The best Skyrim Special Edition mods

The best Skyrim Special Edition mods exist thanks to the resilience of this 2016 remaster. What made it an essential upgrade is that the 64-bit version remains stable even under a heavy mod load. Skyrim's strict limit of 255 ESP (Elder Scrolls Plugin) files, with the DLC taking up several of those slots before mods even get started, can be bypassed thanks to version 1.5's introduction of ESL (Elder Scrolls Light plugin) files. Mods formatted as ESL files no longer count toward that limit, letting us go hog-wild with them.

Also, you can alt-tab in and out of Skyrim Special Edition without the mouse going wonky, so that's nice too.

Though the release of the Anniversary Edition DLC initially caused problems, subsequent patches and mod updates have got everything working smoothly again. These days, Skyrim is undergoing a full-blown mod renaissance. The influx of Creation Club content that came with the Anniversary Edition has broadened the variety of assets available to modders, and also inspired them to fix those Creations' more lackluster elements. Machine-learning voices are being used for new characters and to give existing ones more dialogue, while volunteer voice actors are still lending their human talents as well. Meanwhile, high-poly mods are taking advantage of modern tech to make Skyrim look better than ever.

Before you start downloading mods, you'll want to pick a manager to keep track of them all. Vortex is simple to use, and works with a bunch of other games like Fallout: New Vegas, Cyberpunk 2077, Blade & Sorcery, and plenty of others. Mod Organizer 2 is more complicated, and recommended for people who care about whether mod files are kept in a separate directory. One downside to Mod Organizer 2 is that if you manage mods for multiple games, switching between them can be a hassle. The easiest way to do that is to install a separate instance for every single game you want to mod.

Best Skyrim Special Edition mods: The foundation

There are a bunch of plugins other mods rely on to expand what Skyrim is capable of. It's easiest to get these out of the way first rather than having to install them later when they pop up in the requirements section. Start with the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE). Download its current Anniversary Edition build whether you own the DLC or not. Follow it up with Address Library for SKSE Plugins.

Now you're able to install SkyUI to give Skyrim a better, less console-focused interface—one that lets you sort gear by weight, value, type, or damage, and adds a "mod configuration" menu that'll be useful for tweaking mods you install later. Ignore the menu called "mods", however, as that brings up Bethesda's Creation Club. MCM Helper is a handy follow-up, as it expands what the mod configuration menu is capable of, making your choices persist across saves. 

For their combination of bug fixes and added utility, you may as well install PO3's Tweaks and Papyrus Extender, ConsoleUtilSSE, JContainersSE, PapyrusUtil SE, UIExtensions, the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch, and SSE Engine Fixes. Make sure to read the installation notes carefully on that last one as it comes in two parts and the second needs to be installed manually. It's worth it, as it deals with the persistent lip sync bug, enables achievements on modded saves, and more. Spell Perk Item Distributor will come in handy for any mods that add spell, perks, items, or anything else to NPCs, and Open Animation Replacer lets other mods edit animations (it also makes the previous Dynamic Animation Replacer redundant, so if you see DAR listed in a mod's requirements you can ignore it if you've got OAR).

While you don't need absolutely all of those, they pop up enough in the requirements of other popular mods you'll probably end up installing them eventually. Might as well do it now.

Quality of life mods

RaceMenu

Download RaceMenu on Nexus Mods

An improved character creation menu with numeric displays for sliders and the ability to choose any color for your hair, skin, or other tints rather than being limited based on race. There's a sculpt mode if you want to get right into messing with the geometry of your head, and you can turn the light illuminating your face on and off to see how your features will look in different situations, which is a blessing.

Better MessageBox Controls

Download Better MessageBox Controls on Nexus Mods

Increases the clickable areas of menu items to be the actual width of the item rather than just an absurd little square in the middle of that space. You have no idea how much better this tiny tweak makes things. It also improves the keyboard controls in a few ways. For instance, tab will always take you back a stage and enter will let you select an option even when you're crafting and would normally have to mouse back over it. If you've ever accidentally selected the wrong dialogue option by mistake, grab Better Dialogue Controls too. 

