Skyrim

Masterpiece

I have hundred of hours playing Skyrim. It has a way of making exploration feel endlessly rewarding that I have only seen in a few games, most notably Dark Souls, Elden Ring and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There are also some great quests like the Daedric Quests and the Dark brotherhood questline.

This is a game that I come back to every few years though and I like to mix up the experience a bit when I do. This game along with maybe Minecraft has the greatest modding community I have ever seen. Personally I like to go with 'lore friendly' mods that add to the experience rather than trying to completely change it. I think this is an amazing way to add more to an already great game. There is also a VR version of the game which can be good but needs mods to work well in my opinion.

Bellow I am going to list some of my favorite mods in different categories.

Gameplay

I do not play without a mixture of EnaiSiaion's mods these days. my favorites are:
- Ordinator - This mod completely overhauls Skyrim's perk system allowing you to build far more unique and interesting characters.
- Apocalypse - This one adds a tonne of great spells that fit well into Skyrim
- Imperious Races - Makes the race you choose have more of an effect on your character and abilities
- Andomeda - Overhauls the bonuses you get from Standing stones
- Summermyst - Adds a bunch of new enchantments to the game
With all of these mods combined you can really mix up the gameplay in Skyrim and create some really varied characters too. Enai also has lots more mods such as ones that overhaul vampire and werwolf gameplay, and a few more spell mods too. I recommend browsing their mods page and trying out any that look interesting to you since they are all very well made.

For other gameplay stuff here is a quick list:
- Honed Metal - Allows smiths and mages to upgrade and enchant your gear respectively so you don't have to do it yourself.
- Sky UI - An essential UI overhaul that makes using a mouse with the UI considerably better
- Wet and Cold - NPCs react to the cold, there are also cold breath effects
- Sentinel - Seamlessly integrates a great variety of new armour into the game
- More to Say - Adds extra dialogue using lines from the base game
- Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - Also adds a bunch of extra dialogue using vanilla lines
- Anbeegod's Follower Dialogue Mods - Greatly expands the dialogue of the various followers in the game
- AI Overhaul - Overhauls the AI of friendly NPCs in cities so they are more realistic
- Precision - Physics based combat
- Quickloot - Quick popup menu that speeds up looting
- Jayserpa's mods - Lots of minor tweaks and fixes
- Know Your Enemy 2 - Adds weaknesses and resistances to the enemies in the game
- Dragonborn's Bestiary - Adds a bestiary with enemy weakness and resistances.
- Extended Encounters - Adds more encounters to the world.

Quests

I have played a lot of Skyrim Quest mods, these are my favorites. Some are small some are huge:
- Beyond Skyrim: Bruma - Adds in the Northern part of Cyrodill (where Oblivion is set) with a nunch of quests. This is as well made as an offical DLC. This was a teaser to a full Cyrodill release which I am still waiting on.
- The Forgotten City - A murder mystery in a lost city, this one got made into a game later.
- Project AHO - An underground village where you get abducted and have to try and escape.
- Lucien - A unique follower with a full and well made questline.
- Clockwork - Horror themed Dwemer dungeon.
- Immersive World Encounters - Adds more random events to the game some of which lead to some fun quests.
- At Your Own Pace - Provides more natural breaks in some quests
- Timing is Everything - Adjusts the starting points for a lot of quests and also allows you to tweak them yourself.
- Dungeons Revisited - Overhauls a bunch of dungeons making them longer and more interesting.
- Easyrider's Dungeons - Adds some well made dungeons to the game.
- Hammet's Dungeons - Another dungeon pack.
- Inconvenient Dungeons - Makes it so less dungeons have a quick secret back exit.
- Even Better Quest Objectives - Better Quest descriptions
I also recommend just trying out some quest mods that look interesting to you.

Graphics

I don't like to go too over the top with graphics. I think the Cathedral Overhauls do a great job.

Overhauls

There are a few massive mods on their way for Skyrim. The one I am most looking forward to is Skyblivion which is a remake of Oblivion in Skyrim's engine with fully updated assets and quests. There are also the Beyond Skyrim mods which aim to create the rest of Tamriel in Skyrim and allow youto explore beyond the original borders of the game. I will be playing any of these as soon as they come out.