HomeGaming25 Best Skyrim Mods To Enhance The Gameplay
Skyrim has been out for a long time, and by this time most people have finished the game. There’s no doubt that it’s an amazing game that brings hours of gameplay with unique quests and foes. However, after a while, there’s not much you can do in the game. To make more out of this immensely popular game, different mods have been created. These mods can range from the improvement in the quality of the surroundings to mods that make stuff blow up for no reason. Before we get on to the best Skyrim mods, let’s see how you can apply them.
How to Apply Skyrim Mods
For people who do not know how to apply these mods, you will only need to click on the link of the mod you want and subscribe to it. It will download and apply itself from the Steam workshop. Some mods are not available there, so instead, we are including links to the mods. You should also download the Skyrim Script Extender. This will help in applying more complicated mods.
So, now that you know how to apply Skyrim mods, here are the25 best Skyrim Mods you should definitely try:
The Top Skyrim Mods You Should Try
1. Relighting Skyrim
If you have played Skyrim, or you’ve just started, you must have noticed light coming from illogical sources. There are doors which emit light, or maybe there isn’t any realistic directional light. To fix this and make Skyrim more graphically appealing, you can apply this mod. What this mod does is that it reprograms the game entirely to make lighting effects much better in the game. Light only emits from fires, stars, and other sources of light rather than basic non-luminous objects like benches and rocks.
2. 2K Textures
If you have a top of the line PC with bleeding edge specs, you should try this mod out. Skyrim – being a relatively old title – lacks some fine details and textures, and although there is an HD patch, this mod goes beyond that as well. This mod offers textures at up to 4K (2160p) resolution. It completely changes the visuals in the game. Having these details makes the game more appealing and life-like, at the cost of some fps, as this mod does tax the GPU.
3. Apocalypse Spells Mod
Not all the various Skyrim mods enhance the visuals in the game, the modding community has some amazing mods to spice up your gameplay and adds features which are immensely fun to play with. The Apocalypse Spells mod adds a lot to your game; 140 spells, to be exact. These spells range from calling of basic objects to smashing enemies, to summoning ferocious tornadoes that suck everything in their path. These spells are designed very well and play well with the history and tone of Skyrim.
4. Alternate Start
If you have completed the game and want a new beginning, you can try out this mod. The Alternative Start mod offers a lot of different starting points as different characters. The characters are all different and fit in Skyrim’s storyline perfectly. The mod is integrated into your game and you can start an alternate new story in the game. You can start as a farmer, a necromancer or many other characters of your choosing. This provides an interesting spin in the original gameplay, and characters like the shipwrecked guy on an island with nothing but the rags make for an amazing survival styled gameplay.
5. Moonpath to Elsweyr
Exploring the same place for a long time can get boring, right? To bring new landscapes and gameplay to Skyrim, you can use this mod. This mod gets you to Elsweyr – a beautiful landscape with forests and wilderness. You can hunt and stalk your prey and even explore Elsweyr with the short six quests. All the characters of Elsweyr are carefully created with voice acting. This mod pairs up well with the 2K Textures mod shown above, as the landscape of Elsweyr is beautiful and using those textures makes them come to life.
6. Cutting Room Floor
The Skyrim world is vast. It is filled with many creatures, characters, and different landscapes. The game itself is well around 100 hours but, if you have completed and explored everything, you might want to check this mod out.Cutting Room Floor will enable you to dwell deeper into Skyrim, as this allows you to explore things which did not make the final cut of Skyrim. The mod shows you all new quests, NPCs, and many items, which were taken out.
7. Monster Mayhem
Battling monsters is fun, but beating the same monsters over and over again gets boring. The thrill of facing new and unknown creatures cannot be replicated. To remedy this problem, the Monster Mayhem Mod comes into play. This mod introduces many new creatures to the Skyrim world. It opens a slew of different levels, each with their own unique behemoth. Battling these monsters is thrilling and gives what most people want – more things to kill.