A Quality World Map 

Download A Quality World Map on Nexus Mods

Skyrim's map is functional but boring. A Quality World Map offers multiple ways to fix it. It can replace the map with a much more detailed world texture, with colors that help delineate the separate areas much more obviously, but there's also an option to have a paper map, with a more Oblivion look, if that's your thing. It doesn't really work with the 3D, but it's there.

Proteus

PROTEUS - Player & NPC Module - YouTube

Watch On

Download Proteus on Nexus Mods

While you could switch to another save to play your khajiit archer for a while, Proteus lets you import all your characters into an existing world state—meaning you can switch to a different character with their own items, skills, and spells, but keep your current quest progression. NPCs who have died remain dead, items left in storage can be retrieved, and so on. It also lets you edit NPCs and items, even the weather, as well as teleport between major settlements and other locations like Blackreach, even if you're in a place you couldn't normally fast-travel from. Some of what Proteus makes possible is already doable with Skyrim's console commands and existing mods, but this brings it all together in a single pop-up menu.

Alternate Start – Live Another Life

Download Alternate Start on Nexus Mods
Download Alternate Start on AFK Mods

Why not start your new game as someone other than the Dragonborn? Alternate Start is a roleplaying mod that lets you select how you'd like to begin your next playthrough. Are you a patron at an inn, a visitor arriving by boat, a home-owning citizen, a prisoner in a jail cell, or a member of a guild? You can start as a soldier, an outlaw, a hunter, even a vampire. It's a great way to re-experience Skyrim from a different perspective, and skip the tutorial while you're at it.

You Are Not a Novice

Download You Are Not a Novice on Nexus Mods

Another restart, another fresh hero, another crawl through the early game before you've earned any of the perks that make combat fun? To hell with that. You Are Not a Novice lets you begin with some experience under your belt by choosing one of 12 classes that boosts your score in a selection of appropriate skills, and thus lets you level up a bunch of times immediately. Assassin is the class to pick for the biggest bonus to Sneak, Archery, and One-handed, in case you were wondering.

Remember Lockpick Angle

Download Remember Lockpick Angle on Nexus Mods

The lockpick jiggles. You adjust the angle slightly. One more notch. Nocturnal, the Unfathomable Mistress of Shadows, laughs at you, and the lockpick snaps. You slide the next lockpick in, holding it completely vertical rather than inserting it anywhere near the previous position. What are you thinking, Dragonborn? This mod inserts each new lockpick in the previous one's position, making it easier to adjust from there.

Graphical mods

Realistic Lighting Overhaul

Download Realistic Lighting Overhaul on NexusMods

The biggest improvement you can make to the way Skyrim looks is to change its lighting, but one of the hard limits of the engine is that only four lights can affect any one object at a time. There are several different light overhauls available, but RLO is great because it makes interiors darker but not too dark to see, and doesn't overdo the rim lighting that makes people look like they're glowing. 

High Poly Head

Download High Poly Head on Vector Plexus
Download High Poly Heads AND Hair for All Vanilla NPCs on Nexus Mods

You'll be spending a lot of time looking at faces, so they're one of the first things you should improve. And while there are plenty of options for making everyone look like they stepped out of a catalog, High Poly Head smooths heads without fundamentally changing the way they look. You'll need to use RaceMenu to select a high-poly face—and brow, facial hair, brow, scar—for your player-character, and the supplemental High Poly Heads AND Hair for All Vanilla NPCs mod to make sure they're distributed to everyone else. 

Rustic Clothing/Armor and Weapons, aMidianBorn Book of Silence

Download aMidianBorn Book of Silence on Nexus Mods
Download Rustic Clothing on Nexus Mods
Download Rustic Armor and Weapons on Nexus Mods

After faces, the next place you'll notice ugly textures at higher resolutions is outfits. Some of those buttons and belts do need a polish. Unfortunately this is another situation where there isn't one perfect mod that covers everything. Rustic Clothing does the job for regular clothes, but high-textured armor is split between the aMidianBorn Book of Silence mod, which also retextures some of the more common creatures and weapons, and Rustic Armor and Weapons, which does exactly what it sounds like it does. The Rustic mods are available in 2K and 4K versions.

