14 DAY TRIAL // The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been released for a few weeks but already it’s gained a cult-like following, with millions of gamers from all around the world enjoying the stunning role playing game made by Bethesda.
While the standard experience is already extremely impressive, the game’s PC version wasn’t enough for some crafty players, who started playing around with the game and modifying various things.
This is largely thanks to Bethesda that once again, after previous titles like Oblivion, Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas, lets enthusiasts tinker with its products with special tools, thus contributing to the huge popularity of the game and making it even more successful among hardcore PC gamers that want to tweak everything about their experience.
Now, at specialty website Skyrim Nexus, there are already more than 1,200 mods for the game, so we thought we’d sort them out and recommend some of the most impressive ones that should transform your Skyrim PC experience into an even better one.
As such, join us as we highlight 10 of the best Skyrim mods that have been released so far.
10. Simple Borderless Window Throughout our Skyrim experience, at least up until now, pressing Alt+Tab to minimize the game and then entering back into it requires a few tries before the game actually appears. This Simple Borderless Window mod allows you to play Skyrim in a windowed mode that’s exactly the resolution of your monitor. While you may lose a bit of framerate, it’s worth escaping the Alt+Tab issue.
9. Glowing Ore Veins In Skyrim, besides a wide range of other activities, you can also take up mining, if you have a pick axe and are able to spot those tricky ore deposits. Thankfully, this Glowing Ore Veins mod is here to help those that don’t have time to walk around mines by adding some sharper colors on ore deposits to help you with your mining.
8. Enhanced Night Sky The moment night falls upon Skyrim and you look up to the sky to notice the fantastic effects set up by Bethesda is truly a magical one but, in case you want a bit more realism in your sky gazing experience, then this Enhanced Night Sky mod is for you. You can choose from a variety of themes and really make the night sky your own.
7. Enhanced Blood Textures While you may be able to engage in all sorts of activities in Skyrim, from blacksmithing to potion crafting, you’re still going to battle against enemies quite often, and the resulting combat is quite bloody. While the effects look pretty good, they’re still mostly carried over from previous Bethesda games like Fallout 3 or New Vegas. Enhanced Blood Textures adds bigger and sharper textures, allowing you to really experience a ‘bloody’ good time.
6. Skyrim HD Textures While other texture pack mods just add sharper or enhanced versions of the existing textures, Skyrim HD brings textures made from scratch that boast a much more high quality feel, which you can certainly figure out once you take a look at the comparison screenshots. If you have a powerful graphics card then this is certainly going to improve your experience of the game.
5. Antialias and sharpen effect If you don’t want to add new textures, you can use this mod to apply an Antialias and Sharpen effect onto the existing textures which makes everything look that much more impressive. While at first you may not notice it, the effect does make a different once you start exploring towns and detailed environments.
4. World Map in Full 3D (aka Skyrim StreetView)
Google StreetView is a great tool but what if you could do the same thing in Skyrim and zoom in from your map right down to earth level and actually check out the trails and tracks from the game’s world? Well, World Map in Full 3D brings such a feature, making the navigation of Skyrim that much more pleasant.
3. iCCC ENB - Natural Shader Injector Already plenty of players tried out the impressive FXAA Post Process Injector, but this Natural Shader Injector mod takes it one step further by tweaking settings and effects to produce the most delightful and vibrant set of visuals for Skyrim. The setup may be a bit tricky, but the bump in quality makes up for it.
2. Detailed Faces + No More Blocky Faces These are two mods made by the same user, which brings more Detailed Faces that use sharper textures to produce better looking looks for a variety of races. The No More Blocky Faces mod uses the same textures as the game, only in a decompressed form, allowing your character to have a smoother nose and chin.
1. S.T.E.P. - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project Last but most certainly not least, the S.T.E.P. - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project is probably the biggest mod for Skyrim as of yet, implementing a lot of existing add-ons and tweaks into a complete package that promises, like its name suggests, to completely enhance the experience. If you want to make Skyrim your own, then this mod will no doubt help you do it.
These are our picks for the best Skyrim mods, so far at least, but feel free to share your own favorites by leaving a comment below.