8. Duel Combat Realism
Duel offers an amazing fix to the unrealistic combat system in Skyrim. It completely changes how every battle is fought. It forces users to pay close attention to the stamina bar, as it becomes vital for survival. This mod ties in your armor and your weapons to bring realism. If you use a good shield, it can actually stop the attack completely. This means users need to be tactical and use both defense and offense if they desire victory.
9. Reverse Crafting
The Reverse Crafting mod brings a much-needed feature to Skyrim. In plain old Skyrim, if players on their quests find something useless like a lower tier sword, that item is thrown away. You can not reuse its materials to make something else. This mod brings that feature to Skyrim. If you find a junk item, you can recycle it and re-purpose its materials. This makes the overall gameplay better for the players because the materials can be easily used somewhere else for bigger and better things.
10. Bandolier Extra Inventory
The world of Skyrim is a vast one, with many items and weapons. On your quests, you will find many items, and many are of use, so choosing between them can become a daunting task. This mod allows your character to hold more items than in plain Skyrim. This way, you can have all the items you need without opting to leave anything behind.
11. Open Cities
Skyrim has a lot of loading screens, and everyone knows how frustrating loading screens can be. They tend to ruin the flow of the gameplay; especially when you cannot even stroll in a city without them being loaded. To solve this issue, this mod comes into play. This mod banishes all loading screens when you are in the city. This means you are free to roam around in the city, without the annoying loading taking place. A simple mod, yet a frustration reliever.
12. Castle Volkihar Redux
This mod is as grand as they come. It produces a fully built castle with extremely accurate textures and details. The castle is a complete construction with eerie corridors and dungeons. It is a thing of beauty to look at but is not only about the beauty. This grand castle comes with its very own quest line, which is set after the events of Dawnguard.
13. Tundra Defense
Skyrim’s quests are pretty fun to play and offer a lot of action and quests. However, you sometimes might want to slack off and just chill. This is where the Tundra Defense mod comes in. This mod introduces a tower defense style mini-game in which you build your tower and then defend it. The mod is well built and makes you more responsible, as you need to defend your ground, else it will be overrun. You can hire guards to help defend your creation, have citizens settle in, or even trigger attacks by yourself for instant action.
14. Sky UI
Now a lot of you might not like the stock UI that Skyrim offers and I don’t blame you. The UI does feel a little bit clunky and you can easily get something a whole lot more intuitive by using a mod. I would recommend that you try out Sky UI – a great UI replacement for Skyrim which will surely improve the way you interact with the game. The mod offers a much more convenient inventory management system, support for full text search, sorting and extended data columns. The mod also offers complete customization, among a ton of other features, which makes it one of my go-to mods every time I think of doing another quick play through of Skyrim.
15. Return Of Atlantis
The lost city – Atlantis – has made its way to Skyrim with this mod. Through this mod, Atlantis rises from the depths of the seas to give you more ways to interact with Skyrim. This mod fits well with the Skyrim lore and offers a lot of beautiful scenery, as well as different characters for you to explore. This dungeon is filled with merman, whirlpools, and agents of Hades. The dungeon is 4 hours long, and you need to fight a challenging boss after the four-hour exploration of the ten chambers present in this dungeon.
16. Falskaar
The Falskaar mod is one of the most impressive mods out there. This mod creates a whole new continent, with a whopping 25 hours of gameplay. The creation of Falskaar took nearly 2000 hours, and the creator now works at Bungie, creating Destiny. We encourage anyone who reads this to give this mod a try. The continent has numerous quests and wildlife, and the landscape is beautiful. Attention has been paid to the details, and the mod’s popularity further proves the great gameplay of this mod.
17. Rabbit Hole Dungeon
The Rabbit Hole Dungeon mod produces a vertical burrow of a dungeon, as implied by its name. The dungeon goes 50 levels deep into the ground and offers a lot of adventure for players. The dungeon has different enemies in each of those 50 levels. You must beat all the enemies on a particular floor to proceed to the next floor, like an arena action adventure game. This makes the dungeon more challenging, as 50 levels of enemies is a lot to take on. The dungeon also changes every time you revisit it, making sure you get a new experience every time.