Daedric Shrines – All in One

Download Daedric Shrines on Nexus Mods

The Daedric Princes are such important beings you're not allowed to skip dialogue while talking to them, and just have to sit there staring at the impassive stone faces of their statues while they overact in your general direction. They should at least be cool-looking impassive stone faces you have to stare at, which is exactly what this mod makes them.

Consistent Older People

Download Consistent Older People on AFK Mods

While it's far from the worst offender (Lost Ark, I'm looking at you), Skyrim does occasionally pop the heads of elderly characters onto generic bodies that look disconcertingly young by comparison. If those seams where a wrinkly geriatric suddenly becomes a youthful Whiterun rose have ever bothered you, Consistent Older People fixes that for some of Skyrim's older folks.

UpScale – AI Upscaled Textures 2x 4x Creatures

Download UpScale on Nexus Mods

Why do the chickens look so munted? It's a mystery for the ages. While there are plenty of bespoke high-res mods out there for individual animals and monsters, this selection of AI-upscaled skins for all creatures great and small provides a solid catch-all base to make sure the chickens don't get overlooked when you're replacing individual dragons or whatever.

Immersive HUD – iHUD

Download Immersive HUD on Nexus Mods

Your compass and quest markers, the refilling stamina and mana bars, the crosshairs, all that stuff can really get in the way of the pretty screenshots you'll want to take after modding Skyrim until it shines. Save yourself the hassle of using console commands to hide the HUD with iHUD, which lets you personalize what's visible and when. Toggle the compass by pressing X, change the speed at which mana and stamina bars fade after refilling, tweak when the crosshairs and the sneak marker are visible, and more.

Cloaks of Skyrim

Download Cloaks of Skyrim on Nexus Mods

The ability to wear a sweet cloak is half the reason we play fantasy RPGs, right? If that's true for you, Cloaks of Skyrim is the mod you'll want to fill the world with rad back-rugs, including ones that declare your allegiance to the Stormcloaks or Imperials, or to each of Skyrim's holds. To avoid having cloaks clip through your legs as you run, grab 360 Walk and Run Plus as well.

Clean Vanilla Bodies

Download Clean Vanilla Bodies on Nexus Mods

You don't want to look like a full-on anime glamazon, but you don't want to be covered in dirt at all times? Well then, if you'd rather not resemble the Monty Python definition of someone who isn't a king, Clean Vanilla Bodies makes you look less filthy, and less hairy too.

Assorted Animation Fixes

Download Assorted Animation Fixes on Nexus Mods

Among the oddities you probably don't notice unless you've put over 100 hours in Skyrim are the fact that women hold two-handed weapons wrong, and men's fingers get real weird when they sprint. Give your lady Dragonborn a two-handed sword and her left-hand will grip empty space next to the hilt, and when your gentleman Dragonborn goes for a quick run his fingers turn into weird little sausages. These and other hyper-specific bugs are fixed by Assorted Animation Fixes. Pristine Vanilla Movement deals with a few more, mostly jitters in walking and running animations. 

Quest mods

Clockwork

Download Clockwork on NexusMods

You won't find many Skyrim quest mods with Silent Hill and Fritz Lang's Metropolis among their inspirations, but Clockwork isn't just any Skyrim mod. It's a three-in-one storyline that takes you through a haunted mine where you'll be tormented by a singular spirit, a clockwork castle where revived dwemer automatons have created an outpost of modern convenience, and an underground realm run by maddened relics who've lost their masters. It's a sizable mod, and one you'll need to leave your followers behind for, but it's well worth taking several hours out of your playthrough to sink into this long bath of atmospheric and cleverly designed questing.

Fortune's Tradehouse

Download Fortune's Tradehouse on NexusMods

Of all the quest mods for Skyrim, Fortune's Tradehouse feels the most like it could have been part of the original game. It adds a merchant hub in Markarth full of shopkeepers to befriend, each a fully voiced character with a fun little story of their own. The pyromancer who is permanently on fire, both with passion and literal flame, is an easy favorite. The rewards are great too, including a pair of boots that let you sprint across the land at high speed. Fortune's Tradehouse is one of the most under-rated Skyrim mods around.

