Skyrim modding

Skyrim modding is the community-made mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), a fantasy role-playing video game. One of the most modded video games of all time, it has over 70,000 mod submissions on Nexus Mods and 28,000 in the Steam Workshop. Many of these mods were created for utility reasons, patching numerous bugs left in the game by Bethesda Softworks, while also improving the game's usability and character movement. Other mods add new quests and characters, and update the game's graphics and animations, with an adult mod community also thriving. Several total conversion mods have been made and others are in development.

As the vanilla game has a reputation for outdated mechanics, it is common for players to mod Skyrim even prior to their first playthrough. Traditionally, Skyrim mods have been largely free to download. Valve Corporation walked back its attempts to add paid mods to Skyrim, following backlash from fans. These mods made their way to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with the release of Skyrim: Special Edition (2016). Fans were also able to create an unofficial modding scene for the Nintendo Switch version. Bethesda created a system of microtransactions for paid mods, known as Creation Club, several of which were included in Skyrim: Anniversary (2021).

Skyrim modding began soon after the game was released and are in significant numbers.^[1] As of August 2024, there were over 72,000 mods on Nexus Mods and more than 27,000 mods on the Steam Workshop,^[2] making it one of the most modded games ever.^[3] Some of the most basic and commonly used mods is the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, which simply address "a huge amount of bugs the official patches don't".^[2] One exists for both the main game and the official High Resolution textures patch. SkyUI, which completely redesigns the game's menu screen to make it easier to use, as well as providing menu systems for other mods, is also a popular and highly recommended mod.^[2] Other essential mods include A Quality World Map, which makes the game's map screen in higher resolution or enables replacement with a paper map, and Realistic Humanoid Movement Speed, which adjusts the player's movement speed to make walking faster and running slower.^[2] Skyrim – Special Edition was praised for allowing PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players to dowload mods.^[4] When Skyrim was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2017, Bethesda said that it had no plans to support mods, although it expressed their wish to see it happen. Despite this, unofficial Skyrim mods were made through the Skyrim NX Modding Hub.^[5]

Multiple mods were introduced to address the game's Paarthurnax quest, in which the Dragonborn is forced to kill allied NPC dragon Paarthurnax by Delphine, Grandmaster of the Blades, causing controversy over the lack of a choice to spare him despite his prominent role in aiding the Dragonborn. The Paarthurnax Dilemma added the option to force Delphine to stand down, while the later Paarthurnax – Quest Expansion used existing lines to expand the quest and make it sensible from both the Blades' and Paarthurnax's point of view, as well as add the option to spare the dragon.^[6][7] Many Skyrim mods add new content to the game. The Falskaar mod contains a DLC-length adventure with 26 new quests in a new continent, and was created as a job application; its creator was later hired by Bungie.^[8][9] The Beyond Skyrim: Bruma mod, released in July 2017, adds the county of Bruma from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) and several new quests to the game.^[10]

Skyrim is noted to have an active adult modding scene centered around the website LoversLab, a 1.5 million member sex mod community.^[11] Its owner, Ashal, created a mod template for the game known as SexLab that enabled the creation of adult-themed mods by providing a "foundation of thousands of animations and basic game functions".^[11] While largely within the bounds of typical erotica, the mods also include numerous kinks, such as BDSM, with some containing a meaningful story. Many of these modders remain anonymous, as "expressing sexuality in public or in the media beyond holding hands and kisses" remains largely taboo. The site's loose policies also allow controversial and disturbing content, although mods containing pedophilia are strictly banned.^[11]

Several projects have sought to construct new games using Skyrim as a base. SureAI is a German team of modders who have created several total conversion mods of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. They are the developers of Enderal: The Shards of Order (2016), a sequel to the Oblivion mod Nehrim: At Fate's Edge (2010) that was an early example of total conversion.^[12][13] It contains a darker story than Skyrim and was positively received by fans.^[14] The Forgotten City (2021) was a narrative-focused adventure that originated in 2015 as a mod created by Nick Pearce that was awarded the Australian Writers' Guild, before being remade as a standalone title and changed to an Ancient Roman aesthetic. The final version of the game, developed by a team of three people at Modern Storyteller and published by Dear Villagers, uses the Unreal Engine 4 and was released for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch.^[15][16]