18. ThirteenOrange’s Quests Mods
ThirteenOrange creates a series of quests in Skyrim which sure are amazing. These quests are lore-friendly and fit perfectly into the Skyrim world. A lot of thought was put into the mod, as the quests offer much more than just fast enemies. There are total five quests, and every one of them focuses more on story than random fights. There are well-written scriptures, and a wide variety of landscapes to explore. You will travel to different realms, beat a giant and slay creatures. All with one mod. A must try for all the Skyrim fans.
19. Enderal
If you liked the gameplay Falskaar brought, then you are surely going to love the Enderal mod. This mod brings close to 100 hours of fresh gameplay, and it feels like a new game rather than a mod. Enderal is beautifully created, like many other great mods out there. It features an amazing quest line with voice acting, and many new landscapes to explore. The landscape ranges from a densely forested mainland to snow covered mountains. This mod also overhauls the skill and talent system.
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20. Way of the Monk
Now, this mod may seem a little clickbait-y, but it is still pretty cool. The mod strips off your armor & weapons and forces you to face your enemies with your bare hands. The mod introduces two new skill trees: Unarmed and Unarmored, and it also introduces perks related to your new way of fighting. This It does not do anything but answer the question: Can I really a take on a mammoth with my bare hands?
21. Immersive Weapons
For some of you out there, modding is a way to make any game a whole lot more immersive. If that’s the case with you, then you should definitely check out the Immersive Weapons mod, a mod that will drastically enhance the variety of weapons in the world of Skyrim. The mod adds 230 new weapons to the game, all of which somehow fit into the lore, and distributes the around the world. With the mod, you’ll also be able to break down weapons at smelters and get their base components and make new weapons with custom crafting requirements that further promote immersion. In case you like the mod, you should also check out the Immersive Armor mod which does pretty much the same for the armor you can find and equip in game.
22. Needs and Diseases
Survival mode mods are becoming more and popular, and this mod is for those who are looking to start out in the survival mode scene. This mod makes it necessary for your character to do mundane tasks such as sleep, eat, and drink water. Failure to do so would result in dire consequences. This mod is not as severe as other survival mods, but it still will make sure you are wary of such things before taking off on a quest.
23. Dark Brotherhood Resurrection
If you enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood quest and its storyline then you are going to love this mod. This mod adds another 4+ hours of campaign to the Dark Brotherhood storyline. You will be accompanied by the best contract killers in the brotherhood and listen to some of the best stories they have to share. Learn more about the intricate details of the dark brotherhood and enjoy new conversations via this mod. You are a part of the brotherhood now.
24. Phenderix Magic World
This mod is filled with magic. It is a new setting with different structures and landscapes like the school of witchcraft. It takes you to the town of Manantis, where you will be greeted with tons of magical stuff. You will be able to learn hundreds of spells from all the schools of magic and get dozens of new followers. It even comes with a quest to help you explore the magical realm. This mod is a truly magical (pun intended) experience.
25. Skyrim Redone
This mod is the mother of all mods. This completely changes how you play and view Skyrim. T3ndo’s Skyrim redone is a combination of different mods to give the game a complete makeover. It brings nifty new features and weapons like a grappling hook and disguises. It also is a complete overhaul of the game down to the perks, skills, and stats of every character. This is a broad and complicated mod and tends to have some issues with some systems. However, once you get it running, it truly gives you an amazing experience.
SEE ALSO: 43 Best Skyrim Console Commands to Make The Game More Exciting
Enhance Skyrim Gameplay With The Best Skyrim Mods
Skyrim might be a pretty old game, but the gameplay never gets old because there are countless mods out there for this beautiful game and each mod adds a completely new dimension to the game. If you are bored of the basic game then do try out these amazing Skyrim mods and let us know what you think in the comment section below.