Legacy of the Dragonborn 

Download Legacy of the Dragonborn on Nexus Mods

A mod worth building a playthrough around, Legacy of the Dragonborn makes you curator of a Solitude museum with a spot for every unique magic item in Skyrim, and a bunch of the mundane ones as well. Instead of filling your home with all those daedric artifacts and suits of armor, put them on display in a museum that even has its own library. Legacy of the Dragonborn also adds a questline about restoring the museum, and an archaeology skill with its own perks.

The Forgotten City

Download The Forgotten City on Nexus Mods

Play detective and solve a murder mystery while exploring an ancient lost city in this 10-hour adventure. The Forgotten City comes with excellent, award-winning writing, a non-linear story, fantastic voice acting from a large cast, an enjoyable original soundtrack, and even a touch of time travel. It's also been adapted into a standalone game set in ancient Rome. 

Maelstrom

Download Maelstrom on Loverslab

Maelstrom is an old-fashioned puzzle dungeon with the aesthetics of a heavy metal album cover. It's dark as heck—seriously, bring torches—and you'll need to explore every corner of this Nordic ruin thoroughly. Also, clothing is optional. (The installer does let you choose whether your monster ladies put on underwear.) The same modder is also responsible for Hel Rising, which is more of the same except spread out over multiple locations and with puzzles that spill over into being a bit too hardcore for their own good. 

Enderal: Forgotten Stories

Download Enderal on Steam

This total conversion creates an entirely new world, nearly the size of Skyrim itself, and populates it with dungeons, quests, monsters, and fully voiced NPCs. Some of Skyrim's systems have also been tweaked, there's a new custom story to enjoy, and a good 50+ hours of new adventures to be hard. For more, read about Enderal's opening 20 hours. 

Baba Yaga and the Labyrinth

Download Baba Yaga and the Labyrinth on Nexus Mods

A homage to Blink, the episode of Doctor Who with the terrifying angel statues in it, Baba Yaga and the Labyrinth sends you off to an interdimensional maze to rescue a witch named Hagnes. The thing is, that maze is full of weeping angels who move when you're not looking at them. They're just as creepy here as they were on TV, but it's worth braving your fear both to rescue Hagnes (who is one of the better NPCs voiced by machine-learning), and to score a sweet witch outfit just like hers.

Follower, companion, and NPC mods

Nether's Follower Framework

Download Nether's Follower Framework on Nexus Mods

Everyone knows a properly balanced adventuring party consists of three-to-six heroes, and just one NPC companion couldn't possibly be enough. Nether's Follower Framework is the best option out of several mods that let you recruit more followers—up to 10 at a time. (Not counting custom companions like Inigo, who you don't need to integrate with Nether's Follower Framework.) This mod also has tweakable options that let you decide whether followers ride mounts, create outfit sets for them, access a separate storage inventory that lets them pack-mule items you don't want them to use, and plenty more.

Inigo

Download Inigo on Nexus Mods

Maybe you don't think a blue khajiit who follows you around commenting on everything and being sarcastic about Lydia is what Skyrim needs, but trust us on this. Inigo has tons of dialogue, some tied to his own questline and some that crops up at appropriate times depending on the location you're at. He can be told where to go and what to do by whistling, and will follow you even if you've got an existing companion, chatting away with them thanks to skilfully repurposed voice lines. To up-res and glow-up Inigo for Special Edition, add Dovahnique's High Poly Inigo Replacer. 

Vilja in Skyrim

Download Vilja in Skyrim on Nexus Mods

A sequel to a much-loved Oblivion mod (which Terry Pratchett contributed to), Vilja in Skyrim adds the great-granddaughter of the original Vilja as a follower. She's an alchemist with her own questline and a unique system to give her orders—essentially spells bound to hotkeys that can be used to coordinate attacks. Like Inigo she doesn't count toward your follower limit, and if introduced to each other Inigo and Vilja will even chat among themselves.

