in the list : Weather mods compatibility: Lighting mods compatibility:. Weather mods compatibility: Dolomite, but works pretty much good with any weather mod or vanilla. Weather mods compatibility: Vivid Weathers. Sinister ENB Somber and cinematic, somewhat "lifeless" preset. Weather mods compatibility: Mythical Ages. Interiors are looking somewhat inspired by Rudy ENB. Lighting mods compatibility: Vanilla. Looks good with ELFX too. Weather mods compatibility: NLA. Lighting mods compatibility: LUX. That's a preset for you then. Weather mods compatibility: Anything. Lighting mods compatibility: Anything. Weather mods compatibility: Any. Lighting mods compatibility: Any. Once again, here's a simple "rule" - as the guide's task is to save your time as much as possible, installing and overwriting is very simple - just follow the lists of mods, pick what you like, install and overwrite everything "yes to all" for NMM and giving bigger priority in MO. Mods are listed in the order which, after endless tests and mixing approaches, will lead to the most balanced and beautiful look. In some separate cases where a selective overwriting will be needed, I'll notify you :. This does NOT mean such mods will destroy your performance if you don't have "NASA PC" - but it means you should install such mods carefully basically, testing ingame performance after such mod installation even on strong rigs, and avoid certain options or mods entirely on weak rigs. Now choose between the next few mods. As an option, you can compare texture images manually and keep the ones you like, mixing these mods. But in most cases, you won't need this, especially if you're a newcomer to Skyrim modding. Same is applied to each further "choose" notifications. Just a few recommendations if you can't decide what to pick: 1 Get the Skyland and then overwrite it with Noble. Though, it's just my personal recommendations - always do as your heart and eyes are telling you :. Now choose one from the next 3 mods which are retexturing Nordic dungeons somehow "forgotten" by big mods before, or just doing it better:. Note 1: Always read the grass mod pages carefully, as each mod usually requires of settings in Skyrim. Implement them. Note: You can also make grass to be more "windy" sway more noticeable under the wind by adding the next line under the [Display] in Skyrim. Experiment to your leisure :. With the mods you have now, your game is already has an immense visual improvement in general. If you are not aimed on max results in terms of graphics, you can just skip the rest of graphics mods and continue to gameplay part of the guide. But trust me - we're only beginning! The improvement in models, textures, lighting, weathers and various little, yet important details, can be significantly better. I invite you to continue :. About these mods and which one to choose. Majestic is my personal 2 favourite mod, Northfire's are really photorealistic which fits the mod name, Excellent Mountains is a little gem from Pfuscher with immersive look and incredible texture details, Real and Rustic are pretty much close to vanilla look, and 8k exactly the 8k version is an overkill, so use 4k version and CC's UHQ mods are both looking pretty unique. But what mod you're using, Sinitar? Take into account that clouds improvements are often included in weather mods, so if you're planning to use weather mods, read the respective mod pages carefully - separate cloud mods may be not compatible with them. For all night sky related mods, if such a version is available, always install 2k resolution one. Everything is here. Obsidian adds plenty of new weathers while keeping the ambience in the borders of canonic Skyrim look. Sharp and beautiful clouds, diverse weathers, volumetric mountain fogs and much more, making a beautiful, truly Skyrim'ish picture. It's also the most ENB-supported weather mod, meaning the amount of ENB presets available to choose from, tweaked for it. Download the archive, choose plugin you want, archive it, add to mod manager and install. Vivid Weathers The most popular weather mod for Skyrim SE which stands for its name - vivid, vibrant, tasty weathers with a very big variety. The objective drawback is that it has somewhat more minor visual glitches than the LE version of the mod, but it's nothing critical and on practice, most likely you won't even notice. Also has enough of ENB presets tweaked for it, but not close as much as Obsidian has, for example. Dolomite Weathers While Dolomite is technically a predecessor to Obsidian, I personally still prefer some elements from it over Obsidian's composition. It's really diverse, with plenty of beautiful weathers but not that vibrant as Vivid Weathers , and with absolutely unrivaled clouds look. Climates Of Tamriel "Old but good" weather mod that's making Skyrim weathers more interesting than it was in vanilla game, but still sticking much to original atmosphere as much as possible. One can call it "vanilla weathers plus". Alternative sounds patch available. Aequinoctium - Weathers and Seasons A sharp, fantasy-realism weather mod with a noticeable photorealism touch. You can also make a nice mix - using Obsidian, but with some Aequinoctium weathers merged in it, with the help of this patch. Also has a good support in terms of ENB presets available. NAT - Natural and Atmospheric Tamriel An amazing candidate if you wanna weathers and general ambience be more cinematic. But take into account while most of weather mods are giving 0 performance impact, NAT is much "heavier" compared to other weather mods for some reasons. Rustic Weathers and Lighting A really well-made mod which has somewhat desaturated, "rustic" look, sticking close to original ambience. Mythical Ages - weathers and lighting overhaul Another fantasy and bright weather mod, being somewhere between Obsidian and Vivid Weathers, I'd say. Northern Saga Weathers and Seasons One more vibrant weather mod, but with some cold touches from time to time. Accompanying weather mods. True Storms Special Edition - Thunder Rain and Weather Redone The mod make all types of storms much more realistic - severe, loud, deep, by overhauling both visual and audio apperance of them. For me personally, it's doing this job better than any other weather mod above. But what about compatibility? Worry not! Check out this amazing author's page to get a compatibility for many other popular weather mods. That fixes it. Yet, if you like extreme thunderstorms - it may be a good pick for you for actual walkthrough as well. Wonders of Weather Rainbows. Shooting stars. Rain splashes. Simple as that. Load after other weather mods if using any. Enhanced Lights and FX The well-deserved most endorsed lighting mod of all times. A complete overhaul to vanilla lighting while keeping it simple and not going away from original look. Better lighting. New light sources where needed. More realistic lighting in dungeons and other interiors. Huge coverage. Best support from the side of ENB presets. Personal recommendation - if you're aimed on a heavy mod list, choose only the core mod itself and enhancer option and ofc SMIM-related option - don't choose exteriors option. This patch plus this patch and this one are [absolutely essential]. This one and this one are very much recommended as well. This mod has some patches for mods you may possibly have. Realistic Lighting Overhaul Another simply great lighting mod of a huge coverage and great popularity. Aims on similar things like ELFX does, but has different look here and there. You may also find this mod useful - it offers patches for two popular mods, and this one as well ofc, use them only if you'll be using the named mods. Alternative and more lightweight approach to changing the game lighting - if you aren't sure, just try both mods above, and this combo, and then choose one you like the most : ELE mod Files tab also has a few patches for some popular mods. Amazing mod that's adding and improving shadows in interiors. The quality of these shadows sometimes gives really a great difference in interiors look. This said, it requires a lot of work to be made compatible with lighting mods above. Let me put it more clear and simple: until you're pretty experienced with xEdit and CK, and don't have several dozens of hours of free time - don't use this mod on top of other lighting mods above. Use one or another. Can be used alone instead of major lighting mods, but also can be used together with the next mods: ELFX without Enhancer option , Relighting Skyrim and Windows Shadows. Can be used on top of other major lighting mods. All the mods in this section are optional. They transform the landscapes of Skyrim in this or that way - adds or remove trees, making wilderness more dense or barren, change the look of terrain, roads, bridges, or just completely transforming Skyrim into something new - with spring, summer or purely winter region. Choose and use what you personally like :. Skyrim Better Roads One of the most simple yet one of the most favorite mods of such type for me personally. It makes huge amount of Skyrim roads to look more authentic and logical. It's also perfectly compatible with almost all the mods in this section. My personal advice is to install version without bridges coverage to be able to use bridges-dedicated mods below. Installing [all] main files is also recommended. It adds literally thousands of new objects here and there - from trees and cliffs, to urns and statues. Forets, shores, mountains - everything in your game will have a fresh, yet pretty lore-friendly touch. It has some flaws as well though - sometimes the placements of new objects are feeling generic and not much logical and it still has visual glitches mostly clipping or floating objects here and there. Due to huge coverage it also may have compatibility issues like clipping if you will also have plenty of other landscape overhauls