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Overhauling a game with mods can be an intimidating process, but the only thing you really need in order to make Skyrim shine is patience. Since each mod needs to be properly installed and configured, it can take hours to get everything in working order - certain methods of beautifying the game, such as S.T.E.P., or the Skyrim Total Enhancement Project, have been known to take as long as eight to ten hours to fully configure. Rather than force you, dear modder, to spend those precious hours that could be better used actually playing Skyrim, here is our list of the 15 (and then some) best mods to use that will drastically improve your adventurous experience.
You can read about all the mods below, or watch the video above (complete with plenty of heavily-modded Skyrim eye-candy).
Let There be Light
Installing Boris Voronstov's ENBseries modification and configuring it is actually far simpler than one would expect - simply download the necessary files and copy them into your main Skyrim game folder ( if you're using Steam, this is usually C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Skyrim ), and then run the game and configure your own personal settings. You can also download a preset created by a member of the community. The one we've used is by Nexus member Opethfeldt, though other excellent choices would be RealVision or Seasons of Skyrim.
Once you've gotten your ENB set up and have begun installing your other modifications, consider also adding a lighting mod or two (if they're compatible) that will enhance the local light sources in-game - torches, lanters, candles and so on. We're using Enhanced Lights and FX by NM user anamorfus alongside Ultimate HD Fire Effects.
What a Wonderful World
Once you've installed your ENB and preset of choice, then the real work begins. There are hundreds of texture mods and updates for flora, fauna, armor, weapons and more that players can choose to include in their game, but here are our recommendations for must-have mods when trying to make Skyrim look beautiful:
- Skyrim HD: Replaces standard game textures with 2K-4K textures. Lite version includes 1K textures.
- Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM): Updates static textures and meshes (furniture, rubble, buildings, etc)
- Lush Trees and Grass: Updates and greatly improves the quality and fullness of forested areas in Skyrim.
- Grass Field: Replaces most of the ground area textures with 3D grass.
There are many other mods that affect the game world's plant life - Glorious Grasses, SkyRealism and Vurt's Flora Overhaul are all great, but if you can only run two we recommend LT and GF, as they look best during actual gameplay. For quality visuals at a distance, be sure to install one of the many distant LOD (Level Of Detail) mods, such as Enhanced Distant Terrain, HD Enhanced Terrain or the Skyrim Distance Overhaul. Additionally, be sure to install a water mod to ensure you aren't stuck swimming around the boring vanilla rivers - we're using Pure Waters, though the Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux (WATER) is another excellent option.
Beautiful People
Best Graphics Overhaul Skyrim
The NPCs in standard Skyrim look.. well, a bit off. Giving them a hearty facelift is somewhat of a necessity if you're attempting to update the game graphically - and can be one of the most challenging aspects of your mod configuration. Dozens of plugins and texture packs (some are NSFW) exist to do just this, and many are compatible with other mods. In our configuration, we're using the Xenius Character Enhancement (XCE) mod coupled with No More Blocky Faces, which smooths out the originally pixelated facial textures. We're also using Xenius's Better Beast Races, which overhauls the look of the Argonian and Khajiit characters ( though we also recommend using CoverKhajiits) to improve the nonhuman models. To spruce up the human characters, we've installed Better Females by BellaGail, as well as some various face texture and mesh replacers for the male NPCs, such as Detailed Faces and Beards.
These are far from the only mods out there to be used in the beautification of Skyrim - remember, patience is the only necessary component to making this game look great. Well, patience.. and the literally hundreds, if not thousands, of mods that are at your disposal. For more modding suggestions, game secrets and more, be sure to check out our full Skyrim wiki the next time you visit Tamriel.
Any graphical mods you can't adventure around Skyrim without? Let us know in the comments!
Jon Ryan spends more time modding Skyrim than actually playing it. Don't be like him - but do follow him on IGN and Twitter.
Like the rest of Earth’s population, I had a wonderful time with Skyrim when it released in 2011, and for hundreds of hours afterwards. Then one fateful Sunday I realised I’d spent six hours smithing weapons and mining for ore, and decided it was probably time to stop playing now.