Follower Dialogue Expansion

Download Follower Dialogue Expansion on Nexus Mods

Whether or not you're modding in new companions, the original cast of followers can seem a bit underwritten. Lydia's got so few lines she's become a meme, and other recruitable characters go mute after some initial backstory-dumping. This ongoing series of mods by anbeegod adds hundreds of lines voiced by AI to several of Skyrim's more popular followers: Lydia, Aela the Huntress, Erik the Slayer, Mjoll the Lioness, Ysolda, Brelyna, Uthgerd the Unbroken, Jenassa, and Jordis the Sword-Maiden. It also makes them marriageable if they weren't originally.

I'm Walkin' Here

Download I'm Walkin' Here on Nexus Mods

I'm minding my own business, trying to squeeze through one of these little doorways in a draugr dungeon—why do they gotta be so small, did people used be littler back then, I don't know—and of course Lydia's in my way. Just a brick of iron armor and bad attitude that won't let me pass for a whole minute. What if a guy's in a hurry, I don't know. (I'm Walkin' Here is a mod that disables follower collision. Combine it with I'm Talkin' Here, which makes followers shush when you're mid-conversation with someone else.) 

Brynjolf and the Riften Guild – Birthright

Download Brynjolf and the Riften Guild on Nexus Mods

If you wish you had a little more to do as the newest boss of the Thieves Guild, you're not alone. This mod makes expands on the Thieves Guild questline to make Brynjolf a romanceable follower who'll even join you for a bath, as well as letting you discover the history of the mysterious thief known as Rune and adventure in new crypts and ruins while making the most of your time as Tamriel's new crime boss.

No NPC Greetings – Reduced Range Greetings

Download No NPC Greetings on Nexus Mods

Sick of NPCs repeating the same catchphrase from across the street every time they see you? Sick of guards commenting on your best skills, which they somehow know all about just by looking at you—even Sneak? This mod has a few options for fixing the issue, whether you want to reduce the distance those barks trigger at, or get rid of them altogether.

Seranaholic

Download Seranaholic on Nexus Mods

Every fangbanger's favorite follower, Serana could do with a makeover to bring her up to spec for the Special Edition. There are an intimidating number of Serana replacers on Nexus Mods, but Seranaholic is the one to get and comes with a variety of eye color options depending just how vampiric you'd like her to look. 

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul

Download Relationship Dialogue overhaul on Nexus Mods

Adds thousands of lines of voiced dialogue for NPCs to make you feel like you have a closer and more personal relationship with followers and friends. Your spouse will no longer sound like a random follower, but address you in a more personal manner, and those you've angered will have a host of new insults to hurl your way.

Shirley

Download Shirley on Nexus Mods

Based on popular octogenarian YouTuber Shirley Curry, otherwise known as the "Skyrim Grandma". Created by fans and voiced by Curry herself, the Shirley companion shares Curry's likeness. Tamriel's Shirley has her own lore-appropriate backstory too. After you've completed her recruitment quest, Shirley will join you, fighting alongside you as a barbarian warrior—Curry's preferred combat style. 

Magic, stealth, and combat mods

Dynamic Collision Adjustment

Download Dynamic Collision Adjustment on Nexus Mods

Have you ever tried to headshot a frost atronach only to see your arrow sail right through the spot where its face should be? Or had trouble connecting with a giant if you aim for anything above their legs? Some creatures have hitboxes that aren't scaled for their size, which Dynamic Collision Adjustment fixes. It also changes the player's hitbox when you duck, meaning you can actually crawl underneath objects.

Precision – Accurate Melee Collisions

Download Precision on Nexus Mods

An excellent way to improve Skyrim's combat without turning it into a completely different game, Precision makes NPCs react differently based on where you hit them, adds recoil when your weapon hits a wall or other impediment, and uses hitstop, weapon trails, and camera shake to make attacks feel more impactful. All the options can be customized, which you definitely should. Especially if you plan to play a two-handed wielder, as at the moment the range on those weapons is set a bit too short and you'll miss things you should hit if you don't tweak the range.

Cosmic Spells

Destruction magic's a bit underpowered, you say? You need Cosmic Spells, which adds 18 potent spells that scale with your score in the Destruction skill. Create gravity strikes, launch yourself at a location dealing damage on arrival, teleport your enemies through a wormhole that ramps up their weakness to magic, and blast them with light beams, moon beams, and void beams. You can buy these new spells from Nelacar at Winterhold's Frozen Hearth inn, but if that sounds like a boring way to acquire wild and wacky magic, the same modder's Spectraverse packages an earlier version of these spells into a questline that's heavy on the deep Elder Scrolls lore and will trigger after you reach level three. 