and settlement mods, so here you will need to be careful or just don't have much other similar mods alongside it. Those issues are mostly cosmetic and won't break your game in technical meaning - the mod itself is simply huge and really great - so test it and decide yourself : To help you solve some possible compatibility issues easily, take a look at this neat patches page covering compatibility with some popular mods. Also fully supports 3D LODs. Think no more! This mod creates a giant forest Falkreath-style in the desolated tundra of Whiterun hold. Also take a look on patches page - but take into account that mod doesn't have FOMOD installer - download the archive manually, delete all patches you don't need, keep those you do, archive it back, add to your mod manager and install. Don't use together with previous mod, choose only one. Trees Addon A really well-made tree mod that follows "quality over quantity" approach and carefully places trees here and there to make scenery look better. It also adds beautiful "king trees" from Enderal to Skyrim. Bent Pines II Another mod that adds huge trees here and there, but with different look. Technically, you can use it together with Trees Addon, but on practice, I'd recommend to choose one. It features both dead and new alive trees types, making some places more grim and other - more alive, fitting the overall ambience of the regions. It's also more performance-friendly and better compatibility-wise but still it's recommended to avoid using other massive tree addons together with it, as this will result in frequent clipping , than, for example, Enhanced Landscapes and has full 3D LODs support. If no - you can try this one as an amazing Solstheim tree addon. It's a tropical rainforest overhaul for the Skyrim, covering most worldspaces of the base game and DLCs minus the visual overkill. Trees, plants, grasses, weather ambience, sounds - everything to transform Skyrim into tropical-looking beauty. It's not recommended to use is with other massive flora overhauls, building visual setup around this mod in first turn. Skyrim 3D Landscapes This mod is really a massive work, but pretty much as "3D" trees mod, it often suffers from look of plants that absolutely doesn't fit into Skyrim. The Ruins Beautiful mod that adds various ruined structures and statues across Skyrim. The flaw of this one is sometimes it may feel "too much" in certain places, and mod also has some events and references that are not lore-friendly and made for fun for example, Shrek references. Still, this is all up to player's taste :. Ancient Land Don't want lore-unfriendly moments and occasional too much clutter that previous mod has, but love its approach still? Think no more and try this one. You can see a video showcase of it here. Winter Overhaul An all-in-one overhaul that turns Skyrim into a real winter region - whole of it, from the author of Dark Forests of Skyrim. New snow-covered trees, dead trees, more snowy weathers, snow-covered cities and so on. If you always thought that Skyrim should be more cold and snowy - that's a perfect mod for you. Compatible with Obsidian and Vivid Weathers. Nordic Ruins of Skyrim Absolutely brilliant that overhauls some of the most memorable Nordic ruins of Skyrim, making the look much more badass, but immersive, feeling like the original part of the game at the same time. A must-have mod in my humble opinion. Purely cosmetical mod. Then check out this author profile. Flower Fields Pretty much self-explanatory name. Adds vibrant, beautiful flower fields here and there. May be not much immersive in some cases, but a great option for anyone who wanna give Skyrim a bit more fresh, spring touch. Unique Flowers and Plants Hand-placed new plants and flowers across Skyrim. Master The Summit Like climbing the highest mountains? Want to maybe abuse Skyrim's glitchy physics less often for that? Try this mod that adds a lot of wooden bridges, stairs and other useful things to explore the mountains and cliffs. Better Solstheim Locations Adds several simple neutral locations to Solstheim and adds some map markers to existing ones. Skyrim Bridges My favourite bridge mod. Gives an overhaul to close to every bridge in Skyrim, making them look really unique and immersive. Do NOT use together with the mod below, choose one or another. More "simple" bridge overhaul. Do NOT use together with the mod above, choose one or another. Northern Marsh Bridges Adds several wooden bridges across the northern marshlands of Hjaalmarch the region where some bridges would actually not hurt, imo. You CAN use this mod together with one of previous mods as it only adds new bridges. Nordic Runestones Adds ancient nordic runestones to Skyrim's landscape. Decorating Madness Adds plants, creatures and clutter from the Saints and Seducers creation club creation to the Pelagius wing and Pelagius mind. Oblivion Gates Remade Adds several Oblivion gates to the game. Gates are not functioning ofc, and serving more like and Oblivion nostalgia element. Use this mod or the one below. Rorikstead Basalt Cliffs Adds basalt cliffs around Rorikstead, giving the town a unique atmosphere. Compatible with every Rorikstead overhaul. A couple of patches exist. Windhelm Lighthouse Adds a lighthouse north of Windhelm. Everything to make them look better, expand, and sometimes even rebuild completely. Take into account that in most of cases, you shouldn't use more than one mod that affects the same settlement, as this will lead to major clipping issues or a completely borked look - so if you're relatively new to modding, always just choose one mod affecting certain area. But ofc there are some exclusions and some mod covering same settlements can be used together - on-fly or with certain tweaks - I'll notify about that. Also take into account that some of these mods can heavily impact your FPS if you're not on high-end rig. First of all, let's take a look at some "big" settlement overhauls - the mods that cover many settlelements at once with certain own style:. Now, I want to point your attention on some not "whole-covering" mostly single-settlement , but highly prominent mods that cover this or that settlement. Consider this my personal "essential mods besides the big overhauls" section:. Interior overhauls. Take into account that they may and will in almost all cases conflict if you'll be trying to use them together to get the biggest possible coverage, but it's easily fixed - just open mods affecting same cells in xEdit and delete the named cell from one of the mods and save. If you want to see more detailed tutorial with examples - watch the video below :. Just read the mod pages attentively and you'll be fine. All mods here are NOT obligatory for installation - but it's recommended to go through them still, as it will greatly improve hundreds of more objects not touched before, or improve better then previous "big" mods with often absolutely exceptional quality. The section below is the biggest one in meaning of mods quantity - so don't be afraid when you'll open it. This is a process of plesantly smashing each ugly texture left, as much as possible. Creatures, dragons, armors and weapons, food, ingots, plants and hundreds of other objects till the tiniest details, like ruined books or gold pouches. Many mods will ask you to overwrite - as your game has huge amount of objects retextured already. Just approve overwriting and keep going. It often also may come up to personal taste - so look on each mod page, choose what you like and what not. There are plenty of mods here, so they were grouped into a expandable subsection - click "show" to unwrap it:. Texture packs changing the look of cities, guild halls and some other noticeable locations or location types like bandit forts. Some places have more than one mod for you to pick from, so once again choose one that you prefer the most between several variants - or you can try to manually mix'n'match them yourself :. Various "specialised" armor, weapons, clothing jewels and other artifacts retextures - meaning that those items are most likely already retexture by the mods you have now, yet, these mods provide either better quality or distinct appearance by introducing new models together with improved textures. There can be several options for a same object - for example, several mods retexturing daedric armor, so there you will have several options to pick from. Note: There are some additional options for some armors and weapons like Frankfamily faction armors or Vpulse08 weapon replacers , yet as they are highly numerous but made by same authors, those are linked later in this section. The last few links are gathered exactly here for 2 reasons. Some of these works are absolutely exceptional quality and so, should be installed the very last to ensure nothing overwrites them. Some of the mods you may already have though -as some of them I've made sure to link separately because of the great quality. Better body models, head models. Better textures for skin, eyes, hair, brows, beards etc. Usually, you can install as many eyes and hair mods as you want - just be sure these mods are standalone. Situation with body and skin mods is different - you can have only one in each category on top of UNP or CBBE, usually , so choose which you like the most. Absolutely all choices here are nothing else but matter of taste - so read the mod pages, look at screenshots and choose whatever you like. Note: Mods in this section often have textures from 1k to 4k and even 8k resolution for skin, 2k or 4k resolution for beards etc - use such high-res version only in case you're aiming on screenarchery. For regular gameplay, taking something like 8k skin or 2k brows makes no practical sense and will just waste your VRAM. FPS hit will depend completely and only on your resolution choice. Here we go with the list of mods that improve visual appearance of NPCs - female, male and children. Here you can find something for any taste besides the absolutely unrealistic overhauls which are not included. Current list contains standalone mods - these mods don't require other mods to work properly, plug'n'play! Note: Such mods may be or not be compatible, as most of them change many NPCs, you can have a situation when you want to install two mods, but they change some same NPCs. In this case, place the mod you like the most after. Both of them change Lydia. You like Lydia from MOD2. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of these mods:. Now just a minute of your attention to our best bae, Serana and her family :. Now let's get to UI shortening from User Interface mods. Icons, widgets, notifications, proper menus look on all resolutions - that's all UI. So a good UI mod always comes in handy. The main task of UI mods is to make your gameplay more comfortable, navigating in menus more intuitive, adding more useful widgets and spending less time in menus in general, enjoying the gameplay. Have you ever thought that your game is boring? That it should be more challenging, realistic, more variative and interesting? Think no more - and let's drastically imrpove Skyrim gameplay to the heights you never even imagined before! This consists of three parts - Expansion, Gameplay Features and Immersion. Immersion part contains mods that makes your playthrough more atmospheric and realistic in overall. Patches, fixes, compatibility notes and plenty of personal remarks included. Better combat, magic, perks, AI, new monsters, quests, lands, dungeons and settlements, immersion and survival realism, population, followers, armors and weapons - absolutely everything you may want and even much more, about what you haven't even thought yet :. From casual to absolute hardcore - you can pick up best mods yourself or proceed to unique "modules" below to see carefully pre-made mod lists for different tastes and purposes, which you just need to mimic, without worrying about incompatibilities and not spending your own time picking the mods. Quests and new lands, dungeons, new armors, weapons and artifacts, followers and player homes. Take into account that you shouldn't just install all the mods in this section. Moreover, statistics shows that one almost never finish all those dozens of quest mods installed in a single walkthrough. Now, first of all, a few mods which are not directly adding new quests but rather affect quest-related aspects of gameplay in general, QOL for questing to say so:. Now, to the quest and new land mods themselves. Love exploring the world underground? Have new challenges, findings and ambient atmosphere? This section is for you :. Now, plenty of great mods that adds new dungeons of different type. First let's see some dungeon "packs" that add several or more dungeons:. Now, single-dungeon mods, but with a great quality - challenging bossfights, breathtaking design or sometimes even everything together:. For these mods, you can install as many as you want, technically, but if mod that you're installing is affecting leveled lists, be sure to rebuild your Bashed Patch. Also take into account that leveled lists have own limitations in size, so it's not a good idea to install 5 biggest weapon packs at the same time, because most likely you'll never see many of items ingame even with Bashed Patch. Still, there are many mods here that improves or rebalances vanilla items or add new, but absolutely immersive ones. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of the best mods released in and in general:. First of all, let's look on weapon packs - mods that contain many or at least several weapons inside them:. Now standalone weapon mods that add a single weapon, or a couple of them:. Other mods in this subsection you can add on top if you wanna, but this may require some manual work in xEdit to make them fully compatible. Nice, let's continue to smaller mods which are mostly adding brand new artifacts and item sets! Skyrim modding stage is literally swarmed by follower mods, the vastl majority of which are really dull and simply briefly imported racemenu presets with nothing more. Using mods from this section you will be sure your companions are not only "I'm sworn to carry your burdens". First of all, a few great mods to give you immensely better control over your followers in all aspects and make your life with followers much more comfortable". Now let's get to the followers themselves - the most interesting, funny, beautiful, charismatic and badass companions you can have:. Creature follower mods - new creature followers or improved vanilla beast followers:. Drastically improved and beautified vanilla player homes, new player homes, castles, estates and hideouts. Player home is absolutely a matter of taste - size, style of design, features - that's all up to you, so here I've just listed a wide "base" of various beautiful and qualitative mods of this type to choose from. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of the best mods released in Different overhauls and improvements - everything that affects your game variety and difficulty. Skyrim script engine, Papyrus. It's static in terms of how many scripts it can handle, and this can not be expanded by any means unlike the video memory limitations for Skyrim LE, for example , it can not be fixed or changed and it doesn't depend on 32bit or 64bit, our your PC specs - at all. Consider Papyrus a bottle which can handle only X amount of water. This generally causes so called "script lag", save bloats, and, eventually, a broken game, and as mentioned before, the fact Skyrim SE is 64bit game doesn't give any benefits. So when it comes to gameplay mods most of which have scripts in this or that amount , you need to be same careful in SE. Now, a quick manual of "how to see if my game can handle more script-heavy mods":. To test if your game overloaded with scripts or not, is very easy. When you are like starting to feel you have plenty of gameplay mods already, and not sure if your game can handle one more script-heavy survival mod, or two more combat mods etc - don't worry. Install them. While you'll be testing the game, save ONLY on that slot. Now, go and force game to script-heavy situations. Go and fight bandits in some polulated fort, visit few big cities, run here and there. Visit locations with stormy weathers, and ofc, make actions that are depending on the mod you have just installed like, build the camp if it's Campfire, or change your clothings several times etc. Game running fine? No stutters in combat or actions, no crashes? Exactly stutters - short-time game freezes, not the regular fps drops. You're good to go. This mod is overloading your game - skip it. Improved and smartened vanilla creatures, hundreds of new creatures, lore-friendly and not up to your taste , new bosses and various improvements to vanilla guilds and factions - you will find them here. New spells, shouts and improved vanilla ones, immersive magic additions, rebalances and changes, enchantments. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of these spell mods in action:. Mods introducing dedicated spellsword mechanics. Remember that Ordinator has own, balanced and fun spellsword mechanics implemented in two skill trees - these mods may and most likely will make you OP on some extent - but at the same time, they have own unique features which you may like. Choose only one mod between these. You can also look on the spell mods I'm personally using in my ultimate mod list , but take into account it was made for LE initially, but you can still reproduce the mod list mostly. Now, let's look on some great enemy overhauls that are affecting enemies in general - their AI, skills, leveling and so on - everyting to make your enemies really worth a fight, a challenging opponents. Choose one. Nice, let's continue with plenty of other overhauls of most different type click "show" to open the subsection :. Improved quality of vanilla sounds and music, replacers and new standalone music packs to bring maximum pleasure to your ears. Better enemies AI and skills, improvements in hunting, sneaking, questing, cut content restoration, various options to control what's happening around you in game and much, much more. Everything about combat - better enemies AI and new skills, injuries, locational damage, unique player moves and overall combat improvements here and there to make dull Skyrim combat shine. You can also look on the combat mods I'm personally using in my ultimate mod list , but take into account it was made for LE initially, but you can still reproduce the mod list mostly. Alchemy-dedicated mods. They technically are general gameplay improvements type, but alchemy is a very popular skill with some true gems for it, so I thought it would be nice to give them a separate section :. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of best alchemy mods in action:. Let's start from a most deservedly known, complex and simply epic alchemy overhaul, which is close to be an essential mod for almost any walkthrough. Now, a few mods which are wrapped about making potions usage more thoughtful, double-edged, similar to how it was done in Witcher games. These are absolutely optional as they, ofc, will make game harder. Choose one:. More enemies, more sudden encounters, more civil war battles, more neutral NPCs as well. Please remember: big amount of population mods together with heavy-modded gameplay setup may overload your game and cause instability and script lags. To avoid this - install population mods one by one and check your performance ingame, testing affected areas like cities, forts or faction battles. Various completely new gameplay features and additions - many things that this game lacked, features inspired by other RPGs, vanilla mechanics expanded by new stuff. Combat and absolutely "civil" related as well. Immersion is very "wide" term in gaming. Long story short, it's everything that makes your game realistic i. Everything to make you feel not just playing a character in game, but to "feel" this game better and have better interaction with the world around you. Want your character to have realistic needs in sleep, eating and drinking? Wanna have Skyrim cold weathers to actually impact your character and game world? Wanna have realistic hunting? If everything or some from this is what you're thinking about, think no more and dive into this section. Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of best immersion mods in action:. Can vary in complexity. Various other survival immersion mods - from hardcore effects to purely cosmetic ones:. Various other immersion mods that are not related with survival and needs directly, but greatly improving various other aspects of the game - dialogues, birds, better questing and objectives, lore-related things, city lights and more. Both are mods for custom animations and absolutely must-have, as they are required for most of animation mods to work. What to pick? FNIS is the older one, which was basically the only for many years. It's now abandoned, but that doesn't mean it became bad due to this - it's working perfectly fine, but it has less capabilities and namely, supports less animation mods, especially new ones. It's also being supported and updated actively. Indeed it is, but technically Nemesis is still in beta atm - it works flawlessly though and it's absolutely safe to use it, but for now both will still be linked. Choice is up to you, but once again, for best results it's strongly recommended to get Nemesis. Usage is very plain and simple for both of them. Now, let's grab some essential animations mods which will either serve as a solid improvement base that or as an element of controlling the new animations:. Now let's see some other qualitative animation mods. It's totally up to you - install them or not. Due to how they are made or how they are working, you should deal with them after your mod list is more or less complete. Let's set them up - the final push is now! Q: why not to use Smashed Patch instead? It's said this tool is doing everything both Bashed and Merged patch are doing in terms of conflicts, but just better. A: Mator Smash is indeed an amazing work! And indeed, if often covers more conflicting records merging then Bashed nor Merged patch do, so if you're using Smashed Patch, you don't need neither Bashed or Merged. But the thing is, whatever its algorithm is, it's doing those records merging pretty "wild" - often inaccurate, which can lead to various issues, from just weird ones, like double merchant stock, to more serious ones, like visible ingame bugs and crashes. No automated tool is perfect Bashed and Merged too , but atm, Smashed Patch is just working too much inaccurate which can sometimes bring you more headache than good results. Once again, this is a great tool with a lot of efforts put into it, but I simply can't directly recommend or disrecommend it. Use at your own preference. Your rig is pretty old, but you still want somehow to run ENB and some graphics mods? Don't worry, that's more then possible! Please take into account that "low-end" is pretty wide term, so here I will just put all possible advice and tricks that may help you. You can also refer to this section even if your PC is strong - to get more FPS for different purposes. Have too weak rig but still wanna have some of those tasty graphics mods? Have a strong rig, but need to gain a few FPS? Look here! What can I do? If you don't want to go trough the whole list yourself and think about which mods and how to combine, or just don't have time - this section is what you need! Below you can find several "plug and play" mod lists that I personally compiled - so you don't have to worry about testing mods, finding which play well together and which not - don't have to worry about compatibility at all. Just choose the mod list that you like the most, by reading its description - and then simply mimic it in no time. Playing modded Skyrim or Skyrim at all first time? Wanna have casual combat and be OP? Hardcore combat and survival? Lightweight mod list with "vanilla plus" experience or super-heavy mod list where each tiniest details are improved? Modules section has a mod list for any preference. Modules can also list certain ENB presets that I see "fitting" the mod list purpose in general and have certain advice about graphics mods in general - but these recommendations is just a cosmetical advice. Important note 1: Each of modules assumes you already implemented Stability and Graphics parts of the guide. I won't be able to provide any troubleshooting if you didn't make the Stability part. Implement it. Important note 2: Some of the mod lists names may be hinting their setup, some no - mostly I just picked the names I wanted and that's it. Name of the mod list can be purely cosmetic at all. So make sure to read each module description, besides the name. Important note 3: After you mimic the mod list any of it , proceed to the "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section. This module is a perfect mod list if you're playing Skyrim for the first time at all. Any TES game is an immensely huge, many times bigger than any other game of similar type - and it's an unspoken canon to first time play game without changing it by mods. First of all, if you'll install a lot of mods to your first walkthrough - you will be simply lost in amount of features, spells, items, quests and so on - because you won't have experience of original game. Secondly, playing with original functionality will help you to see how insane is the difference between vanilla and modded game. It will be still the vanilla Skyrim experience, just better. Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Osmodius or Skyrim Realistic Overhaul are recommended. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass or Verdant. Don't use weather mods. As for landscape overhauls, I'd recommend to not use any, maybe only Skyrim Better Roads , same goes for settlement mods - keep the vanilla settlements for now. Now sort your load order using LOOT and you're good to go. Also, if you're owner of a windescreen monitor, install this fix and take a look ad low-end section of the guide if you have weak rig or just need to gain a few FPS. Note: The "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section isn't required for this mod list. You can make step 1 in it, but that's up to you. Just as much enough of everything to have a good "tease" of modded Skyrim yet with very fast modding process. Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Skyland or Noble are recommended. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass , Verdant or Veydosebrom. Now proceed to the "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section. Required steps are 1, 3 and 4. Step 6 DynDOLOD is optional - it will make your game distant objects absolutely beautiful, but it requires some time to read about the installation, so decide yourself. After you've finished these steps, just sort your load order with LOOT and you're ready to go. This "difficulty rebalance and abilities" module consists of various gameplay-altering mods - combat, AI, various overhauls, magic related mods, realism and some other, but with a specific goal - to give you a good setup of different gameplay changes so the overall difficulty, be it combat or economy, would be nor casual neither hardcore, but somewhere in the middle to appeal to most of tastes in general. If you want more things, and things to be more challenging, but you're easily overwhelmed when there's too much new stuff, this module is a great setup for you. It will partially cross with others, but what differs it from them is the exact pick of some mods in situations where you have the choice, to maintain the difficulty balance mentioned. You can combine it with other modules as you wish. This module is a highly immersive one, for player who wanna have overall game improvements and some new feature and content here and there for sure, but want Skyrim harsh environment to be the main challenge in first turn, without hardcore combat itself. Plus all possible visual and others immersive moments here and there. The winds chilling to the bones, dangerous waters and diseases, hunger and thirst, and of course, cozy warming at your camp fire. With this mod setup, game will be cruel and dangerous to you, in first turn, because of fearsome, strongly realistic survival aspects. Lastly, you may be interested in beautiful Winter Overhaul to add to harsh winter Skyrim abmience in terms of scenery appearance. Now, choose between the next 2 mods. Both are great, and both have own advantages and disadvantages over each other. Read the mod pages and choose one your prefer yourself. I'd personally advise to go with iNEED, but once again, that's totally up to you. These mods are absolutely optional. You can install all of them or none, depending on your own vision of immersion depth you need:. Drunken Huntsman is a "golden middle" in terms of heavy-modded game. It's already a pretty heavy mod list that's making gameplay not only expanded, but greatly challenging. It also adds much more new content as well as new gameplay features in each modding category. It's a mod list for those who already played with mods for some time and want "advance to the next level" and build their first really heavy-modded game - but, it's also not "that" huge to become ovewhelming in terms of both gameplay or modlist building process itself. Take into account that this module will make your game much harder - but also much more rewarding. Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Noble or Pfuscher pack are recommended you can also install Pfuscher pack on top of Noble. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass , Viscous or Verdant , or look at Short Grass if you wanna more "green" summer look of groundcovers. The next 3 mods are absolutely optional - install them if you wanna to have "lite" survival experience in your game. All 3 mods are very lightweight and won't give any script issues to your setup. Now proceed to the "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section and follow the steps in it. This module is for those who don't want neither hardcore combat or survival challenges, but have and endless adventuring spirint and wish to visit as many new lands and dungeons, make as many quests, solve as many puzzles and mysteries as possible. If you're sure you'll be playing exactly with this archetype now - look here for sure. Note: This module focuses on [dedicated] mods - meaning for a complete mod list, you will still need to go through sections of the guide, but you will have a solid core mods base exactly for this playstyle or can visit this section just to make sure you didn't miss anything. Now some armors which I personally see greatly fitting rogue types of characters. Their installation is absolutely up to you ofc:. Meanwhile, you can also watch a few unique modded character builds available at my YT channel:. Now some armors which I personally see greatly fitting mage types of characters. A module dedicated to warriors. Now some armors which I personally see greatly fitting warrior types of characters. A true hero of Skyrim. A protector of the realm. This module is the ultimate setup of mods - basically, very close to what I'm using myself. This mod list also contains not only general instructions, but also all needed tweaks, till the smallest ones, in mods MCMs, together with my own edits in many cases. Hey there folks! This is a one-time popup - close it and it won't appear again. Good luck on the path! Sneak peeks? Join our Discord. Buy best games Cozy chatting Support my work. Ever wandered which modding capabilities Witcher 3 has? Dive into ultimate TW3 modding now! You may be asking yourself "which game version should I mod, LE or SE" I have a complete modding guide for LE separated into graphics and gameplay parts. Many players also see the answer a somewhat obvious, but it's not quite like that. Generally, when modded properly and if the stability section of the guide is applied, both Skyrim SE and LE are fully stable - there are no memory related crashes until you overload your game with ridiculously heavy setup just too heavy for your system ofc, and unlike the popular misconceptions, LE doesn't have memory-related issues as well since late due to combination of ENBoost and Crash Fixes memory allocation upgrades , engine related crashes are fixed more or less equally too. This said, SE is somewhat [less] stable in a long-time perspective and when being heavy-modded and some SE versions of massive mods being ported hastily or not by mod authors themselves which results in more bugs compared to LE versions of the mods, more crash cases generally throughout a game world which appeared in SE and never existed in LE to begin with. This said, it doesn't mean SE will be crashing hard or something - but with medium-to-heavy modded game, you'll have sometimes have more headache with it. In return, SE requires a bit less stability mods read - its stability section is shorter than LE one and so, somewhat less time required for this part. But this is only about stability section itself - roughly said, if you can apply LE guide stability section in an hour, in SE you'll need 30 minutes. Yet, this is a a pretty neglectable difference as you'll most likely spend many more hours of joyful modding the game's graphics and gameplay parts. Tldr: Stability is almost the same for both SE and LE today - you can run a fully stable heavy-modded game without issues in both versions, with LE having a slight benefit in a long timespan. Additionally, parallax 3D look imitation for objects for SE is supported only for terrain, while LE has a complete parallax support for all objects in general. The difference is still really noticeable and it's not guaranteed SE will ever catch up to LE in this matter. Tldr: If you're aimed on a graphics enhancement most of all, LE is definitely a better pick. In SE this issue doesn't exist. LE modding stage is active as well - but SE receives more new mods in general. At the same time, considering that LE modding stage is active for 5 more years, it still provides more mods in general - this is usually not related to "prominent" mods, but when it comes to "devil in details" part, SE often lacks some nice mods here and there. Tldr: both versions have mods other version don't have, so choice here is personal. You can also port mods so both version can actually benefit from this difference - read below. Model and texture mods can be ported via few clicks in CAO further in the guide , most of plugins can be ported without issues as well, and animations can be ported too. Tldr: with just a little practice, you can port almost all mods asides from really huge ones and SKSE plugins, yourself - so difference in mods arsenal for two game versions can actually only come in handy. As you can see, the are actual reasons to mod exactly SE or LE, but as for today, it's rather a matter of a personal perspective depending on your modding goal. I'm supporting and updating guides for both versions so technically, nothing stops you from modding both haha , so read, think and make choice yourself - and best of luck with modding :. Not a single texture will remain ugly after you finish this, and all possible gameplay mechanics will be improved, as well as tons of new ones can be added, hell yeah! Everything you need yet nothing excess. Not a huge mod list, filled with subjective choices, yet a roadmap showing you how to build your own dream setup. While, if you lack time - there are some mod lists prepared for you, in [addition] to guide itself. Detailed installation order. Comfortable and easy-to-navigate design. Patches list for compatibility and my personal remarks for the best result. Performance notes. The biggest problem of heavy-modded games, script overload, didn't go anywhere in SE, unfortunately - game script engine, Papyrus, was not changed and having too many script-heavy mods may break even the most stable game. Many script-heavy mods are marked with special mark in the guide, so you'll know in advance which mods you'll need to be careful with. Merging the mods easier then ever before! Mods that can be easily merged in a few click - marked with a special sign - so you don't need to spend own time checking for many factors. Currently, more than mods are marked already, meaning that's literally more than mods you can merge straight away, and I will expand this gradually. Pre-made mod lists for different tastes and goals, which you only need to mimic and don't worry about incompatibilities and other issues - in addition to the whole guide itself. Constant updates and support :. Q: What are the PC specs needed to run the same modded setup as you do, to have [best] possible graphics and gameplay? Yes, this guide is made for ALL rigs - no matter if your PC strong, not that much or a complete potato - you can find recommendations, and build best possible modded game. A: You technically can ofc, but that's not mandatory. This is a guide - it gives you an ability to compare and choose. Open mod pages, browse the images, read the description. Install what you like and don't install what you don't like : Lastly, there are pre-made mod lists for you to mimic. Q: I have the game in language other than English, is it a problem? A: The guide is made for original, i. English version of the game. Graphics mods will ofc work fine in most of cases, but as for the gameplay mods, there is no guarantee that they will work with non-English version of the game, or work at all. Moreover, many translations are often outdated which leads to various bugs and conflicts. If you want to be able to use Skyrim modding stage and this guide on its fullest, use English version of the game. I won't be able to give any troubleshooting support for non-English versions. Q: I also want to install ENB, where's a tips for it? A: Sure! Whatever you want - it is here ; Just read a bit further. A: Please read "How to start" section carefully. Read it and install all the things needed before starting to install mods themselves. Q: That doesn't help! If not, feel free to join our Discord server and community members or I will try our best to help you : Q: Where are you from? A few words about you? A: Ukraine. Web-developer in past, fitness trainer and nutritionist now as hobby. A: Sure - I will update and improve it. Unstoppably : Q: Ok, guide just received massive update, but how can I see the little new additions? A: I add mods and fix text errors few times per week. A: One of the main goals of the guide always was to keep your game stable. There are some absolutely great and popular mods, but the thing is popularity now always equal same great quality and stability. Some mods are not included simply because they have major or too many minor issues and not fitting concept of stable heavy-modded game. Nothing more besides that. Q: Can you just upload your Skyrim folder with all your mods somewhere so I can just download it and not to choose and install mods one by one? A: Unfortunately, no. The reasons: Firstly - I can't do this as many mods from the list are Nexus-excslusive and mod authors didn't give a permission to re-upload their works somewhere. I respect their work. Secondly - everyone has absolutely different PC specs and different taste, and my setup can be absolutely unplayable for many people from both these aspects. Trust me - when you're making your mod setup by yourself the result will be way better because most of mods are absolutely matter of taste. Q: But there are a lot of modpacks in internet! I saw them! Even Nexus itself should have modpacks soon! A: Of course. Modpacks are easy to find and get, but it's also one of the main reason of myth about "heavy-modded fully stable Skyrim isn't possible" exists. For very same reasons, modpacks simply can't run the same good for everyone. In worst case, it will just break your game eventually. From that point, you can either play the game as is, which will lead to glitchy gameplay and eventually a lot of wasted time, or you'll have to go to point zero and learn about all the mod in the modpack yourself, basically, doing what you had to to from the very beginning, but once again, wasting some time. Modpacks are like those ads in internet that are promising you 6-pack in 7 days without diet and training. There's no "magic button" in case of TES or FO games, and it's no matter who made it - random internet person or they are distributed by some popular authors or websites - it doesn't change anything in terms or aspects listed few lines above. Now, the first and most important rule. No exceptions:. Before you start reading, watch this short video:. Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch This mod should be already considered as part of vanilla game. It fixes literally thousands glitches and bugs in Skyrim. NET language. Required by some other things. RaceMenu Character creation menu how it should have been originally and great amount of customization options. Also get this. Whenever you press the Escape key, mod will open the System page instead of Quest page. Muh convenient! No more! This mod aims to reduce that difference and make them more equal. Note: Don't let any other mod overwrite it, in case of what. Also, if you're modding Skyrim "VR", use this one instead. Better Jumping SE Allows to jump while sprinting. Player Eyes Blink Fix Enables blinking eyes for the player. Fortunately, this solves the problem. CRF patch in addition if you have or plan to have this mod. SKSE64 plugin. Together with MFG console for glitches troublehsooting, this plugin can help a bit more if you'll have some situational crashes - just don't expect it to be some sort of magic - most likely, you'll still need to apply logic and assume why crash is taking place. Get both the main files and make sure to read the mod description page for the list of features and possible compatibility notes. Updated and script-free version of similar fix in past. This one helps. Remember how you was able to fast travel only to Whiterun itself or Dragonsreach? Now you can fast travel to Arcadia's Cauldron, Jorrvaskr etc. More than new map markers! Also grab these small fixes and make sure to endorse the original mod. Complete Crafting Overhaul Essential mod from author of previous two fixes. CCOR is reworking all vanilla craft recipes, offers many options for mining, chopping, smelting and so on - simply making everything crafting-related to be logical and really interesting. That's why you need it even if you never actually crafted a single thing in Skyrim - because now it's not that dull crafting system. Consider it as the vanilla part of the game as it always should have been from the release. Heartfires Houses Building Fix Restores proper models of some building parts and furniture in crafting menu. Improved version of "Auto Unequip Ammo" mod. More Informative Console This mod edits the UI to show a great deal of additional information on npcs, items, and other objects when the console is opened, similar to the way MFG console worked for Skyrim LE. It may help you in various cases of game testing and possible issues solving. Isn't doing anything by itself, by it's needed for many mods for mod-added dialogues to work properly. Actor Limit Fix Fixes a bug where if you have more than actors in the same place they start floating around weirdly. Also fixes bug where NPC lips stop moving when a lot of them are nearby. Difficulty Balance This mod makes that the player and allies have the same difficulty damage factor. As a result, it will be corrected that the higher the difficulty, the less damage will be caused to the followers and the summoned actors. Congrats, you're ready now! Doing this, you can compare same textures from different mods and decide which one to install. It's a must-have tool. Just ignore your antivirus. If you're happy Photoshop owner, simply install this plugin instead and enjoy. Important tip 1: During the installation process, overwrite all the files when you will be notified about this. Important tip 2: To install mods and then launch your game is not a best idea. I personally recommend to do in this way: install a few mods let's say if these mods are big, if small , sort them with LOOT, launch your game, check it's stable. Install 5 more and so on. Important tip 3: Don't use the "Vortex" button on top of mod pages to download the mods. This button automatically downloads the main version of the mod and that's it - it may be not the version you need, it may be not the only file you need etc. So make a good habit now - never use this button. Instead, always just go to "Files" tab and see what files are there. Important tip 4: Don't use 4k textures untill you have 4k monitor with huge monitor size itself and you have Titan videocard and you're not aiming for screenarchery like shotting a bugs or leaves. You won't see any difference between 4k and 2k textures until you come absolutely closely to them. Using 4k textures you'll just waste tonns of VRAM but won't notice this actually. Using 2k will save tonns of VRAM and you're still having beautiful textures. Graphics quality will be just fine. A: It's pretty simple. Texture is basically a square img file. But as texture img is a square, we will receive a bit different values. So as you can see, 2k textures actually use x4 more VRAM compared to 1k, and 4k use x16 more VRAM, which will be not a big deal for people on beefy rigs, but can be also a dealbreaker for ones one mid to low end rigs. Let's go! Q: What is ENB? Why I ever need it? A: Ok, listen, young padavan. ENB is a graphical enhancement engine that adds visual affects that are not supported by the game initially, at all. Proper antialiasing, real HDR, qualitative bloom, ambient fog effects, various new shaders, ambient occlusion, complex particle lighting, depth of field and much-much more. ENB is also a PC-only engine - that's why modded Skyrim graphics are looking so superior compared with Skyrim graphics on consoles. A: You aren't. It doesn't support some features and has overally weaker shaders quality and features quantity in general. Lastly, it often has less or none customization options for many essential shaders see the comparison here. How do I know that? A: First of all, you need to understand that ENB is ofc FPS-hungry and as it interracts with objects in game and adds a lot of visual effects, ENB performance will depend on many factors - how much texture mods are installed, what our PC specs are etc. Q: Why installing ENB before the graphics mods? Texture mods are most important, no? A: No. The thing is, as already mentioned, ENB adds completely new shaders and visual effects to the game - that's why it's the most important part of graphics transformation. A game with good ENB preset and no texture mods at all will always look better than game with even texture mods but no ENB. ENB preset is very much determining the visual style your game will have - so first, it's better to decided which ENB preset you like the most and get it, and then tune your game with retexturing and other mods. ENB preset I want to use requires that weather mod! A: Don't worry. A: Rrefer to the end of the guide where I prepared a section especially for low-end PCs - most likely it will allow you to use ENB even if your PC is pretty weak up to some extent, ofc. In SkyrimPrefs. Install particle patch for ENB. Download the archive, add it to your mod manager and install as any other mod. Now, install the ENB binaries core files themselves: go here and download the latest version. That's it! Choose and download the ENB preset you like and drop it's content to the same folder where Skyrim. Make sure to cap your fps at 59 in enblocal. Antialiasing: there are a few options. Fourth one - DSR dynamic super resolution. With DSR enabled, game is rendered in higher resolution than your monitor resolution is and then squeezed to your monitor resolution. The difference between those methods: Edge AA is the most simple and fps-friendly, but the also not perfectly smooth yet still superior to awful ingame AA. TAA is looking very good, but often causes weird "ghosting" artifacts when moving. SMAA is the best in terms of fps price and quality. DSR is superior to any of them, but the most fps-hungry due to how it works. Try all of them and choose the one most suitable for you. If you have pretty strong rig and video memory is not a problem for you at all, try DSR for sure. Some may have a very strong "screenarchery" DOF - when everything further then a few feets from your character is blurred. And so on. ENB presets list:. It's REALLY old and not updated, but somehow one of those presets who manage to keep authentic look even without being up-do-date - that's why it's in the list : Weather mods compatibility: Lighting mods compatibility: Obsidian Weathers ENB Preset Pretty much underrated ENB preset for Obsidian weathers - with really well-rounded visual balance and pretty dark. Also grab this improvement patch for it - but make sure to disable plugin if you'll be using lighting mods like ELFX. During the mods installations further, we'll be adding to it and improving what SMIM already improved, even more. As you may know, it's [not] recommended to start a game via vanilla Helgen start in a heavy-modded game, but