It turns out I got off the train early: in the intervening years the modding community has gone from strength to strength, doing its best to keep The Elder Scrolls V looking like it was released last week. With Skyrim Special Edition’s arrival in 2016 those modders have a new and improved base game to work with, and the results are getting seriously close to the hyperbolic promises made in my YouTube sidebar. ‘PHOTOREALISTIC SKYRIM: INSANE MOD!’ they shout. And ‘ULTIMATE SKYRIM GRAPHICS 2017’. And ‘Justin Bieber FORGETS words to 'Despacito' LIVE’, although I’ll concede that’s not immediately pertinent here.
Curiosity got the better of me. Exactly how good can you make Skyrim look these days, using Special Edition as the new baseline and cherry-picking the finest community-made visual mods? achieved a frankly fearsome level of fidelity with the original version, but years have passed since then and graphics cards have gained multiple zeros on all their spec sheets. Is it possible to get Skyrim looking so realistic that it takes a second for your brain to distinguish it from reality?
The results of my own personal quest surprised me: not only did I get the game looking beautiful enough that I want to play it all over again, but those gorgeous graphics mods have fundamentally changed the way I play now.
Finding the right mods
Skyrim SE Mods
It's not all about the graphics. Here's our guide to the best Skyrim Special Edition mods. And if you're playing the original version, here's our guide to the best Skyrim mods.
There’s a particular alchemy to selecting a series of mods that work well together. Very often one mod will want to overwrite another’s files, or there’ll be some overlap between seemingly disparate mods (like a snow replacer and a water overhaul) which will end up cancelling each other out. I’ll throw my hands up at this point and admit I let YouTube’s sizable Skyrim mod content creator community do the hard work for me on this front. Taking the recommendations of , , , and others, I compiled a list of texture mods, weather mods, flora overhauls, water improvements, armours, and NPCs—in addition to essentials like the Static Mesh Improvement Mod—that looked believable, consistent with Skyrim’s world, and above all, beautiful.
Personal preference is the ultimate deciding factor in any mod list like this, but to make Skyrim SE look like my screenshots, these are the ones to use:
- Really high-quality, high-resolution and lore-friendly apparel for NPC and player alike.
- In all honesty the vanilla hairs were fine by me, but this hair overhaul is required by Diversity (see below).
- If you only install one mod, make it this. It squashes bugs and refines things you never noticed were broken or clunky before. It won’t make your game look better, but your experience will be much more polished.
- A water overhaul that improves everything from transparency effects to foam texture resolution and coloring. I like the watercolor version, but that’s just my preference.
- Fills the outdoors with wonderful grasses, mosses, ferns, bushes and flowers to frolic in. One of the most immediately transformative mods on the list.
- I tried out a few different weather mods, and nearly prevailed, but to my eye Vivid Weathers produces the more realistic lighting conditions in conjunction with the lighting mods below and my chosen ENB (more on that later).
- A lot of unused assets were found in Skyrim’s code after release, probably relics of content that Bethesda ran out of time to include. This mod puts it all back into your game, and is required by several other mods.
- Sprawling new four-hour expansion which… just kidding. It makes the trees bigger.
- Improves the textures of commonly found items and quest items.
- Turns the vanilla weapons into artisanal masterpieces. You can see the individual marks on each blade and the texture where it’s been hammered into shape. Incredible. Works well with Immersive Armors to make the game feel new (and look new in screenshots).
- Improves snow textures to higher-resolution images, simply.
- Like Forgotten Retex Project, this mod improves a lot of the incidental items used as set dressing throughout Skyrim—specifically, in this case, those found in dungeons and caves.
- Another hugely transformative mod, with enormous scope. Retextures much of the wild and several cities up to 4K. Use this as your base retexturing mod, upon which other more specific textures can be added.
- More lovely plant life to populate Skyrim’s once brown and barren tundras. It’s compatible with Verdant, but be careful which files you overwrite when installing. Load Verdant after this to get the best from both mods.
- An absolutely staggering piece of work which improves the 3D modelling of items and architecture throughout Skyrim.