Ice Skating Fixed For Real

Download Ice Skating Fixed For Real on Nexus Mods

Maybe you've never noticed this if you don't fight in third-person, or you don't stand behind your companions while they do the melee grunt-work, but characters in Skyrim go into a distinctive slide if they attack while walking at a certain speed. It's one of those things that'll drive you barmy once you see it, and that's why you need Ice Skating Fixed For Real.

Magic Sneak Attacks

Download Magic Sneak Attacks on Nexus Mods

A lightning bolt to the back should be just as surprising as an arrow. The Magic Sneak Attacks mod multiplies the damage of spells cast while crouched and hidden, even if they're cast from scrolls or staves, and does the same for damage-dealing dragonshouts too.

Realistic AI Detection

Download Realistic AI Detection on Nexus Mods

If you've ever been sneaking through someone's house and been spotted by an NPC who was fully asleep, you'll have noticed that being unconscious doesn't hinder anyone's ability to hear you in Skyrim. Realistic AI Detection fixes that, as well as making view cones more sensible, increasing the importance of the local light level and line of sight versus your raw Sneak skill, making alerted NPCs search for you longer and notice dead bodies at a distance further than five meters, and more. Like the name says, it makes detection more realistic.

The best Skyrim Anniversary Edition mods

Skyrim Extended Cut – Saints and Seducers

Download Saints and Seducers on Nexus Mods

If you were into Oblivion expansion The Shivering Isles, you may have been excited to check out Saints & Seducers, one of the official Creation Club add-ons packaged into Skyrim Anniversary Edition. And then you were probably disappointed to find another thin quest with NPCs who are allergic to dialogue. The extended cut replaces that quest with an entirely new one full of well-voiced NPCs, including an excellent impersonation of the madgod Sheogorath I almost thought was the original voice actor, and lets you travel to the Shivering Isles themselves where you'll get to fight familiar foes like grummites and flesh atronachs. The only downside is that you need to be level 20 and have completed the Mind of Madness quest to begin Saints and Seducers. It's worth it.

The Gray Cowl Returns – Voiced Narrative

Download The Gray Cowl Returns – Voiced Narrative on Nexus Mods

Meeting a legendary character like the Gray Fox should be a big deal, but like everything else about the Creation Club quests, it's a disappointment. One of a series of mods that uses xVASynth2 to generate new voice lines for the Creation Club add-ons, this mod gives the NPCs involved in The Gray Cowl Returns storyline a little more to say.

Just for fun

Skyrim on Skooma

Download Skyrim on Skooma on Nexus Mods

It's a bit of a downer that Skyrim reduces skooma to a simple stamina potion when it should be a potent hallucinogen. Here's a mod that makes skooma what it should be: a one-way ticket to weirdtown. Every time you neck a bottle of khajiit quencher you're treated to a colorful psychedelic vision that bends reality, whether it deletes your head, turns you into a beer bottle, makes you giant-sized, or introduces you to an imaginary goat named Bartholomew.

Supersafe Dwarven Rocket Boots

Download Supersafe Dwarven Rocket Boots on Nexus Mods

You think the dwemer just walked from place to place? Hell, no. When you're magical enough to wipe your entire species' existence from reality, walking is for chumps. That's why the dwemer definitely used these Supersafe Dwarven Rocket Boots, which will launch you into the air in a way that's not at all dangerous to your health and wellbeing, though it might make you look kind of like a goofus. (Slowfall spell not included.)

Security Overhaul

Download Security Overhaul – Lock Variations on Nexus Mods
Download Security Overhaul – Lock Add-Ons on Nexus Mods

The Security Overhaul mods add new lock designs for you to peer at while you're heroically looting Skyrim of every last septim. The locks range from startlingly beautiful to mystically eerie to fairly disgusting, but they're all lore-friendly and wonderfully animated. There are even new sound effects to accompany some of the odder designs.