if you're a daring one, don't forget to install this fix to not fly across Skyrim in prisoner cart. Ruins Clutter Improved Speaks for its name clearly. Another one huge core mod with myriads of models and texture improvements for various ruins and related clutter. Don't forget to install the Update files and also install this fix. Use this mod [OR] the mod below for fire effects. Inferno - Fire Effects Redux An alternative to the fire effects mod above. Underground - a dungeon texture overhaul Huge mod that greatly improves a lot of texture for all types of dungeons. High Quality Food and Ingredients Basic omnomnom retextures. Skyland - A Landscape Texture Overhaul Pretty qualitative textures pack with a great coverage as well. Skyrim Realistic Overhaul Another one "vanilla-wise" texture overhaul with a really huge coverage. Its disadvantage is it has plenty of unnecessary 4k texture where it's absolutely not needed - not the best optimization, in other words. But it may be a great choice if you 1 Just wanna bump vanilla textures, sticking to original look 2 Don't actually want install many other mods. Noble Skyrim Mod This beautiful and qualitative mod stands for its name - it's an amazing texture project which gives Skyrim an indeed a noble touch. One of my two personal favourites in Skyrim SE. Also don't forget to install the SMIM patch. Almost all Pfuscher's textures are pure piece of art - great quality, great optimization, fresh look, yet - still sticking to original Skyrim look at the same time in most of cases. Take into account - there are a lot of separate mod files at Files tab - you need to download them all, if you want maximum coverage. Vivid Landscapes - All in One This pack doesn't give same big coverage as previous packs mostly the landscapes and farmhouses , but it's also incredibly qualitative work and has own original look. Try and see. You can install Skyland Nordic Ruins and then this mod on top, as Skyland covers few objects not touched by this mod. Also don't forget to get all optional addons and higher resolution textures. Fine, let's move Blended Roads Amazing mod doing exactly how it's called. One roads mod to rule them all. Note 1: Until you absolutely love SFO's grass in my opinion, other grass mods have grass handled better , install "Trees Only" no grass version of the mod, as grass will be handled by other mods in the section below. Note 2: if you love this mod, but have non-pleasant FPS drops with it, try this optimized textures addon for it overwrite the mod files. Realistic Aspen Trees Retexture of aspen trees for a more realistic and diverse look. Yellow, orange and red colors. Note: Use this mod only with Skyrim Flora Overhaul or vanilla trees. EVT listed below has it included and "3D" trees mod listed below has own aspen trees modification. Mods listed below are not compatible with it and don't need it. EVT, for example, has own option for bigger trees with much better performance impact. Tree Bark in High Definition A bark texture addon. Not needeed for EVT or "3D" trees mod. Some of tree models are actually looking absolutely spectacular and really have much more volumetric look, while majority of other trees are looking plastic-like due to weird inflated models and unrealistic textures. It greatly improves both models and textures of the trees, giving more lush and detailed look, while sticking to original appearance of the trees at the same time, and adding some trees here and there. Only moment here is that it's placing plenty of new trees across the game world as well - so if using it, test the game deeply if you'll be using landscape overhauls. Yet, it's giving a really fresh touch to Skyrim trees look and definitely worth a try. Lush Vanilla Trees If you have performance issues with the mods listed above, you can try this one. Much simplier but also much more fps-friendly tree mod. Green and Lush Aspen Trees An overhaul of the aspen trees for a green and lush look - can use on top of the mods above - overwrite other mods when asked if using it. Aspens Ablaze One more aspens alternative. Looking really vibrant and come with 3D LODs support. Great, now a few more mods for core graphics setup: Immersive Fallen Trees Stands for its name. A must-have mod, compatible with everyting. Make sure to install fix patch for it. Grab it!. How to install:. Always overwrite. Book Covers Skyrim The one and only mod to retexture close to every book in the game. Desaturated version recommended. Enhanced Blood Textures The ultimate blood and blood decals texture mod. I'd recommend to install High Res Darker Color version choosing in installer. Mod also offers patches for Skyrim Immersive Creatures and SkyBirds mods - you most likely will be using them both, so just tick on the patches options - if you won't be using SkyBirds or SIC, just delete patches. Realistic Water Two In my opinion, the best water mod ever made for Skyrim. Install the main file and then ENB textures file. Also, install this fix and download Blended Shorelines - No more jagged water edges - but we will install it a bit later. Water for ENB Alternative to the mod above. Note: It's somewhat buggy atm and often looks weird in some places. Mod has a good potential though, thus added here - try it from time to time to see if it satisfies you. Download the file manually somewhere, add to your mod manager and install as usually. File is hosted by the original author of the mod. If you'll have a free moment, rate the mod here. Dust Effects Much better, more realistic dust particles look. Arctic - Frost Effects Redux Improved and realistic textures applied to frost spells and effects along with new 3D meshes. Vanilla Skyrim's grass is absolutely hideous. Let's change that! Remember - you can have only ONE grass mod. Try'em'all and choose your only one :. A great combination picked from other popular grass mods with a beautiful, dense and immersive result. Don't forget to install the fix file as well and this one too. Beautiful and original look with great coverage that makes groundcovers look much more volumetric. You can also see a video showcase of it here. There's also a "summer" retexture available for it and one more optional addon. Depth of Skyrim patch available in the Files section. Can be used together with other grass overhauls. Optional "smaller size" addon available. As it affects Rift only, it can be used together with one of other "global" grass mods - just let it overwrite and give priority in load order. Similar addon for tundra is available. One of my personal favourites atm. Use with caution : Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods If random grass clipping through some land objects is bothering you - this mod is your magic pill. No grass in caves If you wanna Mountains mods. Some are also covering rocks. Choose one: Majestic Mountains A retexture addon for it is also available here. Northern Realistic Clouds Beautiful cloud mod inspired by scandinavian weathers and clouds. Obsidian Mountain Fogs Beautiful, immersive, volumetric mountains fog mod. Take into account that it's [included] on Obsidian weather mod. Morning Fogs Adds rolling morning fogs over scenic lakes and rivers throughout Skyrim, including an MCM for further customization. Supreme and Volumetric Fog This mod tweaks the foggy weathers by making them more Pick the correct version when installing, depending which weather mod you will be using or vanilla weathers. Volumetric Mists Optional mod. An attempt to add volumetric mists to the game. SE ENB doesn't have mist at all, so this mod is a partial dog-nail solution to this limitation. As it's hand-placed, it can cause conflicts with other weather mods and fog mods, resulting in weird look. Dimmer Fog and More Mod reduces fog effect transparency and brightness when exploring dungeons with torches and other light sources. Darker Interior Ambient Fog Tweaks interior fog. No Fog on World Map Simple as that. LE version only available, install similarly to previous mod. Visually - good balance between original look and fantasy. While actually being in 8k which makes no practical sense at all, mod still has 4k variants which you can use or safely to compress to 2k using Ordenador or Photoshop. Super crisp and sticking with original look at the same time. Simply the Moons Not much realistic, but cool-looking fantasy retextures. Masser and Secunda from Morrowind Simple as that. Not the greatest texture resolution, but muh nostalgia! Four different sizes to choose from, with hundreds of combinations possible. Compatible with all texture replacers. Arctic Moon Replaces Nirn's twin moons with a more conventional, luminescent lunar body. Weather mods. Still, this is all up to player's taste : Ancient Land Don't want lore-unfriendly moments and occasional too much clutter that previous mod has, but love its approach still? Dawn of Skyrim Director's Cut My personal city overhaul favourite at the moment. Great visual improvement while having light fps impact [plus] new interiors integrated into radiant quests system. Coverage: Whiterun, Windhelm, Solitude, Markarth, Riften - you can use it with any other settlement mod that doesn't affect cities. Expanded Towns and Cities An atmospheric overhaul with own unique touch, references and much more things here and there. The flaw of this mod is it has plenty of bugs here and there - they are not critical and don't bloat your save or something, but if you like seamless glitch-free experience, you may want to wait until it's more clean. Currently, despite the name, it covers only plenty of towns and doesn't touch cities - so you can use it with city-only mods like Dawn of Skyrim. For towns and villages - read mod page compatibility notes. This mod is my personaly favourite for towns as it has absolutely fresh, original approach, while staying lore-friendly. I'm personally using it with Dawn of Skyrim