- Diversity completely changes the appearance of every NPC in Skyrim. The end result is a slightly disconcerting uniform attractiveness, but if you’re sick of everyone you encounter looking like Danny Trejo this is the mod to fix it.
- It’s not an ENB, but more of a pre-ENB lighting mod which changes light values so that all lights look better after you apply an ENB. To be honest I’m not sure whether I have this working with the below mod or whether one is cancelling the other out, but I’m really pleased with the end result so I’m too scared to upset the apple cart.
- Removes all lights that don’t have sources, and modifies the values for the lights that do. That means it gets really dark outside at night and in unlit areas of dungeons. It also means, together with all the other mods in this list and my chosen ENB/Reshade, the lighting always looks believable.
- An incredibly clever mod that doesn’t overwrite any of your current textures but instead uses actual magic to make them look nicer in your game. Magic or .ini file values, at least.
Using the to install these mods and set their load order is basically essential. It’s theoretically possible to do it all manually, but in the time it would take you to modify the .ini files correctly and ensure the right files live in the right locations, you could have coded The Elder Scrolls VI from scratch. It also affords you the advantage of swapping particular mods in and out to observe their effects.
On to the installation.
Choosing an ENB
Initially I was almost disheartened when I installed this giant list of mods, loaded my game, and found a familiar-looking Skyrim staring back at me. The textures were much improved, yes, and the landscapes populated by much more realistic plant life. But it didn’t look like a generational shift. It was still recognisable, and that was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Applying an ENBSeries preset, a popular community lighting mod available for games like Fallout, Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto, would change all that in an instant.
You’ll hear it said a lot among the modding community, but there’s no more dramatic change you can enact on your game than applying an ENB to it. Therefore, my particular pick would be paramount. There are so many competing ‘photorealistic’ or ‘next-gen’ variants of Boris Vorontsov’s famous lighting mod that you could lose days watching those transitional wipe videos on Youtube demonstrating them all, but in the end I landed on one I was very happy with: the catchily named . While the majority of ENBs feature way too much contrast and bloom for my taste, this one works beautifully with Vivid Weather and my existing lighting mods. It produces dramatic but believable lighting conditions at any time of day, indoors or outdoors, and also exaggerates the depth-of-field and ambient occlusion effects for a more cinematic view.
Downsampling
At this point Skyrim started throwing out some really impressive imagery, so it was time to take things to the extreme. from will let you render games at resolutions far exceeding your monitor’s native output, and then ‘downsample’ the image so that it fits back on your screen. But you likely already know that, because you’re reading an article about making Skyrim look photorealistic. The question, really, is how much closer it can bring us towards that goal.
My monitor’s native resolution is a slightly unusual 2560 x 1600, so I used GeDoSaTo to render Skyrim at twice that: a retina-seducing 5120 x 3200. All those high-res texture replacements really come into their own at this resolution, and the confluence of ENB, mods, and resolution produced natural landscapes that approached photorealism, given the right framing.
It’s a frame rate killer, of course. My specs (GTX 1070, i7 2600K, 16GB RAM) were no match for that downsampled resolution and could only render the game at around 14fps. Attempting a 12K resolution resulted in a single-figure frame rate, which was frankly too unwieldy even for screenshot-hunting.
Making Skyrim playable again
My longstanding reservation with mod collections like this when I see them elsewhere is: yes, but is it actually playable? There’s fun to be had by being a photojournalist in Skyrim and scouting out the best locations for screenshots, but after you’ve spent all that effort imbuing all that beauty into the game, it’d be a shame if you didn’t actually play it.
I was able to pull it back to around 45 fps (I know, I know) by disabling downsampling and making use of . Simply put, it’s a handy tool that modifies your prefs.ini file and comes with new graphics presets which really boost performance. Using BethINI’s ‘ultra’ preset is much kinder to frame rates than the vanilla ‘ultra’ setting, without compromising any visible fidelity.