A team of modders known as The Elder Scrolls Renewal Project began an effort to remake both The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) and Oblivion in the Skyrim engine, resulting in Skywind and Skyblivion.^[17] They are both still in development,^[18][19] with Skyblivion planned for a 2025 release.^[20][21] In response to concerns about fan-led project Skyblivion after the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (2025), Bethesda affirmed support for community efforts, and the Skyblivion team confirmed they would continue development.^[22][23] The entire Skyblivion team, which sent "all love and no hate" to Bethesda and Virtuos' official remaster, was gifted by Bethesda free keys to Oblivion Remastered.^[24][25]

The Elder Scrolls Renewal Project, also known as TES Renewal,^[26][27] is a fan volunteer effort to recreate and remaster the video games in The Elder Scrolls series.^[28][29] The team is best known for its Skywind project, which seeks to recreate Morrowind on the Skyrim: Special Edition game engine, known as the Creation Engine.^[30][31][32] Another volunteer team works separately on Skyblivion, a similar but separate project to remaster Oblivion on the more advanced Skyrim engine.^[33][34] A further project is Beyond Skyrim,^[35] and another team also works on Tamriel Rebuilt.^[19] Prior to Skyrim's release, the Renewal Project began with Morroblivion, a Morrowind remaster on the Oblivion engine.^[36] The mod was publicly available on the team's website in 2008, and was coordinated through the Morroblivion website's forums.^[37]

In 2012, after the release of Skyrim, forum members began work on Skywind, intending to begin the same result of Morroblivion but in the Skyrim engine.^[38] In late 2012 or early 2013, Zilav, a modder within the Renawal Project, attempted to port Oblivion's assets into the Creation Engine.^[39][40] In 2014, Zilav was joined by modder Monocleus, and they released a stable yet incomplete version of the project that would serve as the basis for further development.^[39][40] In November 2016, the project lead Kyle "Rebelzize" Rebel started to send out invites on Nexus Mods in the hope of attracting more volunteers. More people joined and the "Skyblivion – Return To Cyrodiil" trailer was published in December 2016, resulting in an influx of new volunteers.^[26][35]

In 2017, Bethesda announced the Creation Club, a storefront for Fallout 4 and Skyrim in which players paid for new content, some of which was created by fans who were compensated by Bethesda for their work. This was compared by some critics to "paid mods", although Bethesda did not characterize them as such to avoid backlash.^[41] Skyrim: Anniversary Edition was released in November 2021, containing all 48 previously released Creation Club items as well as 26 new Creation Club items.^[42] In December 2023, Bethesda replaced Creation Club with Creations, which added new paid and free mods.^[43][44]

In 2015, Valve Corporation announced a paid mods feature for Steam, with particular emphasis being placed on Skyrim mods.^[45] This led to significant backlash, as well as a petition that gained more than 130,000 signatures.^[46] Parodic Skyrim mods were even created to protest the decision, such as Beth the Beggar, a character that would ask money to the player.^[46] A week later, Valve reversed the decision, stating that "stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating".^[46]

Another controversy involving Skyrim mods occurred in 2021, in which Nexus Mods stated that they would no longer allow older mods to be removed from their website, following a 30-day grace period, in order to prevent problems with the Collections feature, which allows for batch downloading of mods. This caused a backlash due to modders losing control of their work, which led to many of them leaving Nexus Mods for other sites prior to the grace period ending.^[47] Arthmoor, one of the game's most popular modders, and the creator of Live Another Life, Open Cities Skyrim, and The Paarthurnax Dilemma, moved to the site AFK Mods instead, arguing that a modder had a legal right to delete their content.^[48]

• Fan game
• Fan labor
• User-generated content