for cities coverage. You can also try separate mods from the same author if you wanna mix things up. If you wanna use it with JK's Skyrim, there's a nice mashup plugin here you still need both mods themselves. The drawback of using them together is that compatibility patches for other popular mods made either for JK's Skyrim or Great Cities may not work properly. There's also a few patches for various other mods available here. Settlements Expanded My personal favourite villages mod which overhauls vanilla villages and adds a few new one. This mod IS compatible with Arthmoor's village mods and it's recommended to use them together. Mod Files section also provides plenty of patches for other popular mods. This patch is available. Arthmoor's Village Mods Arthmoor provides light-weight yet neat overhauls for many vanilla villages. Sadly, all-in-one overhaul as for Skyrim LE is not available, so you'll have to install the one by one and then possibly merge if you'll need plugin space. Compatible with Settlements Expanded. About other mods covering same villages - read the mod pages. Skyrim Reborn - Whiterun Hold A massive overhaul for almost 20 "tiny" places in Whiterun hold - standing stones, bandit camps, towers etc. The only flaw of this mod is that changes for most of places of similar type are looking almost the same. Goodfellow's Whiterun Hold One more simple, but highly immersive whiterun hold overhaul. Compatible or almost compatible with just a minor clipping that you can just disable in console with all mods that afffects same settlements. Works especially great with Dawn of Skyrim. Immersive College of Winterhold This mod a must-have. Yes, even if you're playing not as pure mage. You still will go through College questline sooner or later, and you still will be visiting it from time to time. This mod is just enormous in its College overhaul aspect. Aesthetical visual overhaul of structures and building, new buildings, new cells, new dungeon, greatly improved College NPCs AI, new NPCs, immersive magic learning experience, new dungeon, quest and dozens of other tiny details - feel this faction as never before. Also take a look at map texture improvement , chains improvement , "3D" Trees patch and few other patches. You arrive and the place is empty and uninspiring. Dark, old, worn down, tattered banners, and only a wet-behind-the-ears farmboy with "pa's axe" to greet you when you arrive - well, this mod changes that. Choose between this mod or the one below. Bigger and better fort iteself with new fortifications and buildings. Chapel, library, bathhouse and prison inside. As you progress through the quest-line, Fort Dawnguard will gradually be cleaned up and restored until its back to its original glory. Choose this mod or the one above. Also take into account that it's pretty freshly released, so you may have to wait for various compatibility patches to appear though with the nature of the mod, there won't be many hard compatibility issues in first turn. Choose between this mod or the one above I'm currently using this one. You can see a showcase of it in my video here. Includes docks, a main gate, new merchants, guards, and more. Extremely lore-friendly yet detailed at the same time, with interesting new features and details. A few patches available. Enhanced Solitude Absolutely breathtaking, masterpiece work of talented Kojak - the author literally combined various best of the best improvements affecting Solitude in this or that way from couple dozens of mods and made an ultimate Solitude addon, which is, moreover, ultra-compatible with other city mods. Also grab this. A patch for CFTO is available. Well, don't use ELFX Exterior option in general if you're aimed on heavy settlements overhaul once again. Compatible with most of city mods. Old Hroldan Ruins Fixes a discrepancy in which there should be even the ruins of an ancient settlement of what used to be Hroldan as described in lore. Stendarr's Beacon Enhanced and Ruhmastered Absolutely essential little gem. Adds new, lore-appropriate interior zones, outbuildings, and decor to complement the Vigil's aesthetic. Snowy AF Windhelm Makes how it's called. For good compatibility, usage with JK's Skyrim is recommended with this patch. Other City mods are not officially supported. Greatly compatible with mods of settlement overhauls. Distinct Interiors Small, simple changes to make interiors more distinct and recognizable. A patch for Snazzy Furniture and Clutter Overhaul is available. An essential mod, imo. Also make sure to check the Files tab for patches. Enhanced Interiors The great overhaul for dozens of interiors with amazing fantasy touch. SE version is not officially supported tho. InnCredible A lightweight inn and immersive mod alternative. Opulent Thieves Guild Beautiful Ragged Flagon overhaul the immersively improves the look of it while you're progressing in TG questline. Note: If you wanna use it with Distinct Interiors, use its modular version. Unique appearance and enhanced interior. A few patches are available, as well as SFCO patch. Blue Palace Overhaul 5. Like it pretty much myself. PD Inn's Bath Overhauls various inns interiors and adds baths to them. This Is Jorrvaskr Jorrvaskr visual overhaul. A bath, additional beds, fountains, additional idles, a kitchen, a loft, a lounge, a guest quarter, planters, a walk-in closet, plenty of safe storage, mannequins, and weapon and shield displays. Castle Volkihar Rebuilt A simple mod to allow the player to clean up the debris and rebuild Castle Volkihar to its former glory. The North Tower is also converted into a player home with safe storage. Use this one or the mod below. A small addon for it available here. Use this mod or the one above. Better Innteriors A project aimed at improving the interiors of Skyrim into something more unique. Work with city mods is not guaranteed though. Fortified Whiterun Mod seeks to bring realistic and logical defenses to Whiterun. Ruined Gardens of Whiterun This mod adds medium sized ruined gardens with a small, yet swimmable water basin to Whiterun. Whiterun Watchtower Restored This mod restores the tower of the Whiterun Jail to how it may have looked in better days. Includes LOD. Dark's Whiterun market A market in Whiterun outskirts. Winterhold Restored Winterhold Restored removes the ruined buildings in Winterhold and adds new buildings, player homes, a new housecarl, merchants, followers, marriable NPCs, new horses, fishing docks, a greenhouse, a fishery and more. Cities of the North - Winterhold A new set of unique buildings for the capital of the northernmost hold. Winterhold - Expanded Ruins Does how it's called. Mostly compatible with most of the mods. Mandragora's Winterhold Overhaul Subtle and performance friendly overhaul of Winterhold. Anna's Winterhold Restored Beautiful yet simple, pretty underrated Winderhold overhaul. Dawnstar A lite Dawnstar overhaul. Windhelm Docks Pathways Compatible with most of cities mods that change Windhelm. Windhelm Bridge Overhaul Makes the Windhelm bridge less dull and boring. Gray Quarter Overhaul Overhaul of the Gray Quarter district of Windhelm with new buildings, new npcs, and a new player home. Can be used together with the mod above. Some minor clipping may occur though, which is not critical and you can remove clipping objects by typing "disable" in console when clicking on them. Can be used on top of most of other mods which overhaul Markarth. Also make sure to install the fix. Besides being highly detailed and not just adding symbolical clutter or buildings, new buildings are functional, NPC wear near armors etc. Solitude Skyway An elevated set of stairs and walkways that has been added to the underside of the large rock arch that the city of Solitude rests upon. Enhanced Solitude Docks One more alternative for Solitude docks. Solitude Docks Updated You really thought that was the last one? Riften Docks Pathways Adds additional pathways and bridges connecting the Riften docks with both sides of the mainland. Compatible with mods of city mods that affect Riften. Riften Docks Overhaul Docks overhaul for Riften created by combining and tweaking several high-quality mods. You can also use this addon for it. Raven Rock Reborn One more alternative for this settlement. This is Riverwood Makes Riverwood to a more lively town. Some subtle change that keep the original feeling of this village intact. Kato's Riverwood One more Riverwood alternative. Riverwood Bridge Reborn Replaces the Riverwood stonebridge with a custom woodenbridge. Kato's Falkreath An alternative Falkreath exterior overhaul. Falkreath Very lightweight overhaul to Falkreath. It includes a new model for the buildings and high quality textures. Some patches for other popular mods available here. Use this mod or the mod below. Use this mod or the mod above. Karthwasten - Let The Silver Flow A town mod which makes Karthwasten look like it actually exports silver, is wealthy, and alive within the world. Compatibility issues, such as clipping, light or heavy, may occure - if used with many other settlement mods. Rorikstead Revised A lightweight expansion of Rorikstead. If using Ivarstead or Mixwater Mill ones, also grab the tiny fix , and here for a nice collection of patches for other popular mods for Kynesgrove mod. Axis profile For several simple yet interesting village overhauls. There are plenty of mods here, so they were grouped into a expandable subsection - click "show" to unwrap it: A Quality World Map Beautiful look for the world map it deserves. I'm using the "Vivid with Stone Roads" version. Smoking Torches and Candles Simple as that. Tiny, but immersive and a must-have addition. Note: This mod will overwrite some other mod meshes. For example, both big "Rudy HQ" mods. You can do this, just install the respective patches for this mod from Rudy HQ mod Files sections. FleshFX Absolutely freaking amazing.