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Meaningful gameplay improvements
I was surprised by how far I could push Skyrim, which is another way of saying I was surprised by the sheer talent and enduring commitment of the modding community. What surprised me even more, though, was that the concessions I made on my photorealistic screenshot quest actually improved the gameplay experience, too.
Firstly: play without the HUD. Really. I disabled it just to take screenshots at first, and my inherent laziness meant that it stayed disabled while I played. I soon found that not having a bunch of quest markers, a crosshair, dialogue subtitles and health meters is, to use the Skyrim modder’s favourite word, a hugely immersive experience. Archery was suddenly satisfying again, and in the absence of a big quest arrow guiding me forth I engaged with the environments properly, looking for signposting cues and navigating using landmarks.
All my efforts to produce realistic lighting changed the way I played, too. Suddenly going out at night without a torch was a terrible idea (a mechanic I always loved about Dragon’s Dogma), and certain areas of caves and dungeons were simply pitch black unless I illuminated them. It meant I had to treat lighting like a game mechanic, like Skyrim had suddenly become a Thief game.
Having those little moments of revelation as I realised I had to play the game differently was a wonderful thing. It’s inspired me to go through Skyrim all over again, which is what I always secretly hoped the right collection of mods would do. And now as I do it, I’ll perpetually be on the lookout for killer screenshots.
Here we’ll run through 22 of the best ENBs available for Skyrim. ENB stands for “Environmental Notice Bulletin”, an additional file that significantly improves graphics or environments of the game, and basically serves as a graphical or stylistic overhaul. Those who are looking to change the old visuals of Skyrim to completely new and impressive ones should consider checking out some of the excellent mods.
22 Best Skyrim SE ENB Mods
1. The Grim and Sombre
This ENB mod is specifically used to apply different color schemes to the game, and you can choose any of the schemes such as Vaermina, Malacath, Jyggalag, Hircine, and Azura. It’s fun to apply different colors and keep experimenting until you have the one that’s just right for you.
Download here.
2. K ENB Pure Light
This one particularly focuses on improving colors and lights of the game’s areas, but it can be quite an intensive mod to run, and you may find your performance struggling if you use this ENB. If your PC can handle it, though, check out this stunning mod to drastically improve the lighting of Skyrim.
Download here.
3. Tranquillity ENB
Tranquillity is a great environmental overhaul mod that greatly improves the environments of vanilla Skyrim, which, let’s be honest, looked pretty bad. Give your Skyrim a peaceful vibe with this excellent ENB.
Download here.
4. Rudy ENB
This ENB adds a very nice overlay to the look of the environments. The main advantage is that it doesn’t take a particularly powerful PC to run, whilst it still gives you overall improved lighting and atmosphere. A good halfway point for people with less-than-optimal PCs.
Download here.
5. RealLike ENB
A gorgeous and colorful ENB that aims to make Skyrim prettier, sharper, and more vibrant, whilst also balanced for both weak and powerful PCs. Whether you’re playing on a super beefy Titan-infused PC or a crappy notebook laptop, you’ll be able to enjoy this graphical overhaul.
Download here.
6. Snapdragon Prime
The best part is that bokeh effect (blur created by out-of-focus images) that makes the Skyrim look great and far more fantastical. Also, it brings you several additional schemes to choose from and those three slots that you can fill with your favorite ENB mods.
Download here.
7. Vividian ENB
It creates a dreamy look or a soft tone environment that is perfect for the forests or foggy places. Great for improving the many, many forests, foggy places, marshes, and more that’ll you be spending hours walking through.
Download here.
8. Stakado Cinemascope ENB
If you want your surrounding having a cinematic feel, then go for this ENB. It scatters the filmy look in the environments, so it feels more spectacular while exploring.
Download here.
9. Antique Dragon
To get the best color schemes in almost all the environments this is a must have ENB and thus it comes as one of the top Skyrim mods. Just try it and you will get to know what the real magic in this ENB is. A truly stunning mod!
Download here.
10. Noir ENB
This creates a wonderful aura that contains black and white or similar tones. The ENB mod works amazingly with warm shades and makes everything stand out. Great for building a moodier, more atmospheric Skyrim.
Download here.
11. JK’s SKYRIM
The mod dramatically improves cities and towns, making them look and feel more alive. It helps to give the game world an entirely different feel, making some of the towns and cities feel almost like a completely different game.
Download here.
12. Ultimate HD Fire Effects
Most of the time, the fire in Skyrim looks weak and underwhelming, especially when it comes from a fireball flying out of your hand. It’s a big part of why vanilla Skyrim’s magic always felt so weak and unappealing to me, the spell effects just look naff. This mod fixes that issue and vastly improves the look of all fires and fire spells.
Download here.
13. Wet and Cold
The world of Skyrim is meant to be a wet, cold, and harsh place in the far Northern region of Tamriel. So, why doesn’t it feel like it? Sure, vanilla Skyrim has plenty of snow and big mountains, but you never get the sense that it’s a particularly cold and harsh place to live. The people certainly don’t seem to mind! This mod intends to alleviate that problem, by making the world of Skyrim feel wetter, colder, and generally more unpleasant. Characters will dress more appropriately for these harsh conditions and will react more to the cold.
Download here.
14. Race Menu
This one adds more details to the characters so you can make your character look much better than vanilla Skyrim allows. Using this, you can tweak small details like eyes, hair, brows, beards, etc. for both male and female of any race. Make your character look more like you intended with this great character customization mod.
Download here.
15. Skysight Skins
A great mod that makes the skin and characters of Skyrim look much better and far more detailed. It helps to make the people of Skyrim look prettier and less… well, ugly. I mean, just look at that man’s skin! Very nice.
Download here.
16. Pure Waters or Realistic Water
There’s a lot of water in Skyrim, and in vanilla Skyrim, it doesn’t exactly look very good. You’re going to seeing it and wading through it a lot during your adventures, so why not make it look cleaner, prettier, and just better overall basically? There are two options for improving the appearance of the water in Skyrim: Pure Waters and Realistic Water. Realistic Water aims to simulate realistic water physics and fluid motion, while Pure Waters makes the water appear calmer and more placid.
Download Pure Waters here.
Download Realistic Water here.
17. Skyrim Flora Overhaul
This one improves all the greenery to a great scale, so the forests look excellent. Also, it improves the lighting in these areas and improves the grass textures even more. It adds details to forests and makes all the woods looking entirely new.
Download here.
18. Tetrachromatic ENB
This wonderfully colorful and vibrant mod aims to make the world of Skyrim feel more fantastical and mythical and less flat and ordinary. Think more Lord of the Rings, less historical Viking fan-fiction. Also, you get to say tetrachromatic, which is fun, too.
Download here.
19. Re-Engaged ENB
It is an improved version of Vividian ENB that creates an environment of soft tone that suits foggy places. A better option for those who are willing to push their PCs to their best for the sake of a beautiful Skyrim. Good stuff!
Download here.
20. Nyclix’s ENB-Reshade
This mod is such a blessing as it makes all the environments colorful and alive and it is available for both ReShade and ENB. A great way to make the world of Skyrim more vibrant and dynamic and less grey/brown and less dull.
Download here.
21. Cinematic Film Looks
As the name implies, this is another version of the Cinemascope ENB that creates a film-inspired aesthetic for the environments of Skyrim. This mod aims to give Skyrim a more cinematic look and feel, but it’s up to you to decide whether that’s something you want.
Download here.
22. Zera ENB
This one works with weather mods such as Climates of Tamriel, Dolomite weathers, Natural Atmospheric Tamriel, Surreal Lighting, Vanilla Weather, etc. It’s a great way to bring together some of the best weather overhaul mods available to Skyrim to have the weather, sky, and environments all looking as bright, vibrant, and detailed as possible.
Download here.
Including ENBs with Skyrim make the entire game world a spectacular place to perform gameplay. Every one of these mods is the best Skyrim ENB that you can try from standard rim to special rim. These are a fantastic source to have improved graphics to a great extent so try any of them and share how it feels after having these mods.